UCLA Basketball: Basing Predictions on Last Year
by DCBruins on Aug 31, 2010 4:18 AM PDT
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PrintIn light of the recent Bruin Football Power poll, I have been reading every preseason prediction on UCLA basketball that I can find. They are mostly hilarious and full of clueless comments based on last year's season from people who do not understand the team .
"Prediction UCLA 5[the place]. . . . Jerime Anderson or Malcolm Lee has to emerge as the main point guard for the Bruins."
Yes PG is a concern but Malcolm Lee is never playing point again for UCLA.
In many ways, this is the same UCLA team that failed to reach .500 last year, only without leading scorer Michael Roll. There's a chance the Bruins could improve without adding a superior recruiting class, but it's just as easy to see Howland's team struggling through another ugly campaign before turning it around in 2011-12.
Uhm, let's see yes we lose Michael Roll and that hurts. We also lose Drago and that . . . helps. But the players coming back will not be the same in 2010. A few quick reasons:
1. ML, Tyler Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson all get to play their natural positions this season. While it will help ML the most, all three will be better players playing where they were recruited to play and should play.
2. Injuries. We would not have had a losing record if the above three had not been hurt and were hurting at key times. Remember that TH not only missed games but was barred from the weight room and limited when he did come back. Even Malcolm Lee who did not miss any games did miss key minutes from cramps that cost us the CSUF and the AZ road game. If we can stay away from the injury bug or even limit its effect, we will be a better team.
More predictions after the jump.
Okay, I will admit the pre-season NIT is a bit rigged to favor certain teams including UCLA. That is a fair dig to make. However, some of these other predictions regarding the UCLA-Pepperdine and Nevada-Pacific bracket of the preseason NIT are just ridiculous from the guys at Rivals.
[1.] NIT officials want UCLA and Wake Forest to get to New York, but I don't think either of those teams is going to be that good. . . .In the West, I think Pacific could pull a surprise.
[2] UCLA struggled last season and there isn't much reason to think Ben Howland's squad will be very good this season, either. It wouldn't surprise me if Nevada pulls a mild upset of the Bruins.
[3] The four glamour teams are Villanova, Tennessee, Wake Forest and UCLA, but the latter two teams in that group probably won't be picked to reach the NCAA tournament by most preseason prognosticators. I'll still pick those four teams to win their respective regions, though it wouldn't surprise me if . . .Nevada advanced from the West.
The funny thing is these guys are still talking and thinking about last year. This year's team should be completely different starting from the attitudes coming out of the gate (Compare Smith's work ethic to Bobo's) and to defense (Jones talks about "off ball" defense and Smith is a real center to shore up the defense compared to Drago's lack of effort and Roll's lack of ability). There is reason to think UCLA will be better this year.
Likewise the Nevada upset pick seems based on last year. Nevada lost its best player to the pros, Luke Babbitt who was 28% of his teams scoring and an NBA 1st Round Draft pick. Further of the six players who averaged double digit in minutes last year, four are gone. I will admit Nevada COULD be very deep but I have my doubts for a number of reason including that they really only played six guys last year. Nevada 2009 would be a tough team, 2010, the Bruins at home should win and these morons should know that.
In 2009 we were overrated based on past successes. In 2010 we are being underrated based on one bad year. I am looking forward to CBH and the guys returning to being Ben Ball Warriors and "over achieving." Which was more the fluke 2009-10 or 2005-2008? CBH will have us back, the question is how far.
Go Bruins!
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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Let those ESPN pundits pontificate or.....
talk through another part of their anatomy. We are used to these people now, the Digger Phelps, Duke swooning Vitale babes type. In other words, self righteously disoriented.
We will be competitive, rather than struggling, this season.
Smith is a true center, albeit raw in skills as we speak. That will develop as the season progresses. If he had been working with KLove this summer, so much the better. Regardless, his game just won’t stoop as pitifully low as Morgan’s. You almost have to trace all the way back to the early 90’s in that big transfer center from Texas Christian to find another Bruin player as immobile, painfully clumsy in the paint as Morgan was.
