Is Ben Howland Cooking Up Another Toxic UCLA Basketball Season FAIL?

If you remember, it took him until Pac 10 play to start playing a zone a few years back when everyone else could tell from day 1 he had a team that had not chance playing man to man.

I am guessing he is going to keep giving both Wears major minutes until he realizes what most casual fans have realized after one game: They are not athletic enough to be starters at this level. They should be playing a combined 20 minutes a game at most.

I expect Ben will realize this sometime in late December/early January.

You could have the Showtime Lakers and Ben would limit them to 50 points per game.this is neanderthal BB.

This team is going to end up being a pretty damn good team. It may not be a FF or NC favorite, but it will win 20 or more games in the regular season, it will make the tourney and it will compete. That won’t be bad for a team with only two returning starters from a 23 win squad last season. We saw the embers of the fire for the first 16 minutes of the second half last night. We saw what the Bruins capable of doing. Kansas didn’t slack off or coast. We put the clamps down on them defensively and were more effective on offense. The players saw this too; which is a great “coach-able” moment for CBH and staff. I firmly believe they’ll get it together and become steadily more dangerous as the season progresses. I’m actually excited about their potential.

Just being on floor that long you would think they would have more points by accident. Had a feeling they were over hyped coming into the season, but they might as well not exist on the floor.

we should expect to beat kansas. Maui should provide UCLA a pseudo home advantage of most other programs, so no excuse there. Also, youth and lack of practice is not a good excuse- other teams have the same issues.

No fire to start the game, odd choice of players on the court this season. We had a lot coming back, and our front court (supposed strength area) looks worse than our back court.

I think that even a second place finish in the pac 10 will not get us to the tourney. The league is terrible, Cal got pounded last night by another Big 12 -2 team.

David Wear was the only Bruin with a positive +/- for the game. Anderson and Jones each had a +/- of -18 for the game.

Coach Howland would have been a perfect coach during a different era. His system obviously requires a few years to install and requires the buy-in of the athletes. He reminds me, minus the personal histrionics and baggage, of Bobby Knight. However, the same thing that drove out KNight is driving out Holwand. In the 21st century,kids with talent will not stay in a program for more than a year or two. In the 21st century, the kids are too immature and coddled to want to work at being part of a system and would rathert show off their “talents” individually. I know there are kids that are exceptions to this rule, but the pool of athletes who fit this mode seem to gravitate to few programs, and UCLA under Howland is not one of them(hence, the absolute dearth of athleticism on this team). As hard as it is for me to accept, I don’t think the players respect Howland (see Nelson, Anderson, Smith off the court behavior). I also think Howland’s sutbborness regarding playing time has been an issue for years, not just this year. You may also recall that he almost NEVER adjust personnel playing time unless forced by injuries. While I am sure he will be here next year, I sincerely doubt that we will see him in 2013…

Based on what we have witnessed so far…our center is so poorly conditioned he is suffering balance problems. An ESPN announcer suggested one of his falls resulted in a Richter scale reading. ESPN also captured his back-fist to the chair one of the Wear bros was sitting in. The glare by the Wear brother said a lot. JS’s attention deficit behaviors are an embarassment to UCLA Athletics. The point guard [ZJ] has simply not developed. The Wear brothers always work and stay in the game. They will only improve. Lane deserves a chance to prove he has developed. Note that when they played defense [well, when they wanted to] their offense improved. I see no real-time bench teaching, coaching or lectures by other UCLA coaches as players foul out or exit the game.

Anthony Stover should be the poster child for attitude and effort. Those guys who show that spirit should be on the court. Those who can’t even run up and down the court (hmm, wonder who that is) should have limited minutes.

But I’ll bring this up again – why not have everyone giving their all, and then having quick substitutions to keep everyone fresh. Oh wait…that would mean playing 9 or 10 guys. I love you, Coach, but you’re testing all our patience.

I thought this was an interesting comment yesterday by Jay Bilas. And I would agree with it based on what I have seen the last 2 1/2 years. Even last year, I thought the team was somewhat dysfunctional. It all began, IMO, about midway through J’rue Holliday’s one season with the team, which concluded with an embarrassing loss to SC in the Pac 10 tourney and the trouncing by Villanova. Things have just not been right since. You can see that at times the team can play hard and effectively, but they can’t sustain it. Things seem so toxic at this point that I wonder if Howland can turn it around. I have serious doubts. I give it one more year to turn around.

BN: Help me figure this out. I appreciate your insight on all things Bruin.

1. How may years remain on CBH current contract?
2. Is this team physically fit?
3. Does this team deserve more time to find its mojo? Afterall it has to recover from RN (mental/emotional breakdowns) and JA (behaviour problem) and JS(not in shape).

