UCLA Basketball: Past, Present, and Future
by DCBruins on Feb 7, 2012 3:00 PM PST
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Let me take these a bit out of order. Presently, can UCLA still make the tournament? And let's be real: there is only one tournament to discuss) The morons at Bleacher Report have a top ten list which says if UCLA wins the rest of their regular season road and home games they can make the big dance. That brilliant analysis does not guarantee UCLA a trip to the dance but it sure would help. The RPI requires a win over Cal at home this week (RPI 49) and all the other games but a more realistic scenario is described by the usually very good Peter Yoon over at ESPN:
As far as the conference standings go, UCLA is currently in a tie for sixth place with Stanford and three games out of first with seven games to go. Chances of winning the Pac-12 title are slim with six teams standing between UCLA and the top spot so the Bruins will be looking to climb into the top four over the last month of the regular season in order to receive a coveted bye in the first round of the Pac-12 Conference tournament.
UCLA must get to at least fourth place to get a realistic shot at winning the Pac-12 tournament as that would qualify them for a first round bye. Of the teams behind UCLA, only Oregon State would even be a long shot to make some noise.
Putting them aside, Washington plays five of their next seven games on the road, closing the season out on national TV with UCLA. Washington has an impressive (well relatively) road win over Arizona and does not play at Cal and Stanford. Along with UCLA beating them, the Oregon schools would have to sweep them for them to get to five losses. I don't think Arizona can beat them at Washington. They will be tough to catch. Cal also plays 5 of the next 7 on the road including going to Colorado which has been very good at home but realistically has just two tough games at Colorado and at UCLA, so they will be tough to catch.
That is the rub, Colorado could get to six losses if they get swept by the Oregon schools and lose to Arizona on the road. That game against Cal is huge for if Cal wins over Colorado UCLA can go 6-2 and pass Colorado as UCLA wins the tie breaker with Colorado because of beating them head to head. Oregon is also a game in front of UCLA and has a sure loss to California on the road, a likely loss at OSU (which beat them at home) and a tough game against Washington at home. Under head coach Johnny Dawkins, Stanford is once again closing the season by tanking in the Pac-12 after a nice start (2009-10 started 4-3, finished 3-8, 2010-11 started 6-6, finished 1-5, this year started 5-1, since gone 1-4) and will be irrelevant.
So this means if UCLA goes 8-0 they can get the bye and maybe miraculously pull out a tie for first but even that is not certain. More likely Cal and Washington are battling for the top spot and UCLA is fighting Oregon and Arizona to get a first round bye in third or fourth place. If UCLA goes 7-1, they need that loss not to be against Arizona to have a shot at passing them. Oregon beat UCLA head to head (I think the tie breaker is head to head competition, as it was in the Pac-10 tournament) so to get ahead of them we have to be ahead in the loss column, which means Washington would have to win at Oregon, with Cal and Oregon State beating them at home. If Stanford can actually play another decent game against Oregon (who they upset the first time but see above ), then maybe we can sneak into fourth place at 6-2.
Confused? Don't worry this is just to have a slim chance to win the Pac-12 tournament and win it to get to the NCAA tournament. Bottom line: 9-0 chance (counting St. John's for this purpose) for the tourney out-right. In conference 7-1 and a good chance of a top seed for the Pac-12. 6-2 equates to a chance depending on who we lose to (not Arizona) or Oregon crumbling. Anything else, forget it. Nestor has more on our expectations for rest of this season (not predictions) on how we want the team to finish here.
Future: let's turn to Shabazz Muhammad for a minute.
The Bruins have been mentioned consistently as a leader in the race for the Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas) star's services over the past 12 months. But Ben Howland's team is struggling through a 13-10 season most notable for the departure of troubled forward Reeves Nelson and the success of UCLA transfers at other schools.
"Losing is a bad thing to do but UCLA is a good program and I like Ben Howland and coach (Phil) Mathews," Muhammad said. "They are still there and I'm still looking at them really hard."
Kentucky the school that values recruiting classes over championships is quick to point out not so fast on Shabazz but says something interesting on Tony Parker:
According BruinReportOnline.com (UCLA's Scout affiliate), sources have told them that Muhammad and Tony Parker have "indicated they are coming to UCLA."
