UCLA Basketball Thoughts: In the Abyss of Irrelevance

I think gametime minutes are more valuable than any practice, and the young guys should have every chance to sweat it out on the court against an opponent.
I think “abyss of irrelevance” is a pretty accurate characterization of the state of affairs. Call me crazy, but I think CBH would make a badass NBA coach. There he would actually have the time and control to cultivate good fundamentals in his players. Lets face it, in the era of “one and done” its all “fun and gun” in college. Its great for the NCAA tournament, (I remember the putrid tourneys we had before the rule change), but it has been pretty crummy for quality of play in the NBA. I am not surprised that John Wall is getting lit up nightly, nor am I surprised that our cherished Ben Ball Warriors are all getting significant PT in the big leagues. Can you imagine what CBH could do at New Orleans or Charlotte with a few years of high draft picks. I think Howland’s message is outdated, I am thankful for what he brought here, and I think UCLA as an institution should help him find the right fit for the next station of his career.

There has been a big decline in quality and expectation level of the fan base. If you remember durIng or before the Lavin era the fan base and alumni would not tolerate anything less than making the tournament every single year. Despite frequent trips to sweet 16 Lavin was called to be fired after only one losing season. Now? Howland has 2 of them already and a dysfunctional team this year, his third time missing the tournament this year. UCLA brand of basketball has become irrelevent this year and not many are even concerned or care. I have many family members who are UCLA students who have not been to a game, don’t know anything about the BB program much less watch one on TV. Do you really think this many years of decline has no future consequences?

Additional games in the NIT means additional time playing with a broken offense and a broken man to man defense. I think running the stairs at Drake and consulting with a school nutritionist would make more sense.

for the various reasons mentioned in this post. But there is a horrific downside. We are already in the cellar by UCLA Basketball standards, why risk getting eliminated and/or blown out in the early rounds of the NIT tourney! Stop the bleeding now.

It’s been 37 years since Coach hung it up. There will never be another Coach and his record will never be surpassed! Nobody even comes close to equalling what Coach accomplished. I was a Bruin during those glory years and can remember fondly watching the nets being cut down for our final championship under Coach.
It’s time to face reality! 37 years is a long time to live on past glories. During that time we have had 8 coaches that have tried to live up to the expectations set by Coach and the thousands of Alumni that wish year in and year out that we could relive those glory years.
We have hung just one banner in those 37 years and that was 17 years ago. Most of the current members of our basketball team weren’t even old enough to remember.Back in 1985 we won our only NIT Championship. I don’t remember if we even hung that banner in Pauley.
It’s time to come to the realization that this year’s team is really not very good. We can argue that Ben might not be playing the right players but that doesn’t negate the factor that we don’t have a squad of talented player who play together as a team.
We have a big man who is a big man! He doesn’t care enough about the game, his team and his future to even show up in game shape. We can go down the squad and find hard worker playing up to their potential and players who are dogging it. But collectively, we are just a 50/50 team. We have no gunner who can shoot lights out and who is our go to man at the end of the game. Where’s our Jimmer?
Ultimately, this all falls back on the person who is coaching our team. Ben is responsible for recruiting, motivating and teaching our players how to play basketball. Ultimately, he will take the fall and lose his job because he didn’t deliver what 8 others coaches couldn’t deliver either, another string of 10 banners.
I’m not a Howler, but I think there is something deeper going on at UCLA that has poisoned both our Basketball and Football teams. We have alluded to it here on BN but it goes down to the bedrock. The culture of sports at UCLA has been ruined from what I knew as a kid, as a student and as an Alumni.
I have discussed this numerous times with my son the prep sports writer and he seems to think that there is such a pervasive negative atmosphere surrounding UCLA sports. We can’t attract quality players or if we do, they get to campus and never live up to their potential or in the case of basketball, split to the NBA at the first chance they can get.
Everybody knew this year’s basketball season was doomed from the get go. Smith came in looking like the Sta-Puff Marshmellow Man from Ghost Busters. Reeves was gone before we knew it. Donut Dan doomed our team from the get go by scheduling our games in the dump that passes for the Sports Arena.
What did we really expect? We can’t even get our students out to support our team. Let’s just admit it…."We’re a bad f…king team man, a bad F…king team.

I hate to lose recruits like Shabazz Muhammad if we lose Howland. However, if CBH cannot win a National Championship with Love and company, I don’t think he will win a NC with Shabazz and company either.

We’re totally irrelevant. Outside the conversation. Beside the point. Thanks, Ben.

Will never happen again in any collegiate sport in our lifetime. Like others who post on here, we just want one thing. CONSISTENCY worthy of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, college basketball program ever. As far as Ben’s mismanagement of playing time, well I can’t help but think of Rick Pitino’s Kentucky teams who often went 12 deep, using an uptempo style. And I dont think Kentucky had as much NBA level talent on those teams than UCLA has had over Howland’s span as coach.

When your head coach walks the row asking students to please attend home games…..
I’d like to think CBH might not be in the straights he’s in had he a viable partner for an AD with whom he could have honest and direct give and take about te challenges facing the program and come to agreement on a turn around plan involving changes in both their approaches. Sadly, I don’t get the feeling that has ever taken place or that DG had the wherewithal to be that kind of supporter.

