Bruins Denied Their Coffee, Epically Fail To Close In Seattle 69-71

A soft 2-3 zone for the last 6 minutes and we have no clue how to attack it. Maybe if I hadn’t seen Howland’s quote about not practicing zone (offense included I am sure) I could put some onus on the team. Anyone else hear Dakich BEGGING our offense to attack the free throw line? Smith has the best game of his season and can’t even get a sniff down the stretch? I guess no lead is safe when you have a team as fragile as this Bruin team, but the fact they didn’t have a plan of attack against the zone was hard to believe. Tremendous irony that the coach who calls constant unnecessary timeouts didn’t call one in the last possession when we obviously badly needed it. I want to support the man but I have lost much of my faith in him. One final note, I cannot believe how bad Tyler Lamb was tonight. Jeesh.

Biggest stat of the game: Anderson and Smith (17/23 at 73.0%) versus rest of the team (10/38 at 26 percent). We hit two more shots, we probably win.

The odd thing about the UW’s switch to zone late is that we pretty much handled any zone they through at us earlier. I counted, I believe, 6 possessions of zone prior to that last stint. We had so much success, that they didn’t really use it again until the end of the game.

We went 1-5 (including Powell’s miss) against it late. The first three possessions were terrible, with Anderson, Zeke, Powell/Lamb, and DWear sitting around the top, with Smith down low. Prior to that point, Howland generally had the two Wears playing against the zone, and both would pop into the middle (as they were suppose to) and receive the ball. Fourth possession, Wear pops to the middle (after Smith did the same exact thing), looks around for the pass, and then shoot the wide open jumper. Last possession, well it actually wasn’t a terrible look.

Anyways, it was the execution, rather than the knowledge, at the end of the game that was really lacking. Tough loss for sure. Good thing we have the Nation to grieve to.

Keep your heads up everyone. It’s been a rough four years. Remember, we won a game in the tournament last year, but then last our three and a half best players: Lee, Honeycutt, Reeves, and JS. I’m not laying blame one way or the other (haven’t taken a stance yet), but in my opinion, that’s the #1 reason why THIS team is bad.

if u watched the game tonight, you would have seen just how terrible lamb is. it was as if everytime he touched the ball, he either contributed to a turnover, drove the ball wildly to the basket leading to a brick shot, or threw up a contested jumpshot. hes killing this team and needs to be sat in favor of powell. sadly, we wont see this happen and howland will go down with the sinking ship playing his favorite players. this season is over.

We are correct in thinking collectively that Howland has lost his way.

Up to this point, I was perhaps still on the fence regarding Howland until this evening’s monumental collapse at Seattle.

This one is on him, period.

We are UCLA, a name brand in NCAA athletics. So many of you said it well, even eloquently on behalf of all Bruin alums and fans alike, when you clamored against the honorable Mr. Dan Guerrero ( my ass, really ) and his imminent decision to hire Jim Mora.

I can accept our team’s narrow losses, upsets if we aleady played valiantly, still was caught short, and went down fighting nevertheless. Because I missed the debacle at Oregon, this intense level of frustrations and painful feelings caught up with me finally. In that five minute span towards the end of the second half, I believe I had never experienced a dizziness in my head as I did, when the Washington onslaught completely knocked us senseless, dazed without any clues whatsoever.

The tragedy of it all is that THIS DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN AT ALL . No, no, no.

I liked the guy. Several summers ago, we bumped into him and the honorable Mr. Dan Guerrero ( my ass, again ) in Westwood village as they waited at the curb for the valet to bring them the car. It was outside a restaurant whose name I can’t remember now.

That was the summer when KLove was due in.

UCLA basketball never looked as promising until then. Fresh off a second consecutive Final Four berth, Westwood literally pulsated with a heightened sense of anticipation. Everyone I talked to sounded so giddish with the impending arrival of KLove, realizing perhaps the moment would soon be here for Pauley to proudly again hang another banner, #12 to be exact.

Howland sounded amicable, polite to a fault and patient with all my exciting queries regarding the team’s prospects that fall. In fact, he shook my hands, my wife’s too, and thanked me for my support and enthusiasm of his team before getting into the seat next to that guy.

I thought then he was the genuine article, feeling food that UCLA basketball indeed was in good hand finally, all these decades after COACH left. Tonight’s game, coming at the heels of so many coaching missteps, players mismanagements, recruiting shortfalls etc. summarily confirmed for me that UCLA just may not be the right fit for him after this season.

This is the Stockholm Syndrome in basketball, when our team seems to have resigned themselves to mediocrity, if not identified itself to failure altogether even if the chance to excel on national TV beckoned vividly. The Seattle jinx, all the other poor losses seem to have gripped us so miserably the last few seasons that when the occasion presented itself, our team shrank and wilted without so much a whimper.

We played like we did not want to believe we could win. Compounding that was the sense that even when we were ahead, we played like we wanted to create mistakes for ourselves so that the other team could catch up and beat us. I lay this at Howland’s doorstep. It is on him. Make no mistake about it.

Finally, for a coach to be so perceived under such conditions, his days are numbered.

Not winning a two-point game is a failure of that.

No mental toughness whatsoever. Just fell apart like jello. Why do I even bother to watch.

Instead, I think the Howland fatique is really weighing me down. Another year won’t matter but I know it is the reality that Howland will be Howland, no matter what.

As a Bruin alum, I watched as Gene Bartow struggled, agonized over everything he did. When he went unexpectedly, I was sorry to see him go. My thought then was akin to what many had previously said about Neuheisel, except that in the latter case, it turned out to be false hopes. Who knows. Bartow passed on already. Had we not been so impatient, things could work out.