UCLA was said to be the front-runner for Muhammad for awhile, but we at NationOfBlue have never bought into that talk. To be honest, Shabazz has no idea where he will be going. I'd say Kentucky is right at the top with UCLA and UNLV, but do not sleep on Duke. They are the team everyone is forgetting.
In short, I believes this "source" is wrong about Shabazz Muhammad. However, it could be correct with Parker.
I had a source with direct contact to the UCLA coaching staff tell me that the staff (mainly Ben Howland) is VERY confident they will get Parker.
Nation of Blue furthers their case by quoting Shabazz's father:
Like Kentucky, other schools are focused on Muhammad. At this point, the official list stands as the following: "Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Arizona, UNLV, and UCLA," in no specific order.
[Shabazz's dad Ron] Holmes said there is no clear-cut team that is paying the most attention to Shabazz at this time. Obviously, all six teams are giving it their all for the talented wing man. . .
Holmes responded to those rumors, as well as prior rumors:
"Well, apparently they haven't talked to Shabazz or myself about it yet. We haven't hinted at a leader or anything like that. And we are not leaning anywhere. A month ago, UNLV led; the month before that, Kentucky led; then, before that, UCLA was the leader, if you go by what people say. We haven't said anything about leaders."
What does this mean? That we are still in the running for Parker and Shabazz. More than that it is hard to say when talking about 18 year olds.
The past: when you think of all the struggles this year, you really got to wish that Wooden Award Top 25 list maker Mike Moser was still here. His presence alone would probably be enough in this sub-par Pac-12 as Moser leads UNLV in scoring, rebounding and steals. Moser talked about his time at UCLA (emphasis mine):
"It was a tough year," said Moser, who originally committed to Arizona and then de-committed when Wildcats coach Lute Olsen unexpectedly stepped down. "We started out losing a lot of games and Coach Howland really rode the seniors that year, because that was the group of guys that he knew and was comfortable playing with.
"I know Coach Howland was just doing what he felt was going to win games. But I know I wanted to win games, too."
For those who don't remember that was a decision to play senior Nikola Dragovic over Moser, even when UCLA was guaranteed a losing record, CBH kept riding Drago. I also think it is hard to say Drago helped UCLA win games. I wonder if he is doing the same "riding of the seniors" in playing Anderson and Jones so many minutes over Powell. I think Powell will be okay but if De'End Parker did not get hurt, I am not sure how many minutes there would have been for Powell. In any case, I still think Powell should play more and riding the seniors 35 and 36 minutes a game is going to make winning the Pac-12 tournament tough with three games in three days (if we get a top 4 seed). On Moser, Howland said:
"Yeah, I wanted him to stay," Howland said after UCLA played Oregon State in Corvallis two weeks ago. "But he was frustrated that he didn't play that much as a freshman, so ... you know, I wished him well.
"I thought he was going to get better if he had stayed with it, and he definitely would have helped us. Look at how well he's rebounding now. He's one of the best rebounders in the country. And I'm honestly happy for him."
So CBH, can you get us to the NCAA tournament, win a game or two, and get Shabazz? That would make UCLA fans honestly happy for this year. And more importantly help for next year.
Go Bruins.
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Signing day for Basketball Recruits
When do the the basketball recruits have to sign their LOI’s?
Per the NCAA
April 11th is the first day they can sign.
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/nli/nli
Putting it on my calendar now…not sure if I can really expect anything
About the Moser/ Dragovich situation
The easy thing to say is Moser should have gotten all of his minutes since the year was lost anyways. I don’t even think their minutes should have been associated at all since Drago played the 4, while Moser could not have played the 4 at the time. Keep in mind Moser was rail thin and even right now he’s a very undersized 4 and would get pushed around like a rag doll in the Pac 12. He has ‘bulked up’ to 195 according to ESPN player profile in two years since leaving Westwood!
The truth is that Moser is a little slow to play on the wing and he doesn’t really have a position. He rebounds incredibly well for his sleight frame and I would really like to have him on our team because he does certain things well. With that being said, I don’t think he would be putting up close to the numbers he is if he would have stayed. The players playing the 3 that year were Roll and Honeycutt. Roll was great his senior year and to give him less minutes would have been terrible. We went with youth in Honeycutt who at the time was playing good team basketball, and was much more of a slasher and passer then the shooter like he would later become. So to see him playing ahead of those two is not all that realistic. He would gotten a lot of run the next year and became a solid player IMO but chose to transfer instead.