Go Bruins!

Our once proud programs are now a joke, our athletic director is causing more harm than had that position been empty, Howland is still being stubborn and not playing to win (though I’ll give him SOME props for sticking to his guns just to prove a point lmao), but please stop taking cheap shots at the 5000 fans that’re still sticking it out, and spending their evenings supporting the team.

Perhaps they don’t understand the politics behind the scenes, perhaps they’re “howlers” still rooting for Howland, perhaps they’ve never heard of BN and are wondering where everyone else is, perhaps they’re really just there to support our boys in blue, but whatever it is – in a sh*t economy such as this, where it seems as if everyone else has something better to do, they’re still donning their (different) shades of blue and gold, out cheering for every basket our team makes, and causing (however minimal) ruckus for opposing teams. Which is much much more than I can say for a lot of us.

that has something nice to say about Jim Harrick’s program. That’s you, Nestor.

I know the guy will get more credits, acknowledgements for what he did

Maybe you already knew, but let me share with you some tidbits about the guy whom I thought really was too harshly punished, utterly overboard in my opinion With the passage of time, that infamous decision by both Young & Dalis just looks more and more incredulous to me.

Harrick himself was a capable assistant to Gary Cunningham when the latter coached two consecutive, near perfect seasons at Pauley.

When he was at Pepperdine later, Harrick’s team, under the shadow of an UCLA program still very much nationally prominent then, was competitive also. He ruined Larry Farmer’s debut at Pauley too, with COACH looking on at his familiar corner seat.

In fact, Harrick came within a whisker of upsetting Jim Valvano’s NC State, the eventual champion that year. The starting center of that team currently works as a TSA luggage screener at LAX American Airlines terminal. Because I regularly flew that 10:05 am nonstop flight to Toronto, his height and build, much taller than most, aroused my interest. My bruin sweater aroused his too. Eventually we made small talks and I learned of his background.

As the coach at UCLA following the footsteps of the late Walt Hazzard, he had Romar as his assistant. Now, I consider the latter an a _ _ hole of a man for reasons I said before, but grudgingly, Romar served Harrick and UCLA well.

Then of course Harrick had the service of an original snake oil salesman in Lavin to recruit for him. No matter how much disdain, contempt we all have for this dude, he can recruit even though UCLA missed out on Cherokee Parks, and a few other big names locally. You can’t win them all but we got some good ones.

Compare with Howland’s assistants, Harrick’s contributed so much better in so many ways that impacted the program conspicuously. Another one, whose names escapes me now, went to Alabama and fared quite well for a while too.

You can say all you want about his off the court infractions at Pauley, and then some other allegedly uncalled for stuffs at Rhode island and Georgia, but the fact remains that he coached at UCLA.

We got #11 BECAUSE OF HIM.

You know, tasser, Dalis lacked the persona, clout of Morgan. But he wanted to emulate Morgan’s perception.

Harrick’s background never clicked with the power that be at Westwood.

West Virginia is a far cry from California both socially and culturally. Even though Harrick has been in California for quite a while, he lost little of his roots. Besides the accent, his etiquette especially displeased his boss sometimes.

From LATimes after the dismissal now.

The iconic Riviera Country Club, right by Beverly Hills, caters to the glamorous, powerful, glitzy money crowds. An athletic director from UCLA barely qualifies there, if not for his prestigious bureaucratic ties. So when he golfed with his coach and the latter, perhaps out of awe and excitements, utterly let his hair down by using choice words and, the worst of the worst, relieved himself at a convenient , albeit shielded spot the same way many folks did fishing out in the country somewhere, Pete Dalis reacted like he just received a sucker punch to his guts.

That did it for the athletic director from UCLA.

I understand Harrick’s wife Sally passed on already. He has a new companion in tow now. When I saw them at the Loyola Marymount game, Harrick looked considerably greyer and slimmer. But at least he sounded happy, amicable chatting up with Toby Bailey & Tyus Edney. The game itself understandably dismayed him. His team at least was feistier, fought better.

Harrick was next to last on the list of candidates Dalis had to replace Hazzard. UCLA grudgingly hired him after Jim Valvano, Larry Bown, coach K, Roy Williams etc said no. Harrick got the nod, didn’t disappoint either performance wise.

It is sad he was let go of reasons other than that.

Wisconsin’s campus locates between Lake Mendota & Menona. It’s men & women’s rowing teams always got the best of receptions whenever they were out practicing on Lake Mendota, in full view of the crowds at Memorial Union dining hall and patio areas.

Of course they cheered that much more lustily, raucously when the coeds, in their bright red rowing tanktops, perhaps in tight shorts we guess, splashed right by the pier in their bullet fast aluminum boats.

Some dudes called out names of those girls, perhaps their girlfriends, acquaintances from the same hometown etc as the boats sped by.

Those were the fun filled springs days at Wisconsin. Too bad Pete Dalis ruined it for you my friend.

The guy is actually a waverer. He talked to Rick Pitino when the latter was available, admitted certain interest in the Pauley job too. Yet Dalis didn’t have enough gumption to pursue him further, waited for whatever reasons he still needed to sack Lavin. Then ultimately he punted the decision to the incoming Guerrero.

All I can say is WE STILL LOVE YOU HARRICK.