I will give Jerime a pass and deem him over his past. Not so with RN and JS. If RN and JS were benched and relegated to back ups, what would we look like?

Lets see: Starting Five: Lamb, Powell, Anderson, Stover, and Wear (pick one). Sixth men: Lane, Wear (the other) and Zeke. Further into the game but when I can’t say: Josh Smith and Reeves Nelson. I just don’t think these guys deserve a prominent role on our team at least not yet. HELP!

If you and so many others on BN can see what’s going on, why is that Howland can’t figure it out. I ask myself, is he going senile? Has he had a stroke sometime in the last 3 years? What has happened to this guy ? Is Morgan center tainting the coach’s meals with some sort of potion to get them to turn into complete bumbling idiots? I just don’t get it.

let alone elite college basketball. What I don’t get is how Ben cannot see or react to what the fans and the intelligent bloggers on BN see so clearly. It makes me think that he has made promises to the Wears and their family (and maybe to the transfer recruits such as Drew for next year?) that is creating Drago part 2 (and 3 and 4). Apparently, he made no such promises to Lane, Stover or Powell. Also, this team goes no where without Reeves, who by the way was 3-4 from 3 pt range. If he is on the team, he should start and play max minutes, if he needs further punishment, then kick him off entirely.

I believe the tv announcers made the comment that a great team disciplines itself. In other words the players police themselves on and off the court. What happened to this group of players? Who was calling out JS out for not getting in shape? Did any teammate bother to check with RN and rather he understoond how important he was to the success of the team this season, how much the team needed his leadership?

Apologize if this concept has already been discussed on this board, however I thought it worth bringing up either again or for the first time…

Howland is committed to the Wears. That’s obvious. But, what’s also obvious is we have several (10? 11?) players of somewhat comparable ability. Why not use that to our advantage? How can we do that? Play an up tempo game while still concentrating on the defense so integral to Ben’s system. Duke does it…evidence of which is bolstered by Coach K’s mindset and coaching in the Olympic program. Use the 10 players if that’s what you’re committed to doing, but use it to your advantage. Use it to run, use it to tire the other team out and if players such as J. Smith can’t commit, let them run suicides until they can.

I’m not suggesting we can average 110 points per game. However, it appears we have several players that can run an up tempo style. And, contrary to Ben’s apparent philosophy, we do not necessarily have to sacrifice defense to make this happen. Further, this would provide more minutes for Lane, Powell, Parker…etc. Run them until they can’t run any more, tell them there’s no shame in tapping out and replace them with fresh bodies.

This team apparently is not talented enough to win games scoring 50-something points. I don’t see many teams that can use a rotation of 10 quasi-legitimate D1 level players. At this point, what’s the harm in adjusting your coaching style? As it stands now, it may be Ben’s last hope.

As an alum who grew up watching Alcindor, Wicks, Rowe and was at every single game that Walton played at Pauley, and I’ve never particularly liked “Ben Ball.” Yes, everyone likes to win and the 3 Final 4’s were fun, but we were fortunate to get to a couple of those 4’s and only managed to win 1 game there, in spite of teams loaded with future NBA talent. As pointed out already recently by someone else, the last F4 team had 4 NBA starters including 2 All Stars and Howland couldn’t put together an offense to win. Yes, defense is important, but you have to make the other team play defense too and Ben’s teams just don’t seem to have any coherent offensive plan.

I’ve always wondered why, with all his emphasis on defense, Howland never seems to use a full court press except in the last few desperate moments of a losing effort. We have certainly had the athletic talent on several occasions and he had Coach for advice on how to implement it.

Comments by some parents of former players who transferred/left early that seemed like sour grapes previously, now largely ring true. Kids don’t buy into Howland’s style of play any more and want to play a more up tempo game. Look at UNLV who just beat UNC 90-80 a couple of days ago. Chace Stanback led all scorers with 28 pts and 10 RBs and Mike Moser had 16 pts. 18 RBs and 6 Assts. But those 2 couldn’t get any minutes from Ben. When you look at the recruits who are bailing on us and then look at Josh Smith who was already a big tub of jello when he was recruited and hasn’t changed much it makes me question his recruiting. If Howland thought he could get Smith to shape up in the off season, then he failed miserably.

The good BALANCED teams in the NCAA don’t score only 55 or 56 points and win consistently. In this day of the shot clock, games in the 40s or 50s are ugly basketball to me. I’m not saying we need to be Tarkanian’s Runnin Rebels and try to score 125 pts. a game. Coach’s 10 Natl. Champions won the final by the average score of 84.6 to 71.2 against good teams. The Harrick ‘95 team won 89 to 78. That’s what I’m talkin about. Coach made the observation that Ben’s teams probably played stronger defense than his old teams. What was politely left unsaid was that Ben’s teams couldn’t hold a candle offensively to Coach’s teams.