Lee, Honeycutt & Nelson will pleasantly surprise us I think, especially when they all reportedly harbor dreams of going pro next spring.
Tyler Lamb intrigues me. Will he pan out or won’t he ?
Brendan seems destined to become a solid bench player. He too should contribute well one way or the other.
That guard from Indiana really is an unknown to me at this point. I hope he is not another Ryan Walcott.
December is only three months away. We will find out the caliber of Howland’s team then.
The bench
Obviously that is the hardest to figure out.
Tyler Lamb looks good on paper but Orange County players are sometimes over hyped. The good news is that he should have time to learn as the backup swing to TL and ML. I think he will be good.
Brendan Lane is a great kid who literally sacrificed his body (ankle) for the team last year. I am most worried about him physically of all the injuries. He needs to gain weight and practice as he was very raw last year. He had a great attitude and always gave it a 100% but he needs time in the gym and/or weight room.
The Indiana kid (Matt Carlino) is a relative unknown to everyone. He was going to IN and moved to a high school there to prepare. However, he played SG last year not point. (His FR and SO years he played PG). He is a coach’s son and should be smart and is a good outside shooter. However, will he be physically ready for the PAC 10? Duke made a similar gamble last year that paid off. If nothing else, he is insurance so that ML does not have to play out of position at PG.
+1
My only main questions are with PG play, defense, and outside shooting. I agree that injuries are going to be the main limitation to our team – as all of the rest of the factors should be able to be overcome in some manner.
Yep
1. PG is the most important question. But unlike last year where we only had one PG on the team (Anderson), this year we have three: Jones, Anderson, and Matt Carlino. Hopefully they will all push each other to the next level. While, I don’t think any of them will make us forget Tyus, I think CBH is addressing this issue.
2. Defense will be better, how much is the question. Will it be up to the standards of the good CBH teams?
3. Outside shooting is the wild card. It seems to be the one thing this team is lacking by any standard. TH has been a gym rat this summer working on his outside shot. ML will be improved the question is how much. Carlino is the only true 3 point shooter on the team and he will be fighting for minutes. CBH may have to adjust his style a bit on this. More later on this.
Well done, DC.
I can think of one overriding reason we will be MUCH improved from last year: Ben Howland. I myself have criticized his style of (offensive) play. But, he is clearly a great coach, and there is no one more upset how things turned out last year than CBH. He will not only work them harder, he will look at himself and ask of himself what he could have done better. The results are going to shock a lot of people.
I’m also going to add one other detail: Tyus Edney. He is going to be in the guy’s ears all season.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
This team (on the surface) seems to suit CBH more
Early reviews of the likely starting PG Lazeric Jones are he is a good defender. Likely sixth man Tyler Lamb played the opponenrother teams best offensive player in high school. Smith was a very good defender in high school. See the trend? Drago, Roll and JA last year were not good defenders. This year 5 out of the likely top 6 players look to be good defenders. The sixth, Reeves Nelson is a very good rebounder. Again it is early so this could be wrong. But I think it is safe to say this team will be better on defense than last year.
Addition By Subtraction
One thing everyone is forgetting – the toxic effect that Drew Gordon had on the team. I’m sure that his attitude and work ethic equally poisoned the team from the start. Then, by quiting, he left the team short-handed. Starting fresh will do wonders for the team. I have no idea how good we will be, but I expect that our team will work hard and play more cohesively than they have in the past few years.
by rocket rod forever on Aug 31, 2010 1:45 PM PDT reply actions
Attitude
Jones dedication to defense
Smith dedication to losing weight
And the returning guys
TH working hard and late at the gym on his shooting
JA acknowledge his pass focus issues and pledging to work hard this year
Of course, everything can look rosey in the off season.
Very, very true indeed
Attitude is everything. Bad attitude is contagious too. After all, most of these players are not quite twenty years old even.
It was distressingly distracting both for us, and within the team itself, when that happened. Painful as it was to see it happened, though, the incident really did the team some good long term. In hindsight, I wished Drago quit, or be dismissed after his second run in with the law. See how CRN dealt with his two incoming freshmen. They hadn’t yet played a single down. But that type of antics just can’t be tolerated in a storied program like UCLA.
