UPDATE: UCLA Basketball Roundup - Looking Toward The Beavers And DeEnd's Departure
by Patroclus on Jan 17, 2012 1:55 PM PST
in Basketball
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PrintThe Bruins pulled off an expected but always celebrated victory over Southern Cal on Sunday night at the Sam's Club Galen Center, in the first of a stretch of must win games for UCLA. While beating the Trojans is always something to be happy about, the fact is that at 5-13 and a #164 ranking in Ken Pomeroy's latest ranking, they are a team that even this year's Bruins should have no problem blowing out of their own gym. For that matter, as Scott Reid noted, these last 3 wins did not come against particularly tough competition.
What do the last three wins mean? OK so UCLA has rattled off three very impressive wins. But it’s still hard to get a read on the Bruins. Has UCLA turned the corner or just hit a soft patch in the schedule? The three wins have come against teams that started last week ranked 58th (Arizona), 163rd (USC) and 196th (Arizona State) in the RPI.
The Bruins are riding a nice stretch, having won 8 of the last 10 games, but still need to prove that they can win away from home - Sunday's win over Southern Cal was the first road win - is Galen Center actually farther away from Westwood than the Sports Arena - with the Maui Invitational victory over Chaminade the only win away from the designated home courts this season. The next, more significant part of the test comes with this weekend's trip into Oregon, starting on Thursday night with the game at Oregon State. A win in Corvallis will go further in testing this Bruin squad's ability to compete in a mediocre Pac-12 than the trip across town did, but honestly a win on Thursday should be the least that can be expected out of a team looking to still be playing come March.
The Beavers started out hot, going 10-2 in non-conference play, beating (a weakened) Texas team and coming within a basket of a solid Vanderbilt squad while uncharacteristically becoming one of the nation's highest scoring teams during that period. The start of Pac-12 play has seen a pretty significant fall in fortunes for these woodland creatures; while still putting points on the board (488 in 6 games), the Beavers have been awful on defense, giving up 521 points on the way to a 1-5 start to conference play. The 2 Pac-12 games that the Beavers have played at home have been competitive performances, defeating Cal and taking Stanford to 4 overtime periods, but after being swept in trips to the Arizona and Washington schools, Oregon State is down to an early 11th place showing in the conference standings.
Solid showing against the Commadores aside, the Oregon State non-conference slate was pretty weak; currently, it rates #331 out of 345 D-1 teams in Pomeroy's strength of schedule ranking. Seth Davis panned a bunch of possible bubble teams for their weak non-conference scheduling in his CNNSI.com column today. The Beavers absence from that list despite their 11 wins and non-conference slate as weak or weaker than the 10 programs that he took to task should tell give us an idea where that team stands. And while it is an increasingly tight spot, it is not somewhere that Bruins should see any possibility of failing. Losing decisively at home to an Idaho squad currently 9-9 does not speak too well for the homecourt advantage.
On the floor, Oregon State is one team that can compete with UCLA's height advantage, with two 6-10 players featured in Craig Robinson's recent starting lineups, and 3 other players available - albeit playing minimal minutes to date - measuring 6-9 or taller. Jared Cunningham returns as the star of the team, leading the Pac-12 with 17.6 ppg while Ahmad Starks has taken a main outside shooting role in his sophomore season, attempting nearly 7-3 pointers a game in averaging 13.7 ppg, 2nd behind Cunningham for the Beavers.
UPDATE (P) - As Jon Gold has just shared via Facebook (ht - Westwood Wizard), Coach Howland told the media today that DeEnd Parker is likely to transfer out of UCLA. Parker was taking an injury redshirt this season after playing 2 early games for the Bruins before being shelved due to a knee injury. As Howland alluded to, there have been some recent health issues in DeEnd's family, and at the face of it, it seems that he just wants to be closer to home in these times. From the quote below, it sounds like Howland will be supporting a hardship waiver seeking to allow Parker to play D-1 ball without having to sit out next season.
#UCLA Ben Howland: "De'End went home from Christmas and I think we're going to try to help him try to petition to try to transfer to get closer to his home, to his mom."
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De'End Parker
Guessing that this broke just as you were hitting “publish”…De’End Parker wants to transfer, Howland says that he will help Parker petition to do so. FanShot here.
by Westwood Wizard on Jan 17, 2012 1:57 PM PST reply actions
Yep - the news just beat the post
Saw the fanpost just as this went up. Now to see where he ends up – maybe steer DeEnd over to Keating up at Santa Clara?
formerly bruinhoo
does anyone know
If there are any particular rules to transferring within the conference? I recall him being a Cal commit at first, though I’m not saying he could be headed there now.
Not barred, but the conference does have additional restrictions on intra-conference transfers
A Google Doc of the conference’s basic transfer guidelines is here. According to that document, a transfer inside the Pac-12 does entail a penalty for the transfering student-athlete, as follows.