The real shame is that we had no big men to play instead of Drago. Reeves started playing a lot of minutes at the 5, Keefe hurt his shoulder and wasn’t able to play for the majority of the year, Bobo well…he was Bobo, Lane was very unimpressive as well, and Stover redshirted.
The fact is that it’s not all Howland’s fault. One of his starting big men got hurt, and big men take a lot longer to develop then guard’s which spelled trouble considering we brought in 3 Forwards and 2 Centers.
That is lot of excuse making there
Dragovic was a terrible player on the court, who added nothing to our program. He never cared about playing defense. He was a terrible shooter and he embarrassed the program time and time again off the court. Yet Howland looked the other way.
Moser had the same body frame as LRMAM and he had all the tools to be a more athletic version of an LRMAM. We discussed that right here on BN. Howland could have gone with Moser at the 4 at extended mins and let him go from there. But he never gave him a genuine shot.
This is absolutely on Howland and it is absurd that we still apologists making pathetic excuses on this front.
I don't think much of Dragovic either
As bad as he was on the court, he was worse off the court like you said, and although his rebounding improved slightly, he was still a very underwhelming basketball player. He really regressed shooting was as a senior.
IMO Moser is a lot thinner then Luc was (according to UCLA website he was 230 as a junior) and although Moser is a slightly better athlete, I think that as a freshman he didn’t possess the strength to play the 4 and was considered a wing at the time. Rivals, Scout, and ESPN all listed Moser as a SF. In his eyes and Howland’s he was a SF. The big advantage Moser had, and still has over Luc is that he is much more skilled, which to me would indicate that he was more of a wing. I’m not discrediting Moser at all, I think he is a fine player, but at the time I don’t feel he wasn’t physically capable of playing the 4 and was behind Roll and Honeycutt in the pecking order. That was all I was trying to say, sorry if it came off differently.
LRMAM was listed as a guard when he got here
And yet desperation led Howland to play him at the 4. It doesn’t matter how one feels about Moser, anyone who watched UCLA games at the time knew Drago wasn’t getting it done and wasn’t the answer. Howland should have gone with Moser early on and kept Drago on the bench. It is unreal that people are still pathetically defending this decision to waste the season on Drago. It is borderline delusional.
The problem was
Roll was playing the 2 in the zone at the end with Lee at PG. Honeycutt was limited in how much he could practice because of back issues. And Drago was terrible in every facet including effort. In that context Moser deserved minutes and a chance. I don’t think that can be debated.
There may have been some reasons that Moser didn't start off at the 4
But Drago’s ongoing “play” at the 4 should have prompted Howland to try something else. Anything else.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
At the time....
I think there are a few different issues that get a little jumbled in the Moser/Dragovic discussion.
Where would Moser have played? The points michael brought up about the overall roster are very pertinent, but I think Moser could have been used at the 3 and the 4 positions along with Honeycutt and Dragovic. Nestor’s comparisons to LRMAM are valid.
Did he deserve more of a chance his freshman year? Regardless of who was more productive, there were definitely minutes for Moser that year. I think DC and Nestor in this thread have pointed that out well.
Would he have been more productive\better for the team than Dragovic at the time? The other way to ask this question is, “Who gave Howland a better chance to win at the time?” We’ll never know the answer to this question. If you look at the numbers we have from the year, it’s a skewed argument because Moser’s minutes were so limited. Drago played a lot of minutes and scored a fair amount of points, but his FG%, 3 pt% and assist-turnover ratio definitely left something to be desired. You can point to Moser’s athleticism and current success and say he would have been better, but he’s two years older now. Those that argue for playing Dragovic over Moser argue that experience and size gave Dragovic the edge. A pertinent question here is noted in another post about Moser-“Did Howland just go with Dragovic because he felt comfortable playing him?”, which begs the question, “Why did Howland play Dragovic so much?” I’m not sure anyone has an answer to this that isn’t based on speculation, but I could be wrong about that. I don’t know that Howland or anyone else has specifically commented on that. Again, my memory fails me on this one and if someone ever specifically addressed that, I apologize.