Then Cunningham totally confused me. To this day, I never knew whether he was a chicken, so afraid of succeeding where Bartow failed or something else was bothering him to the point of letting go.

Larry Brown left UCLA at the altar time and again, but UCLA’s infatuation with him lingered so long.

Larry Farmer never was ready for prime time. So did Walt Hazzard.

Warts and all, Jim Harrick always has my support. Enough said.

Steve Lavin always should go fly a kite. Be my guest forever.

Now, Ben Howland. My goodness, you torment Westwood. You really do. I still enjoy chatting you up but I am afraid you are not my choice to coach UCLA when Pauley officially opens in future.

playing at UW is tough. As mentioned elsewhere, the UW referee advantage is considerable. People want to crucify Howland for the collapse, but don’t want to praise him for getting the team into a strong pre-collapse position. As JBB mentions above, ability to attack the zone wasn’t a monumental failing of Howland’s system early in the game, so claiming it is some immense blind spot is misguided; similarly, arguing that we obviously needed a zone in the last moments when man-D had been effective in the first 30 minutes is empty hindsight.

We lost. No moral victories here. This one hurts, not least because it was a chance to end a losing streak in Seattle, and we got ourselves into a position to do make it happen. But to accentuate the negative out of context is just masochism. I don’t think the team embarrassed the school today, though they fell short of the excellence rightfully expected at UCLA. This wasn’t losing 50-0. This wasn’t a brawl when getiing punked in Arizona.

You can believe that Howland is not good enough to take UCLA to its next national championship, or believe that he is not a good enough coach to walk the sideline that the greatest coach in the history of sports walked, and you can believe Howland should be fired. But the aggression directed at Howland and the team by some seems totally out of keeping with tonight’s result.

Also, FIRE DAN GUERRERO.

Even though Powell was sick he contributed. Sorry the kid didnt get that last shot. It would have made playing sick worth the letdown that can only add to the frustration he must be feeling. Does CBH know his players? Has he watched film of this kid play. CBH puts Powell in, Powell gets a steal, dunk, layup, block or something that gets him fired up (playing with urgency as CBH says) and CBH pulls Powell out. Powell cools off, looses that adrenalin rush and then POOF, CBH puts Powell back in, lets Powell get pumped up and then out again. FOR WHAT? Let the kid establish some rhythm. We need the energy. Please, somebody show CBH film of what this kid Powell can do with a string of meaningful minutes, especially if he utilizes Anderson and Lamb as supporting cast. Zeke is ok for a senior but damn, he is a senior, where is his senior consistency, where is his senior eye for the abilities of his teammates.. CBH, stop putting those twins on the court together. CBH, put Stover in, you have a shotblocker, work with him in practice on his offensive skills. Whats the point of all those Assistant Coaches if noone is helping Stover. I sure hope things get better or Powell maybe out of there. With his skills and athletic ability Redshirting for a year must sure be looking good. It’s time to make something out of this damn near nothing season. Put Anderson at the Point, rest Zeke. Use Smith and Stover, I say try them on the floor together. How bad can it get? you put the twins out there together. And use B Lane. IF CBH DOES NOT LEARN HIS TEAM CHEMISTRY AND UTILIZE THEM TO SAVE THIS SEASON, STOVER, LANE POWELL & SMITH pack your bags……or crack your books because Basketball it won’t be I’M JUST SAYING

topped off a terrible, inconsistent, at times comatose effort by this team. Raves about Smith’s performance – tempered by the fact that it was in front of his family/friends. Last night should be EVERY night for Josh Smith – or at least much closer to that every game. This team had a 10 point lead on a very lethargic Washington squad, and went to sleep. I’d bash the zebras but one or two goofy calls down the stretch didn’t cause this, poor focus and poor choices did. A Lavinesque performance.

Once again the team falls apart. They did it at Oregon and at Cal now here. It’s like they say to themselves " We’re ahead? we’re not supposed to be ahead" and then crumble. They should have won by 20 or more but kept losing out when thy made sloppy plays like the handoff from Josh down at the defensive end that ended up in Washington’s hands. So many mistakes to keep it close and then the meltdown. Josh, who I’ve criticized regularly plays a great game and became SUPERJOSH then Zeke and one of the wears shoot 20%. We always have one player play great and most of the rest fail to show up. Josh is certainly capable of playing every game like he did against Washington. I hope he continues like that and I hope that somebody else from the team shows up to play. If we have 3 doing a great job in the night and don’t have anyone shooting really badly like Zeke has done more than once. Remember the game that Derrick Rose went to in which Zeke stunk up the place. We need steady consistant boring positive play from 5 people each night with outstanding play from 3. No more 20% shooting from anybody. If they keep on shooting and missing then find the people who are hot and feed them.

I voted that he had to go when the poll came out. How many torture games will we need to endure before others come around?
As I have mentioned in other comments, my criterion is “will we be where we belong (Final 4) four years from now, with Howland as coach?” My answer is “no”, hence the vote that he has to go.
It is not because of the Stanford game. It is not because of the Oregon game. It is not because of the Washington game. It is because of the entire body of work since 2008.

One hypothetical for fellow non-HOWLERS- Most say keep Howland until DG is gone. Assuming Block does nothing (which seems a fair assumption, given his total indifference), and assuming we have another bullshit season next year (also a fair assumption, given every year since 2008), and we are talking after the 2013 season with DG and Howland both still at UCLA, would we still stay Howland has to stay?
At some point, we have to say enough is enough, and it is better to let DG take his spin at the roulette wheel (I assume that is how he makes coaching hires). I am already there, but is there a breaking point for others- one more year, two more years, five more years? Remember, we are talking Block here, who is accomplishing the impossible of making Carnesdale look good by comparison.

Wow!
The last seven minute were sickening.
Go Bruins!
Not CBH……………..