Flaccid

by Penny2i on Nov 11, 2011 9:52 PM PST

That is the best word to describe that performance. That was eerily similar to the Fullerton Fiasco in 2009 except this team has a lot more talent. Did Howland even coach in this game? Did we do anything different. We played island defense with players that can't cover their man. When help came (if it did) it was too late. Add to that an amazing lack of urgency down the stretch. Do we have a press? Are you kidding me? What a total lack of energy and at least in this game I am going to blame the coach. Zeke and Lamb were miserable, but the only strategic move that maybe was different was to tell your guards to get the ball inside only to seem them force crappy passes to the interior was abysmal. This is too early to have to be teaching your team a lesson.

Tonight I did see some decent individual additions that appears to make our team better with the Wears, Parker and even Powell. However I also saw a total lack of tenacity. They gave me no impression that we were even a tournament team much less a Top 25 squad. If I had to pick tonight I would predict we will not be going to the tournament, but I will reserve my prediction for a few games. We have too much talent to not dance in late March. It is up to the coach to guide this ship and figure out a way to get them to play hard and as a unit. It is inconceivable that he would actually think outside the box and press. He has better man to man players than 2 years ago, but not by as much as he appears to think. 3 pt shooting difference is not a reason to lose a game to Loyola. We should have been much better than them and gotten more easy baskets to render that statistic meaningless. The reality is they got better shots and when you get better shots you make more shots and consequently make yourself a better looking team on the glass because defensive rebounding is easier.

Last season we suffered some early bad games, but I had the gut feeling we were a tournament team. Two years ago I knew after the Fullerton game we were terrible and headed for disaster. Tonight I feel like we are unfortunately somewhere in between the last two teams, but frighteningly too close to two seasons ago. You don't always have the exact players you want, so it will be interesting to see if real adjustments are made to get the best players on the court frequently. I hope this season is not contingent on Jerime Anderson coming back to be a real good player because I would have severe doubts about our chances. I hope my gut is wrong this season.

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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I can't wait tot read Dan Guerrero's "blog" about this game

by Nestor on Nov 11, 2011 9:55 PM PST reply actions

CBH believes in old Big East style power basketball.

He loves bruising, slow down, power basketball beating the other team into submission, like the old Georgetown teams. He’s done a great job if recruiting big, tall and slow players for the front line. The problems?

1. Philosophically, it’s the antithesis of Coach who turned modern college basketball into a ballet with the high post, zone press and transition basketball.

2. As Coach always said, the team with the best guards always wins, and we don’t seem to have any of those.

3. The three pointer is the biggest weapon in the game today and CBH can’t or won’t coach it or recruit for it.

4. CBH’s offense is offensive, as usual, and his team can’t play man to man with any talented guard, period.

5. Until Josh Smith loses at least 20 pounds his toughest opponent will be himself.

We obviously were highly overrated and LMU was underrated. The LMU guards were light years ahead of ours. And they took threes in rhythm and under control and we just threw them up in desperation. One team was well coached. And the other sucked. One team had heart. And the other, well, their inaction spoke louder than words.

This was an epic FAIL by CBH. Beyond embarrassing. Something is wrong, very wrong.

And yes it was the first game. So what? It was LMU’s first game, and they dominated us for 95% of it. The score is not even indicative of how badly we were outplayed.

The silver lining? It wasn’t on national TV. Thank goodness.

by uclahy on Nov 11, 2011 10:48 PM PST reply actions

+ 1 million

“This was an epic FAIL by CBH. Beyond embarrassing. Something is wrong, very wrong.”

U-C-L-A Fight, Fight, Fight! Go Bruins!
NBA: Where Greed Happens. RIP 10/10/11.

by Bruins78 on Nov 11, 2011 10:53 PM PST up reply actions

agree

I have always had a problem with our offense relatively speaking being much weaker then our defense. No matter how good your defense to win a title at the end of the day I believe you need to be able to score 70 against anyone. You can’t limit a team like Florida or Memphis and hope to win. His offense leans heavily toward a point guard too much that can make a play late in a shot clock and that can kill us. With 2 of our playmakers moving on to sit on their couch this season it clearly has hurt our bailout offense. This team needs a fluid ball movement style to get defenses off balance a little to deliver the ball inside to our interior strength. Instead at the moment we walk the ball up and dribble too much allowing the defense to be exactly in the position they want to be. Our only scoring comes off 1-on-1 basketball which leaves too much to chance for me. LMU was a superior 1-on-1 team at least last night, but it’s grueling to think this is what we are going to try to do on offense. I can only hope Howland proves he can coach and will adapt accordingly because I do think we have enough horses to run and press. I do not trust Jones can shoulder that burden consistently to make most of our offensive plays happen although he will play better than last night.

by Penny2i on Nov 12, 2011 6:04 AM PST reply actions

CBH loves Coach and UCLA

But he will never press like that. He does not believe in what Coach perfected. Just not his style.

Supposedly at N. Arizona he did, but I have never seen it here.

But there is something wrong more basic here, some kind of attitude problem. It was blatant last night. When LMU didn’t fold, we were beyond flat, save for Nelson.