I don’t like the argument that the team was 14-18, so it couldn’t have hurt, because it’s retrospective. At what point to you give up on a season for the future? At what point during the season can you recognize, “this team will go 14-18, so I need to try something else?” Granted, I don’t think that playing for the present and playing for the future are mutually exclusive. I agree in retrospect that 14-18 playing Moser and keeping him is better than 14-18 playing Dragovic at the cost of Moser, but how can you predict that Moser playing 5 min/game will bolt the following year? Who’s to say that playing Moser early would not have been throwing him into the fire too early, destroying his confidence and giving us a 9-23 team instead of 14-18? I don’t think that would have happened, but my point is that the outcome of playing Moser more minutes as a freshman is speculation. He may have still even left the team, although a number of statements that he wanted more minutes would prove objective evidence otherwise. Again, my point is that you can’t say that if we did x, then y would have happened.
Playing Moser had no downside at some point
1. We finished 14-18, Moser could not have hurt that much.
2. Okay, early on, you should go for the win. But at some point it became obvious that the season was not going to be successful. (I said at the time it was after the second SUC game.) At this point, if not earlier why not play Moser more:
a. Drago effort was a problem, benching him would not hurt team morale or any such thing.
b. If Moser plays terrible, then Moser realizes, gee I was not ready. He does not transfer but works on his game. He realizes he was not screwed by CBH and comes back and contributes.
c. Moser plays well. We learned we have a good player for the next few years that really helps. Moser comes back and plays a big role in his sophomore year.
Moser left because he did not think he would get a chance and if you did not get a chance in 2009-10, when would you?
2010-11
That makes sense. Initially when I thought about Dragovic/Moser, I looked at the overall season as a whole (looking at the statistics on the season). I still think it’s difficult prospectively to experiment-knowing when to realize that there might be something better than what you are doing (zone, personnel)-and go against what you feel gives you the best shot of winning a game. That falls on the coach, though, which is the point that recurs here in these discussions.
Moser didn’t get a chance in 2009-10, but I think he would have been given a chance in 2010-11, and 2011-12 is his year. Drago, Roll, and Keefe are gone in 10-11. The following year, Honeycutt and Lee leave. Starting five: Nelson, Lee, Smith, Honeycutt, Jones. Anderson, Lane, and Lamb off the bench. Moser had a chance to take minutes given to Lane and Lamb. The following year, Lee and Honeycutt are gone. Again, though, this is all retrospective. There’s no way Moser can look ahead and know that he isn’t going to spend the next three years on the bench behind Honeycutt and Nelson/Lane. The more I think about it, the more I like Htse005’s point below about dwelling on what ifs.
There's enough for him to see
When he sees his coach playing favorites and sees that the program is not a meritocracy. We don’t have to dwell on what-ifs when we were the ones calling for this to happen as it was taking place.
No, we can't, given the dismal performance of Howland's team
The basketball culture these day makes it difficult for kids to sign with struggling programs. Then one & done sanctions early departure for capable ones. Those stubborn issues miring UCLA, well chronicled on BN, forestall any escape hatch even if we find a way to overcome the first problem and cope well with the second.
At this stage, I am not even sure I care if so and so comes, so and so doesn’t come. He is who he is. How he handles all these players coming in, should we luck out, might still pose problems much like the last few years.
Drago was a malignancy in our program because Howland nurtured it. We can discuss it ad nauseum. It still wouldn’t change the fact that he did. And we can’t call back all these transfers either. I don’t dwell on all these what ifs, Monday morning quarterbacking stuffs. I just hope the honorable Mr. Dan Guerrero will leave for some bureaucrat opening with NCAA soon so that we can fix UCLA’s moribund image in both football & basketball from the top.
So would this...
warrant another year for Howland?
If he can get into the tournament -- sure
If he gets into the tourney this year he can get reprieve from being a lame duck coach. But he will expected to close at least w Shabbaz and then next year put together a wire to write top-5/10 season which will include running away with the Pac-12 regular season title, protected seed in the West, and deep run in the Dance.
+1
I agree that if he can accomplish all that, he should be offered the opportunity to continue. That’s asking a lot for someone with his recent record of disappointment.