Not to bring up a sore subject here, but Howland’s unusual patience and bewilderingly tolerant attitude towards this guy still confounds me to this day.
He is the most talented player
Not always the same as the leader. TH did not like to shoot last year which could be a problem. For example he averaged less than 4 shots a game over the last five games last year. (Although I was encouraged by the Say No league stats.)
More broadly I agree that a CBH team needs a “go to” guy who can create offense with time running out on the clock. Based on last year only, that would be Reeves. He could create a shot or a foul, if the PG could get him the ball. However, I do hope you are right because TH can shoot and create. (He also needs to get to the line more.)
There are a lot of questions for next year’s team but there are some good signs as well.
I'd like that "go to" guy to have a great FT% also
I can’t be the only one who thinks this stat has been uncharacteristically low for our team?
Very good point on FT%
Reeves was terrible and TH was poor. ML was acceptable at 71% and drew a number of fouls.
However, the best shooters in FT% did not go to the line very often. In fact MR shot less FT than any other player to play more than 200 minutes.
Our 63% was the lowest in the CBH era.
2003-4 (losing season) 64% (Ariza leads team in FT attempts but only shoots 50%)
2004-5 72% (Top FT shooter in attempts JF and D. Thompson shot 81% and 79%)
2005-6 69% (AA shoots the most FTs at an 81% clip)
2006-7 67% (Mata-Real 37% brings down overall percentage)
2007-8 73% (KL shoots most FTs of CBH era at 76% clip)
2008-9 72% (3 out of 5 starters shoot over 80%)
I read somewhere that Sporting News had ucla finishing 2nd in the Pac-10.
It’s in the upcoming Sept. issue and it will have Malcolm on the cover. I read the article and was going to fanshot it, but now I can’t find it. Anyone else see it? They also had great things to say about Tyler H. and some other players. Wish I could find it again!
Go Bruins!
Found it:
http://cstv.collegesports.com/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=9&tag=Malcolm%20Lee&limit=20
They have us in the NCAA tournament.
Go Bruins!
and by good, I meant that there was actually recognition
it’s just a one line blurb, not proportional to the excellent job Coach Nikki Caldwell has done in the past 2 years.
Saw Matt and Lazeric in Summer League
I think we will be much improved. I saw TH, MC, LJ, AT, RN play during summer league. My impressions on the unknowns: LJ can handle the rock and manage the tempo . Don’t look for him to be an outside scoring threat but he won’t make ill-timed turnovers and could be mature down the stretch MC was a pleasant surprise. I expected to see a scrawny kid looking kind of young for college since he skipped his senior year. What I saw was a physically solid looking guy with quickness. He was constantly pushing the ball down the court and had a nice outside shot. He is a lefty. I would not be surprised if he got minutes this year. He played shooting guard so I could not judge if he could also play point. AS looked very solid defensively, and is plenty quick enough to hedge and get back down low like CBH likes. AS struggles offensively but he definitely athletic.
RN looked like a beast on the boards. TH looked like this could be a break out year.
Where did you see Carlino play?
I know the others played in the Say No League. You said “He was constantly pushing the ball down the court” but was playing 2 guard. Did he look like he drive as well as shoot outside? Most of the highlights I have seen of him are ones of him draining threes.
Matt Carlino
Yes, I saw him in the Say No league. He would get the ball on the outlet or a long rebound push it down court. He would then try to penetrate and usually take a midrange jumper, many times there would be nothing and he would pass it back to the point and they would set up in the half court and that is where I would saw him knock down a few 3s.. He looked aggressive enough to try to take it to the rack if there was an opportunity he just did have a lot of openings in the game I saw. He has more offensive game than someone like Mustafa who only had an outside shot.
mistake
I meant to say “he just did not have a lot of openings.” He looked to drive but the D was pretty effective in getting back early. He looked quicker than ML but neither was he RW-which we don’t expect him to be.
mistake again
Sorry I am new to this. I meant to say quicker than MR not ML.
this site needs edit comment functionality!
Why is it that I’m hoping Carlino is a faster MR? I think the users here have already commented on that comparison
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