This rule’s penalty requires that you fulfill one academic year of residence and lose one season of competition in all sports before being eligible to compete. You also may not receive athletically related financial aid during this period of ineligibility.
Under the rule, after transfering to the 2nd school, that school (Cal, using your example) can petition the conference to waive the 1-year bar on receiving an athletic scholarship (with 3/4 of the conference’s faculty athletic reps required to approve the waiver), but would not be able to waive the requirement for him to sit out next season.
formerly bruinhoo
thanks!
Although one part confuses me:
…lose one season of competition in all sports before being eligible to compete.
Does that mean, since he was a CC transfer with 2 years of eligibility remaining, he would only have one year of eligibility after sitting out? Or is this redshirting a year? Either way, I imagine he’ll wind up in the WCC.
That is my understanding
That because he did practice/compete for UCLA as a recruited scholarship athlete, he is eligible for a waiver when it comes to waiting 1 year before being eligible for athletic financial aid (athletic scholarship), but not for a waiver of the 1-year in residence rule if he goes to another Pac-12 school (Cal or Stanford). This would remain a redshirt year for DeEnd, and he would have to sit out the 2012-13 season, leaving him as a redshirt senior in 2013-14.
If he transfers to another D-1 school (Santa Clara, St Mary’s, USF…), he would only be subject to the NCAA transfer rule, which normally requires the player to sit out 1 year, but allows for the hardship waiver that Howland seems ready to support. This season would again remain as his redshirt year, and he would be able to play next season as a redshirt junior – if the NCAA grants the waiver.
formerly bruinhoo
A real shame about De'end
Best wishes to him and unfortunate that injury prevented him from really contributing to our program.
On the plus side, this should open up a scholarship?
I feel the same.
I really wanted to see what he could do on the court. I remember he was excited to be coming to UCLA. It’s just a shame it hasn’t worked out.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi
+1
Damn.
Gonna miss D’End.
Was really looking forward to his return.
Shorter handed now. Great.
Now we need to recruit 2 SF’s.
Sounds like a good time to sign SF Savon Goodman for next year.
Go Bruins…….
Redoing scholarship math to take into account dismissal of Reeves and now De'end
Freshmen:
Kyle Anderson
Jordan Adams
Sophomores:
Norman Powell
Juniors:
Anthony Stover (redshirt)
David Wear (redshirt)
Travis Wear (redshirt)
Tyler Lamb
Joshua Smith
Senior:
Brendan Lane
Larry Drew Jr
We have 3 scholarships to give out, unless Brendan Lane graduates early and decides not to stick around, in which case we have 4.
That is a big number to work with, one is obviously dedicated to Shabazz, Tony Parker is the next one, and we are still recruiting Amedeo Della Valle (don’t know much about him).
Best wishes to De'End, but...
I’m very disappointed this kid never got any meaningful time on the floor to show what he can do. He was a top tier JUCO player with an impressive resume.
What bothers me is why the issues at home with his mother’s medical condition was vetted out by CBH. It was a known issue before last year’s recruiting period. De’End committed to Cal because of family pressures to stay close to home, yet CBH managed to talk him into switching his commitment to UCLA. It also seems like Parker’s family didn’t fully vet out his decision as well. At Media Day, it certainly appeared as if De’End was thrilled to be a Bruin and he gave every indication that he had the full blessing of his family to come south to Westwood. If his mom indeed has complications, why not give him a redshirt, put him on a family hardship leave of absence, and bring him back next season?
It’s already bad enough having to watch an erratic Tyler Lamb on the floor for 30 minutes a game, but it’s worse when one significant injury could put Kenny Jones into the regular rotation. It’s too bad because i think De’;End Parker could have been a pretty good Bruin.
Whatever the situation
UCLA is losing a promising player. That is the fact. Nothing can change it now. The team must focus on winning one game at a time, for good or bad. Remember the big picture. Shabazz IS watching. There just cannot be anymore performance the likes of the LMU game.
Keep up the defensive intensity and the points will come. Let the rest take care of itself.
It just sounds odd to me that beginning with the season after the third Final Four, we recruited so many players that either didn’t pan out or they didn’t stay. There doesn’t seem to have a systematic approach to it based on needs. I know the one and done rule fundamentally changes the recruiting landscape for both coaches and players alike. Everything is hit and miss on a one year basis.
We all know Kentucky thrives on it. But Howland’s style really ill suits the system because his scheme takes time for players to fit in and blossom. Nobody runs their own show. If you just want to dazzle, then leave, Howland can be the most miserable person to work with. So then you have star players the caliber of Holiday, who just stayed low, put in the time and leave.
Now if Shabazz comes, I can see how they will just throw the dice, let the trio do all they can to win one and then retool again when they leave the next year. This would be a distinct possibility even if they miss the championship, but come close, a la Kentucky. So every year they have a brand new roster.
What a dilemma for coaches struggling to cope with one and one.
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