He's Coming Back So Let's Talk About Expectations For Next Year
Forget IF he deserves to come back because he is coming back. .Pauley is re-opening, and he already has a couple top recruits and may land a few more. He has been the face of the program for a decade and led the team to three Final Fours. Even if our current AD wasn’t here, they wouldn’t risk that kind of upheaval and lackluster transition year (unless they had one of the very few marquee names come in like Coach K) when re-opening our home court.
I bring this up because I think a lot of time is being wasted on something that will not happen. So, the discussion should be on what needs to happen by the end of next season. Coach Howland is on the clock to have us as a top tier team in both the Pac 12 and NCAA tourney next year. If he has not sorted out all the issues that continue to plague him, then it should be made clear that it will be time to go in another direction. (Coach Howland should be publicly setting this standard for himself).
In the meantime, the pressure should be on the athletic department to change its focus, its attitude, and, if necessary (which most already agree should happen) its personnel.
I don’t disagree with any criticism of Coach Howland. (I will add my name to those who have loved him, but are finding it hard to defend him anymore). The expected standards should be constantly stated, and the pressure should not let up.
NOW PLAY STOVER & POWELL MORE!!!
by rocket rod forever on Feb 7, 2012 8:41 PM PST reply actions
I seriously doubt Pauley is reopening next season
have you heard of any construction project that completes in the time originally projected?
Plus if DG is involved at any point in any way, it’ll likely get delayed further to install some random feature that won’t contribute to the success of the arena.
If you read our posts carefully
our priority is to get rid of Chianti Dan first. We don’t want him to hire the next coach.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Understood...
…but there’s a lot of discussion about whether Coach Howland should come back next year, and I think it’s great for talking arguing around the cooler, but that’s all.
by rocket rod forever on Feb 7, 2012 9:49 PM PST up reply actions
Two different points
1. Should he come back? If he doesn’t make the tourney this year, it’s hard to argue that the performance of the last 4 years is good enough by UCLA standards. That point needs to be made.
2. Do we want Chianti Dan to make the next hire? Hell no.
It’s a bit of a dilemma, but the irony is that Chianti Dan’s incompetence is essentially buying Howland some time, at least in our eyes.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
WOW
I can’t believe people are still making excuses for CBH. He’s proven for the last 4 years that he doesn’t have what it takes to make UCLA a basketball powerhouse again. His stubbornness and favoritism has ran this program into the ground. I lost mind watching the 09 season and seeing Drago contributing absolutely nothing to the team but getting major minutes.I’ve never seen a coach so stubborn to the point he has no problem playing players that are sucking it up on the court, even if it means losing the game, he’s going to play those players because he likes them the most. Regardless of what kind of recruiting class we get next year, I don’t CBH to coach them. He 100% to blame for the failure of this program and needs to be FIRED soon. People that are making excuses for him need to realize those Final 4 days are over with and they aren’t coming back. He didn’t win a championship, so I don’t understand why people are still being so loyal to him
" xxxxx's incompetence is essentially buying Howland some time ..."
That is precisely the dilemma for us to think, with near consensus now, that Howland has lost his way and needs to go.
The reservoir of goodwill & admiration stemming from those Final Four seasons has long since depleted.
Fresh45, you basically restated my premise from a different angle but my goodness, just delete Drago from memory please. Those games with him in there still haunted me like a tragic story gone crazy, even. I hope the guy never comes back to United States because he is persona non grata for what he did.
This is how strongly I feel about this individual.
Parker and Shabbaz...
Hard to figure what their priorities are, which will be, of course, the keys to their choice of schools.
UCLA may have an advantage if two of their top priorities are…
1) Possible playing time as a freshman, well, wait a minute, would Shabbaz have difficulty getting playing time anywhere but the NBA. So, I guess this priority would only apply to Parker.
2) Playing in a brand new (looking) Pauley Pavilion. The bling as it were of playing in the newest of arenas.
Hey, they’re what 17 right now? Maybe?
a) check, b) check...
c) well, if Parker comes along…
If they are in that order, we have a great chance.
I still think a new Pauley may have some sway.
You could be right
Actually, I think an in shape Josh would help more than Parker. Just my opinion.
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