Friday before XMas. Trying to tie up a lot of loose ends. We have another bastketball game tonight against a small that that will be really fired up to play us. Guys over at UBB has a preview. Let's hope they come out ready because sounds like this could be yet another scary game:
I've been a Sac State season ticket holder for a couple of years so I feel I can give a pretty good scouting report. They are an athletic, guard heavy, perimeter oriented squad. They're soft in the middle with no one taller than 6' 8". They're deep as they'll use 10 players. They'll press full court and break as much as possible. They take a ton of 3-pointers often times without regard to shot clock or game situation. They play hard but sometimes lose focus on defense, which is a mixture of man and zone. The 2 main players are SR point Deshawn Freeman, and SR guard Jason Harris. Harris is the best player but Freeman is the glue guy. Harris is an athletic slasher who hoists up too many 3's. Freeman is very quick and can get to the rim when he wants. He's a streaky 3-point shooter. He's a good on ball defender who gets a lot of steals. UCLA should win but Sac State only lost by 8 at Nevada.
At this point there may not be much left in the tanks of Jordan and AA (this will be what our 3rd game in 7 days?). But I think Howland will find a way to get the team together and pull out a win. By the way read a really interesting post on our sceheduling under Howland:
While many accuse Howland of scheduling cupcakes, and that is true to some extent, maybe Howland has some other motive in mind. Notice how many of those teams are from the east coast. Now I know, the average NY recruit doesn't follow those teams, but is there some way in which playing these teams gives us a little more East Coast exposure? I might be stretching here, but I was just wondering, because not only have we broken from a somewhat tougher schedule, we have also broken from playing a lot of the smaller SoCal schools. There is something else going on here. What motivates it? Does Howland just know these guys from scheduling at Pitt? Does he not want to give SoCal teams a chance to crow over beating the giant in their own backyard?
I think it probably has lot to do with Howland's experience as a Big East basketball coach. Playing lot of these East Coast teams does get UCLA on the radar out here on the I-95 corridor in the Eastern seaboard. It's a good thing. And, personally I think it's more interesting to see UCLA taking on teams like Wagner than playing the Cal State Fullerton and Northridges of the world. Plus, it's not like we are playing a cupcake schedule. We are actually playing a very decent set of teams (so far a top-20 SOS), helping to push our RPI up to No. 4. So its all good in my book. Lastly, a quick Josh Shipp update from the DN - the kid apparently took 200 jumpshots at full speed in practice. Can't wait to see his debut against Stanford. GO BRUINS