Ben Ball News & Notes

by Nestor on Mar 19, 2008 4:42 AM PDT in Basketball Comment 15 comments

Let’s start once again with the update on the conditions of LRMAM and KL. From the Daily News:

UCLA starting power forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute did not practice Tuesday, but not because of his sprained left ankle. He was absent because of a final, but did some light shooting later in the afternoon.

However, UCLA coach Ben Howland was uncertain if Mbah a Moute will be available when the top-seeded Bruins open NCAA Tournament play Thursday against No.16 seed Mississippi Valley State in the West region in Anaheim.

"He missed practice, but he wouldn't have practiced anyway," Howland said. "If he's able to go, we'll play him on Thursday."

Mbah a Moute was injured Friday against USC in the semifinals of the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament, and did not play against Stanford.

"Luc is downstairs (in Pauley Pavilion), trying to move around a little bit," Howland said. "He's doing a little light shooting."

Howland said center Kevin Love (back strain) practiced and is expected to play Thursday.

More from Coach Howland on the same topic in What’s Bruin:

"Luc [Richard Mbah A Moute] had a final today during our practice time," Howland said, "so Luc is now downstairs trying to move around a little bit, doing a little light shooting, so I don’t have a report on him. I assume that if he’s able to do some light shooting, he’s probably not still in the walking boot, but I don’t even know. If he’s able to go, we’ll play him on Thursday.

"Kevin [Love] practiced today and seemed to be in pretty good spirits. He might have been a little sore, but he was able to practice. They’re still doing some ice for [his back], stretching and that type of thing."

If LRMAM cannot go on Thursday night, once again it will be up to JK to step up. Robert Kuwada from the OC Register has a profile on the hometown kid on how he did just that – stepping up – this past weekend at Staples to fill in for LRMAM:

"I thought James was terrific," Howland said.

Coming back in the semifinal against the Trojans, Keefe said, was not difficult given the circumstances.

"The team was relying on me, we were in the Pac-10 Tournament, and playing against 'SC, which we couldn't lose to. … That's a must-win," he said, expressing sentiments any Bruin could understand. […]

"It helped me get a little flow," he said, of the Pac-10 Tournament. "It was an opportunity for me to come in and hopefully that will carry over to the tournament, when I get my minutes, I can build on it instead of take a step down.

"It's tough to get in the flow when you're playing small portions at a time. I knew I could, it was just a matter of getting in there. This weekend, when I was able to play a lot of minutes at a time, it helped me just get more comfortable with where I was."

Nothing, Mbah a Moute said, has to change.

"He understands the game. He's such a good facilitator when we're on offense, and he's a good outside shooter, too," Mbah a Moute said. "On defense, he's done a good job learning how to defend, and I think he's come way far to being a really good defender now. And I think coach has a lot of confidence in him."

While JK got some love from his home town paper, Dohn has another profile of 'the Big Fundamental'.

Hopefully JK, KL and their team-mates will stay in the flow tomorrow night. He and his team-mates have been mentally preparing for the Delta Devils last two days. Coach Howland on the team’s defensive preparation for Thursday night’s game:

Howland also noted that after not practicing on Sunday and Monday, preparations have started for the NCAA Tournament. "We did a lot of mental stuff to prepare for Mississippi Valley State; from a defensive standpoint, we did a lot of things," he said.

"They’re primarily a man-to-man defensive team; offensively, they’ll push it, but if it’s not there, they’ll be very patient. They’ve got a good big kid inside in [Larry] Cox: He can shoot the ball around the basket; he’s 6-10, he’s long, he’s athletic. They’ve got older guys — juniors and seniors for the most part — who play major minutes. They have good guard play; they have a kid named [Carl] Lucas who’s very good; a kid named [Stanford] Speech who’s a good player. They have two little point guards, one’s 5-10 [Dwayne Harmison] and one’s 5-8 [Mike Davis]; they can both handle it. They actually have a lot of guys who can score. They can go small when they don’t have [Cox] in, and Eric Petty will move to their 5 [center]. I like the kid [Michael] Clark; he’s a good player."

Our guys will need to be more focused than ever. I am getting this vibe from Diane Pucin that she is just waiting for a UCLA stumble to pounce all over our program. Today she has an article on all the 16 seeds who have come close to beating 1 seed, with a picture of Pete Carill(who all of us are familiar with) to go along. Its almost as if Pucin is going out of her way and doing everything she can to jinx our program. Anyway, thankfully we have Coach Howland in charge, who I am sure will do everything he can to get our guys in the right frame of mind heading into tomorrow night’s game and not pay any attention to that kind of garbage coming out of local papers.

Lastly, if anyone was wondering Gus Johnson and Len Elmore will not be at Anaheim announcing our games tomorrow night. Per the bloggers at Awful Announcing, who keep track of this sort of things, Gus and Len will be in Denver, while we will get the combination of Dick Enberg/Carter Blackburn and Jay Bilas. Works for me. Who knows may be we will get to hear "Raindrops" during the half time. Just like the original glory days of UCLA basketball (some of us didn’t get to experience).

GO BRUINS.

