Hoop Notes ...

I stopped by Pauley today (door was a little bit open) and watched some of the players hard at work on their games with one of the assistant coaches. Ryan Wright, Lorenzo Mata, and alfred Aboya were doing low post offense and defense drills with the asst coach, and Mata was showing some pretty nice moves. Ryan Wright was very frustrated with Mata spun baseline and made a nice left hand hook on him and slammed the ball into the ground. Aboya stayed after for a while to practice his free throw shooting alone.

What's more impressive is on the side court I saw Farmar, Shipp, and Luc shooting around by themselves, and Farmar was actually doing a bit of coaching on Luc's shot. Luc kept putting up 15-footers and after his release his left hand would immediately come down, which is very bad shot form. Farmar kept getting on him about keeping that hand up and following through on his shot, and even had Luc practice some shooting techniques on the spot (shooting from a laying down position on the ground, other things). I was very impressed that Farmar wasn't in the gym solely to work on his own game in preppin for the draft, but really helping Luc become a better shooter.

I think we're going to see a VERY improved LRMAM, Mata and Ryan Wright next year, among others.