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Picture of Pete

The picture is actually of Pete Carill. You are absolutely right that this is extremely annoying bias. As much as we get hammered with this, it is still aggravating. They could have had a picture of the coach who has taken his team to 2 straight final 4's, and is gunning for a 3rd (unlike Billy Donovan's crash and burn this year), but instead they chose to show somebody whose last game as head coach was over 10 years ago.

Unrelated comment- I found it interesting and refreshing that LRMAM missed practice because of a final. We wouldn't see that across town.

by islandbruin on Mar 19, 2008 7:01 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeap

I was thinking of Princeton Pete when I was typing it this am (hence the reference to being familiar due the nightmare of 96) but somehow I still ended up typing Pom Pom's name. My bad.

by Nestor on Mar 19, 2008 5:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice

Looks like we'll have Luc much much before too long. Great development.

islandbruin, good point about Luc.

Go UCLA!!!

by Rich1996UCLA on Mar 19, 2008 7:57 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

A Different View

I really didn't find Diane Pucin's piece to be at all objectionable. It's just a historical review of 1-16 matchups, with focus on the handful of occasions on which top seeds had close first-round games. That strikes me as an appropriate topic, given that the premier local team is a #1 seed, about to play a #16 seed.

And it closes by noting that Coach Howland is likely reminding his team of those close calls. This is almost certainly a true statement, and in fact, I'd be shocked if it weren't.

by Dexter Fishmore on Mar 19, 2008 8:41 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Ask yourself this

Would this piece be written if [don't laugh - this is a huge stretch of the imagination] U$C had a #1 seed? Have you ever seen a piece like this when U$C prepares for a football game against a lowly opponent?

On the surface, it may not be an attempt at a jinx. But is this really the only thing she can write about when UCLA has a legitimate chance to win it all for the first time in 13 years?

Coach Howland will have the boys ready. Saturday, IMO, will be our biggest obstacle in the tournament...

by tasser10 on Mar 19, 2008 12:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Finals?

Missing practice to take a final - how many other programs would have it the other way around?

by mizzou on Mar 19, 2008 9:36 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Announcers

Enberg stinks as an announcer. He used to be the best but that was a long time ago. And putting the arrogant Bilas with him doesn't help.

by mizzou on Mar 19, 2008 9:45 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yea

but at least Bilas with give us a little love...as apposed to most of the national commentating this year that sounds like "ah shucks, ucla puts it in"

O.A.

by Ollie on Mar 19, 2008 10:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

impressed

i don't know, i constantly find myself impressed with the way coach howland is able to speak about a team around tourney time (anytime actually) so deeply. i didn't know miss valley state existed til this week, and barring stats sites, i wouldn't know how and where to start to develop a proper scouting report on such an unknown, small team. it's gotta be a testament to howland's staff and their preparedness. he's speaking of the devils' players and their tendencies like he sees them regularly in the pac-10.

by deepdish on Mar 19, 2008 10:15 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Fellow Bruins, stop and smell the roses...

Just think, after the Big Dance (hopefully resulting in banner 12) then we will have football to look forward to. I mean, real legitimate football. Does it get any better?

Whereas in recent years, after March Madness, the only thing remaining would be Dorrell ineptness.

These are glorious Bruin times.

by bluegold on Mar 19, 2008 11:19 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Roses!

Hopefully smelling the roses a week into winter!

by kidro2001 on Mar 19, 2008 4:58 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Great Update

How rewarding it is to have a great coach who prepares this well for each game, and a great player who misses a practice during this week in particular to take a final exam.

I just hope Luc takes the time to heal sufficiently and doesn't push it too fast. He is so valuable--if it turns out that they really don't need him in this first game--making absolutley no assumptions, of course--I'd hope that he'd be patient with his ankle and wait through this one.

That being said, I have a great deal of faith in the judgment of this team's excellent trainers and medical staff. They obviously took great care of DC earlier this season.

Love My Bruins

by Bruingirl83 on Mar 19, 2008 12:19 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

In Case Anybody Cares:

Brian Dohn was part of ESPN's Bracket chat today. I didn't catch it live, but he started about 2:40 P.M. EST.

If you want to see it, go to ESPN's Men's Basketball page, and look for the "Chat: Filling Out the Bracket" link. Dohn's posts are posted at 2:40 P.M. EST.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=19750

Summary: Dohn has us to the final four, doesn't like Oregon or Arizona, and thinks USC will lose to Kansas St. in the first round even though USC has the "best starting five in the West."

by rfirpo on Mar 19, 2008 1:30 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

The Best Starting 5 in the West?

They have some very good players but

which of them is better than KL?

Does he really think Hacket and Mayo are better than RW and DC?

I can see arguments on Luc and JS -- I think our guys are better but don't know the stat's.

Didn't he watch last week's game. Does he think Mayo's 6 for 16 and 1 for 5 is great?

I'm not denigrating the sc players. I think they are very good.

But, really, the best starting 5 in the west?

What empirical data did he use to support that statement?

Does he think we would lose to K State?

WTF is wrong with this guy? And, why is he reporting on our school -- if you call that reporting.

sjh

by Class of 66 on Mar 19, 2008 5:44 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Brian Dohn

is positioning himself to become the U$C beat reporter. UCLA definitely doesn't supplement his current salary, but getting on the U$C payroll would probably do wonders for his bank account.

by tasser10 on Mar 20, 2008 8:21 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs