ESPN picked us as college basketball "team of the week", whatever that means.

Also, Pat Forde has Jordan Farmar as Pac-10 freshman of the year.

cbs sportsline has us as one of four Pac-10 teams to get in.

SI has us still on the bubble, but a 9-seed for now. interestingly, we are seeded higher than Stanford in this projection.

ESPN also has us as a 9-seed, slated to play Texas and then UNC in Charlotte. Stanford is an 8-seed here, matched up with Notre Dame of all teams. Quick aside: Is there really any value in projecting the exact matchups for all 64 teams two weeks before the tourney begins? are ANY of these going to be correct?t

Wow, i've seen some of the web traffic numbers for this site, and i guess there is a decent number of people actually reading this blog. Of course, I shouldn't be too surprised as it seems like this year's team is starting to attract (or perhaps re-attract) fans to the UCLA hoops program. Anyway, if you do believe this site has some value, you can support it by simply clicking on any of the Google ads on the page (it won't cost you anything). i certainly would appreciate it.

also, i added a list of recommended books and videos on the right side of the page. if you happen to click on any of them and then go on to make the purchase, that supports the site as well. but if something interests you and you'd rather not spend any cash, i strongly suggest just making a trip to your local library, as i believe most of the items are widely available.

A little extra exposure after our win yesterday. The article discusses John Wooden, Ben Howland, and our freshman backcourt. A different section of the article also mentions Washington as a national title contender; i guess this isn't a typical east coast-centric point of view that we've come to expect.

A quick reminder: if you need to register to read the article (or any article) and you're too lazy to fill out all of the information, use BugMeNot to get an ID and password.

for all the reasons previously mentioned. winning is always easier when you shoot well from long distance, but our 14-23 3-pt shooting came mostly on very good looks. we also played very good defense, as ND never figured out how to deal with us doubling quickly in the post. and afflalo's d on chris thomas was excellent, although farmar's d is still a liability. our handling of the full-court press was sketchy at best, mainly due to very lackadaisical passes. a few other thoughts, first about the perception of our tourney chances, and then about the game:

before the game, pretty much every talking head (digger phelps, billy packer, seth davis, to name a few) was saying the Pac-10 would only get 3 teams in the tourney. only jay bilas came close to making sense, saying that teams, not conferences, get tourney spots, and he said the pac-10 could have 2 teams that make it, or it could have 4. even after the game, one of the knuckleheads at espnews said this win MIGHT be enough to get the bruins into the tourney.

one thing i noticed that kept getting shown when addressing our tourney credentials is that our record against the top 50 rpi is 1-7. now i'm pretty sure the selection committee doesn't pay much attention to this, as the top 50 is just an arbitrary cut-off, and it isn't accurate for some teams, especially us. why? because out of our eight games against the top 50, five of them are against the top TEN. also, we happen to be 3-0 against teams 51-60, so if the arbitrary cutoff happened to be 60 instead of 50, our record jumps to 4-7 instead of 1-7 (these RPI numbers are from Ken Pomeroy).

regardless of all the talk, our tourney chances are clearly very good. if we win two out of our next three games, i'm pretty sure we're in. and there's a good chance we win all three of them if we keep playing well.

as far as today's game goes, i'm not sure what other accolades i can give to dijon thompson. i'm watching the game, and i'm thinking to myself, my gosh, he's having a really off day. but then you look at the final stat sheet, and he ended up with 16 points, 10 boards and 4 assists. plus he did a great job of doubling in the post. so even though he shot miserably (4-15 from the field and 5-11 from the charity stripe), he still was productive.

it is so obvious how much Mike Fey could help this team. bill raftery noticed it after just one half of basketball. our perimeter play is very good, we just need a physical presence in the middle. someone who can demand attention on offense and keep people away from the hoop on defense. and the only one who has the size to do it is fey. i give him a hard time because of this, and it can be so very frustrating to watch him play, but i must admit he was fairly effective today. 5 of 10 from the field with 9 boards, and he played good d. but still no free throw attempts. he just is not real comfortable with contact, which is really a shame.

was it just me, or did all of brian morrison's ill-advised shots go in, and all of his wide open looks miss? oh, and he provided the funniest thing i've seen on a basketball court in quite some time - raftery was talking pretty seriously about the john chaney situation but then in mid-sentence, he just blurts out with "oh my goodness" when morrison tried that crazy breakaway dunk. it was hillarious (well, you probably had to see/hear it).

anyway, if we keep playing well, it is conceivable that we enter the second round of the pac-10 tourney on a 5-game winning streak. but before we look that far ahead, i hope we come out ready to play against oregon state on thursday. and it was great to see Josh Shipp able to play today, let's hope his ankle gets even better during the week.

BRO has a nice preview of the Irish today. Interestingly, the article says the Pac-10 team that the Irish is most like is Stanford (which of course is not a great sign). I'm not sure the Irish execute offensively as well as Stanford, but still, the comparison is instructive because the things we needed to do against Stanford are the pretty much the same things we need to do against ND. First, containing a point guard named Chris will be a priority. By containing I mean not only "holding" him to less than 37 points, but mainly stopping him from penetrating. We have to keep him from breaking down our d by himself, either setting up others or scoring himself. and i happen to think we match up fairly well with Thomas, so hopefully we can get this done. Next, also on defense, we need to keep their big men from catching the ball right under the basket. we have to force them away from the hoop before they get the ball.

On offense, it's the same as pretty much every game: we need to get some offense from inside, either from our post players or from dribble penetration. shooting 3s is fine, but we can't just pass the ball around the perimeter and start hoisting up shots - we need some inside-out action. and of course we need to take advantage of the inevitable mismatch with whoever is guarding Dijon Thompson.

anyway, i'm pretty excited about the game today. maybe because over the past few years, these high profile games meant one of two things:
1) getting spanked and embarrassed in front of the whole country, or
2) winning and extending Steve Lavin's coaching tenure just that much longer.

if you're interested, more game previews: LA Times, Daily News, Press-Enterprise.

Go Bruins!

this potentially would be a significant loss for the Bruins, as Shipp is their do-everything guy. he is the second-leading rebounder, gets to loose balls, plays solid team d, and basically does all the unnoticed little things that it takes to win. hopefully he will be able to not only play, but be effective.

OC Register
Daily News
LA Times

as we get closer to the game, a few previews are popping up. The Notre Dame paper has their perspective, and there also is the official UCLA preview.

The major themes of this game, of course, are the significant history of this matchup and the fact that both teams are presently fighting for NCAA tourney berths. frankly, i have not seen Notre Dame play very much this year, but i do know this much: they killed us last year at Pauley. Pretty much all you need to know is Ryan Hollins was our leading scorer with 13 points. if you have a strong stomach, you can check out the recap and box score of last year's matchup.

As far as what this game means to the Bruins, the upside of winning cannot be overstated. it would give us a high-profile road win, over a respected Big East opponent, in front of a national audience, that would make it quite possible for us to reach 18 wins before the Pac-10 tourney. All of these things will not only help us make the NCAA tournament this year, but also give us a hand with recruiting in the future.

ESPN.com has an article on Lute Olson reaching 304 Pac-10 wins to tie Coach Wooden. And of course, while not trying to overly diminish Wooden's accomplishments, the piece highlights how difficult it is to win today versus Wooden's era. Overall, I have no problem with the story. However, one issue that i do have is that it refers to a separate article in the Arizona Daily Star to give us one specific fact to show how weak Wooden's conference competition was:

Using the Associated Press poll, 1955 to 1970, as astonishing as it seems, UCLA did not play a conference game against a ranked opponent. That is across 15 seasons.

Ummm, Cal won the national title in 1959 under Pete Newell and was runner up in 1960 - the AZ Daily Star even mentions this - and yes, Cal was nationally ranked when they played UCLA in both seasons. And USC was ranked in the top ten during 1961, finishing the year at #7. You can see UCLA's game-by-game history in this pdf file, which also gives the ranking of each UCLA's opponent at the time the game was played. You also can see the final AP top-twenty polls at the infoplease.com college basketball season recaps. And if you're wondering just who was in UCLA's conference over the years, you can check out historical standings of the Pac-10 (fka PCC, AAWU, Pac-8).

Now in the big scheme of things, whether Olson's 304 wins are better or worse than John Wooden's is a stupid argument to have, as we all know how Wooden's teams did once they played against the best competition the entire country had to offer. but if you're going to try and have that argument, at least get the facts right.

if you've been following the bruins the last few weeks, you probably know about our weekend struggles, as they are beginning to get plenty of attention. the evidence is that we are now 5-1 in our last 6 thursday games, but 0-5 in weekend games following a thursday game. The proposed causes of this trend include fatigue and being too young to come back with intensity so soon after a good thursday performance. Perhaps this second theory has some merit, but let's look at the games a little closer. the 0-5 stretch includes two losses to arizona, one at Washington, one at Stanford, and a home game versus cal. Clearly the Cal game is a huge red flag, but that was over a month ago. Those other losses were all against teams higher than us in the standings, with only one game being at Pauley, so losing those games isn't that surprising. i think what is a bit of a concern, however, is that we haven't even been close in our most recent losses.

on the other hand, perhaps the trend we should be looking at is our recent Thursday wins. our last three have been by 21, 15, and 19 points. yes our opponents in those games were nothing special, but we were struggling to beat those types of teams early in the year. overall, we most certainly are improving, and there is no doubt that these tremendous performances make our poor showings in the weekend games even more noticeable. what we need to do now is take the next step and put together 40 minutes of solid basketball on the road against a quality opponent. we need to avoid the devastating 19-0 types of runs against us that we've been experiencing. if our perimeter jumpers are not falling, we need to figure out other ways to score. whether accomplishing this will translate to a win on Sunday, I don't know. but it would be nice for us to at least give ourselves a chance to win in the final minutes. more on the notre dame game to follow.

The Orlando Sentinel takes a look at Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. He's described as a 6'7" senior shooting guard. is that right? did he really play shooting guard in high school at 6'7"? i'd hate to see their front line. anyway, he's only been playing basketball for 4 years, and he averaged a 18.4 points per game (team-high), 7.3 rebounds, two assists, two steals and one blocked shot per game. and get this - he's a prince! He left his village in Cameroon to come to America. hmmm, I wonder if here in the states he ever worked at McDowell's, selling Big Mics under the Golden Arcs :). if you don't know what i'm talking about, you need to see this movie.

This is a few months old, but it's a pretty good piece on what Ed has been doing since leaving the NBA.

Las Vegas SUN Sports: Preps: The GIFT

how many people get to be a head coach in the nba? very few. how many people get to be a general manager in the nba? also very few. how many people get to be both a head coach and a gm in the nba? even fewer. how many people get to be both a head coach and a gm in the nba and are inept at both positions? only one, as far as I can tell: Isaiah Thomas. after "leading" a talent-laden indiana team to first-round exits in the playoffs, his specialty now is spending lots of money for lots of losses in New York. His team has the highest payroll in the league and is in last place in its division. so what does he do? add $30 million to his team's payroll to acquire maurice taylor and malik rose plus two late first round draft picks. unbelievable.

so what does this have to do with the bruins? nothing i suppose. well, i guess you could say that Isaiah did nothing to help Reggie Miller's chances of winning a title, and now a good portion of Trevor Ariza's future will be in Isaiah's hands.

and oh yeah, he was pretty terrible as a tv analyst as well. despite all of this, i'll never forget his one-legged performance in the 3rd quarter of game 6 against the lakers in 1988. and the guy had some nice dunks too, back when he was at indiana and his first few years in the nba.

and Jordan Farmar was named to the second team. This means that both are among 150 players now eligible for All-American honors. I'm not too familiar with these districts, but it appears ours includes SoCal, Arizona, and Nevada. you can see all of the All-District teams here. it looks like district 14 includes the rest of the Pac-10. Based on Farmar's inclusion, and the exclusion of others, i believe this bodes well for Farmar's chance of winning Pac-10 freshman of the year.

Yesterday's LA Times had a story from Diane Pucin about whether Pauley needs some renovation. Ed O'Bannon is among those giving an opinion. In the article, the main pro argument for renovation/rebuilding is that it will help with recruiting, while the main argument against is nostalgia and the mystique of the building. I don't think there's any doubt that some type of modification will take place: too many other schools (Cal, Stanford, Washington, for example) are updating their facilities, and we will need to keep up. Add that to the fact that we should be able to increase revenues with a newly designed arena, and there's no way of stopping it. neither 17-year basketball players nor corporate sponsors are overly concerned with the tradition of ucla. as it is now, i barely recognize the inside of Pauley compared to when i was a student because there are now ads EVERYWHERE. So Dan Guerrero, since I know you're reading this :), do what you have to do, but two requests:

1) please allocate a substantial amount of the floor seating to the student section, and
2) for goodness sake, don't sell the naming rights to some publicity-hungry corporation (I can see it now: Mann Theaters Arena at Pauley Pavillion, or Nell and John Wooden Court presented by Noodle Planet)

I forgot to mention last night that by winning, UCLA has swept the season series against USC for the first time in four years, definitely a significant development. Also of note, Arron Afflalo set a career high with 22 points. Actually, almost all the bruins had great stats because the Trojans were so terrible.

I also noticed a few quotes in the papers, perhaps most entertaining is Mike Fey's comments about all of the dunks the bruins got (from the OC Register):

"We all got caught up in it. Everybody was dunking. We must have had eight or something. It was like a highlight reel going on."

Actually, Mike, it would have been nine if you hadn't come up short on one of your dunk attempts. :)

Interestingly, the UCLA-USC report in the LA Times notes how the Trojans might have been affected by the ruckus atomosphere in Pauley. i can't remember any opponent mentioning that after a game. of course, these are the trojans, who probably have bigger crowds at their old high school games than at the sports arena.

One other thing: last night i mentioned how much Jeff McMillan was sweating. If you look at this AP picture from Chris Pizzello, you might be able to tell how McMillan's uniform is a couple shades darker than O'Neil's on the right. You have to take my word for it: McMillan looked like someone had just pushed him into a pool.



Here are the rest of the recaps:
M. hoops: USC defense unable to keep up
Slamming good time
Time to become weekend warriors
An easy deuce for Bruins
Thoroughly swept
Bruins Look Like Hotshots
UCLA dominates

i've been contacted by a fighting irish blogger in south bend who's planning to attend the game on sunday. if you happen to like creative displays of humor at the expense of dookies, then the first thing you need to do is check out the picture he posted today.

Also, we've agreed to exchange scouting reports on the game, so check back at his site and mine as we get closer to the game.

don't get me wrong, we played well, but we can't expect every game to be like this one. Cal really should be embarrassed for losing to this team.

A few random thoughts:

before the game started, the tv broadcast had Sean Farnham talking about the UCLA-USC rivalry. and then what followed? Sean Farnham game highlights!! There were two - of course, one was just a pass (the other was a layup). ahhh, what a career! i'm sure some poor member of the FSN staff had to work overtime to dig up those clips.

"always leave them wanting more": i think this is Mike Fey's motto. He plays solid for most of the game, and just when you expect him to produce like a typical 7-footer, he goes and misses a dunk. at least he got the rebound and made the basket, but geez.

was it just my imagination, or was Jeff McMillan's ENTIRE uniform drenched with sweat about 30 seconds after the opening tip?

Jim Saia is definitely a branch on the Steve Lavin tree of coaching. not just the familiar matchup zone and 1-4 offense, but also the poor execution, lack of ball movement, horrendous defensive rotations, and the inability to compete once falling down by 15 points or so. The defense away from the ball was especially appalling; here's a coaching hint: if you are on defense and the man you are guarding sets a screen on one of your teammates, you need to at least consider keeping an eye on the man your teammate was guarding, otherwise he will waltz straight to the basket, receive a pass, and get an easy layup. and it won't just happen once - it will happen over and over and over and over and...

so has ryan hollins been called for goaltending at least once in each game this year? at first i thought it was okay, just him being aggressive. but now it's ridiculous, as he's just giving away two points on shots that have no chance of going into the basket.

anyhow, a worry-free win by this bruin team is something to treasure, even if it was "just $C". so i shouldn't complain about the game tonight. check out the ap recap and box score.

oh, and Stanford lost tonite, so we are still mathematically alive for a 3rd place finish in the conference. if they lose this weekend, we will have the same conference record as they do (of course, they have the tiebreaker since they beat us twice)

old news by now, but UCLA will be without Mata tonight due to a fracture in his sternum.

more features on Dijon Thompson and Arron Afflalo.

and some thoughts from Brian Dohn regarding the Bruins' tourney chances.

Here's an article in the OC Register about Taylor King, the 6'-8'' sophomore wing player who verbally committed to UCLA before ever playing in high school. hopefully he continues to develop and eventually makes it to UCLA, but there are other schools still after him, and of course, the NBA always beckons.

Let me preface this post with the fact that it has nothing to do with Steve Lavin the person. Its purpose simply is to debunk the notion that Lavin was only fired because he couldn't get past the Sweet 16 or because he had only one bad year. Quite the contrary. Lavin was fired because his teams gave inconsistent effort, were undisciplined, and lacked basic basketball fundamentals. He inherited a program coming off back-to-back Pac-10 titles, two years removed from a national championship, and systematically ran it into the ground. Here are some highlights of his tenure:

Milestones "achieved" during Lavin's reign:

Worst loss in history of the school (109-61, at Stanford, 1/9/97).

Worst loss at Pauley (87-52, vs. Arizona, 1/18/03); this one broke his own record set earlier in the season: a 92-67 loss to Branch West in an exhibition game.

Longest losing streak (9 games in 2003) since 1941.

Longest stretch without a conference title, post-Wooden (six seasons).

Worst conference finishes in school history - he did it twice! (6th, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 - it was a three-way tie for 6th in 2002-2003, and the Bruins lost the tiebreakers so they were seeded 8th in the Pac-10 tournament).

First losing season (2002-2003) since pre-Wooden era.

Second worst coach's career winning percentage in post-Wooden era (only Walt Hazzard's was worse).

Twelve losses by 24 points or more.

Home losses to teams such as Cal State Northridge (while we were ranked 15th in the nation at the time), Pepperdine (we were ranked 10th), Northern Arizona (we were unranked), San Diego (we were unranked), and Gonzaga (a 59-43 loss while we were ranked 11th and they were 24th). Again, all of these losses were at Pauley.

Most losses at home in a season, 10 (2002-2003). Previous record was 6.

Some public quotes from various former Bruins about Lavin's UCLA teams:

"Where they [Lavin's Bruins] were ... were the depths of devastation. The program had sunk so low. It was so inconsistent. I don't think they would turn out quality players. The program really did a disservice to a lot of its players who had pro potential, but they never really realized it because there was not the structure I think is necessary. Now, I am very, very encouraged by what Ben Howland is doing." -Mike Warren (LA Daily News, 3/16/05)

"None at all. Playing college basketball, playing good competition and being in college was the best experience of my life. But as far as being developed as a young point guard into the NBA, I wasn't ready. When I left (in 1999) I was angry -- why didn't Lav do this or do that? But I know now -- he just wasn't ready." -Baron Davis, on what role his two years at UCLA played in his development (LA Daily News, 3/8/03)

"When a team has the same amount of talent as you, it comes down to X's and O's, and we [playing under Lavin] never had an X-and-O game. You can get away with it against Oregon State, Washington State and SC, or in a one-game situation, but teams like Arizona and Stanford that are just as talented, you have to beat them with execution down the stretch." -Travis Reed (LA Daily News, 3/8/03)

"I refuse to watch. There's Bruins flipping in their graves right now." -Kenny Fields, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03 - article not freely available online, but the quote also was mentioned in these articles: SI.com and Milwauke Journal Sentinel)

"I was really almost nauseous when I saw them. It was just incomprehensible to see what happened." -Bill Sweek, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"When I played, they set screens for the best scorer. I'm still waiting for the first pick someone sets for Jason Kapono this year." -Ken Heitz, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"I never thought I'd read that Arizona players felt sorry for UCLA like after the game at Pauley. That probably says as much as needs to be said." -Don Saffer, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"That's not our program. Being that they have a couple of McDonald's All-Americans, to have a season like this is unbelievable." -Pooh Richardson, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

Plus a quote from Hassan Adams, who grew up in Los Angeles wanting to attend UCLA, but decided to go to Arizona instead: "It was their [UCLA's] practice or the way the coaching was. I went to a couple of practices just to make sure I wasn't tripping. You should see it. They don't even practice. The coach is telling them something and they don't even listen. They sit on the sidelines or ride stationary bikes" (Arizona Daily Star, 12/26/02)

Player development under Lavin

To Lavin's credit, he recruited a tremendous amount of talent to UCLA during his tenure, though he was aided by UCLA's tradition and the 1995 national championship that occurred one season before he took over. Lavin brought in highly touted high school players including Baron Davis, Earl Watson, Dan Gadzuric, Jerome Moiso, Matt Barnes, Jaron Rush, Jason Kapono, TJ Cummings, Cedric Bozeman, Dijon Thompson, Andre Patterson, and Michael Fey. He also became coach with players on the roster like Charles O'Bannon, Toby Bailey, JR Henderson, Kris Johnson, and Jelani McCoy. In all, he coached 8 players who were both McDonald's and Parade All-Americans. With all of this talent, among these players you will find only 2 (two!!) first-round NBA draft picks, and both of them (Baron Davis and Jerome Moiso) left UCLA after their sophomore years. Other players like Gadzuric, Watson, Barnes, and Kapono have gone on to play multiple seasons in the NBA, and one could make a pretty good argument that they had the talent to be drafted higher, but because Lavin could not develop them, they did not emerge as quality players until they had a chance to play under someone else. You saw above what Davis thought of his "development" at UCLA, and Warren's quote is correct: the program under Lavin did a disservice to its players.

"Five Sweet 16 appearances in 6 years, and the only other coach to do that was Krzyzewski."

This is Lavin's only claim to fame, so much so that no writer or broadcaster can mention Lavin without also including this fact. It attempts to show that Lavin had his teams playing well when it counted, and that Lavin is somehow in the same circle as Krzyzewski. However, Krzyzewski's teams, as you know, often actually advance PAST the Sweet Sixteen, in fact going to 3 final fours and winning one title during his streak. Lavin's teams on the other hand, were never competitive in Sweet Sixteen games after his first year, as they went 0-4 with the margins of loss being 26, 24, 13, and 9 points (and remember this last loss was to a 12-seeded Missouri team when we were an 8-seed). There is no comparison here. And what about the rest of the season? Here are his regular season results (year, AP ranking at time of first game - to guage preseason expectations, overall record and winning percentage, and conference record, winning percentage, and finish, and final AP ranking) - see if you can notice a general trend :).

1996-97 (#5): 24-8 (.750), 15-3 (.833, 1st), #7
1997-98 (#7): 24-9 (.727), 12-6 (.667, 3rd), #19
1998-99 (#11): 22-9 (.710), 12-6 (.667, 3rd), #15
1999-00 (#13): 21-12 (.636), 10-8 (.556, 4th), unranked
2000-01 (#17): 23-9 (.719), 14-4 (.714, 3rd), #15
2001-02 (#3): 21-12 (.636), 11-7 (.611, 6th), unranked
2002-03 (#15): 10-19 (.345), 6-12 (.333, 6th), unranked

So in six years, Lavin's teams went from Pac-10 champs to winning only a third of their conference games, and only once did his teams improve from one season to the next, so there was pretty much no evidence to support the idea that he might be able to turn things around. Also, Lavin's teams consistently performed worse than expectations: only in one season was UCLA's final ranking higher than its preseason ranking - the underachievement that occurred in Lavin's final two years is especially galling (he started #3 and #15 in the nation and ended up with the worst conference finishes in the history of the school). Again, this is not meant to be an attack on him personally; he was simply placed in a position with little chance to succeed - he had only one year of experience as a full-time assistant before he became the head coach at one of the top programs in the country. However, he was given numerous chances to demonstrate that he could be effective as UCLA's coach, but as depicted above, he repeatedly came up short.

Baron Davis traded to the Golden State Warriors. If he's healthy, I imagine most Golden State fans are excited. But that's a big if. I specifically know of one Bruin alum in Oakland who probably is looking forward to seeing Baron play on a regular basis.

The Press Enterprise has an article about Street & Smith's ranking of all-time college basketball programs. For a number of reasons, this is a very intriguing article. First, the rankings: in order, the top teams are Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina, Kansas, Duke, Indiana and Louisville. Ben Howland doesn't agree because like many UCLA fans, he believes we should be first. To me, this isn't a big deal. But this is where the article gets interesting. In its discussion of why UCLA is not at the top, it gives us this fact:

"UCLA alone, of the top programs, has been unable to get to a Final Four or win a conference championship in nearly a decade."

So what happened during that decade? Of course we all know the answer: Steve Lavin. Now let me preface the tirade that is about to follow with the following disclaimer: I believe Steve Lavin is an affable, friendly guy who (now) probably isn't so bad of a coach. I've never heard anything negative about his personality. But his reign over the UCLA program was the darkest chapter in the post-Wooden era. So that's why I almost lost it when I read the following assessment from Lavin regarding his tenure as head coach:

"We were able to compete in the NCAA Tournament at the end of the season and win some games there," Lavin said. "But the one season we didn't make it, I was gone."

Now I made a commitment to myself that I would not use any profanity in this blog, so please allow me to take a deep breath before we continue (breathing in...counting to ten, almost done...alright, moving forward). This clearly demonstrates that ol' Lav believes (or would like us to believe) that he was fired for having one bad season. I will break down Lavin's career "accomplishments" in another post, but let me quickly just mention that his performance was terrible for several years before he was fired, as his teams constantly lacked intensity, cohesiveness, and basic fundamentals. He took charge of a team that had just won back-to-back Pac-10 titles and was one season removed from a national championship. But with Lav in command, the conference finishes gradually became lower and lower until he guided the Bruins to their worst conference finish in history (6th) in 2002, and then "surpassing" that by finishing eighth the following year, his last.

In the other part of his quote, he refers to "winning some games" in the tourney, which of course brings up the mantra we always heard when he was still coach: "five Sweet 16 appearances in 6 years, and the only other coach to do that was Krzyzewski." Wow, he did something only Krzyzewski could do, he must be a great coach! Of course, Duke managed to actually GET PAST the Sweet 16 on a few occasions - they currently have 7 straight Sweet 16s, losing only 3 times, with 3 final fours and one NCAA title. After Lav's first year, his squads lost in the Sweet 16 by margins of 26, 24, 13, and 9 points (and remember this last loss was to a LOWER seeded Missouri team). Anyway, when did appearances in the Sweet 16 define success for a basketball team? What about the rest of the year? Lavin's run of six years without a conference championship was the longest for UCLA post-Wooden. And forget about just wins and losses; what about competing every game? How about playing one's best, perhaps reaching one's potential? Lavin's teams always fell short of that mark. This brings to mind the broadcast of a "classic" UCLA-USC basketball game from a few weeks ago. It was January 12, 2000, and our team featured a starting lineup of Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, Dan Gadzuric, Jerome Moiso, and Ray Young. Matt Barnes was coming off the bench. How many other teams feature 5 future NBA players in their rotation? By the way, we weren't even ranked and we lost to an also unranked USC team by 12 points.

Lavin's comments wouldn't be so frustrating to read if it wasn't for the fact that some people evaluating the program from afar seem to buy into his line of thinking. There are folks around the country that have an image of UCLA fans as being out of touch with reality and blinded by our own tradition, expecting the Bruins to somehow win 7 straight titles again. They think we ran Lavin out of town for having one bad year, and that we believe that "only" making it to the Sweet 16 is unacceptable. In actuality, I simply hope that we can be as competitive as the other six programs listed at the beginning of this post, and, as stated by Ben Howland in this article, "We have to get to where we challenge for the Pac-10 every year." Not win it every year, but simply to CHALLENGE for it. Is that really asking too much?

they trade away former Bruin Matt Barnes (among other players), and in return, get (among others) Scoreless Williamson, the former Razorback known for letting George Zidek shut him down in the 1995 NCAA championship game (well, at least that's what he's known for in Westwood).

for the trojans, that is. no, not because they're trying to get into the pac-10 tournament, but because they want to ruin our chances of getting into the real tourney. If we don't come out with maximum intensity, we might find ourselves down by 18 points again.

In terms of the bigger picture, this is the first of four games left on our schedule that we are expected to win (our three remaining conference games plus the first round of the Pac-10 tournament). If we win these four games, I believe there is a spot in the ncaa tournament waiting for us. but first things first, which means we need to win tonight.

The Daily Bruin has extensive coverage of today's game and the basketball program in general. Also see the preview at UCLA's official website.

After reading the articles described in my previous post, some thoughts on the "inconsistency" of this team. There is no doubt that we have have been inconsistent this year (as demonstrated by the way we fell behind by double digits on several occasions only to come back and win, as well as playing competitively with Stanford and Arizona for portions of games, only to give up huge runs that eventually lead to double digit losses). However, this inconsistency is no mystery: it comes from depending on perimeter shots for offense, relying on freshman to play major roles for us, and having very little depth. All of these factors result in having long scoring droughts, especially when we are forced to play a half-court game on offense. In the years to come, with some added inside presence and experience, we will be able to execute more consistently, meaning fewer long stretches of little or no scoring. And added depth hopefully will translate to more aggressive defense, allowing us to get out and run and get some easy scoring chances.

Finally, despite this inconsistency within games, our overall results have been remarkably consistent in the sense that we have won very few games that we would be expected to lose, and we have lost very few games that we would be expected to win (the first Cal game being the only glaringly bad loss of the year). I see this as a sign that we are playing close to our full capability game in and game out, which obviously has not been characteristic of recent UCLA teams. It's good to see, although an unexpected win every now and then would be nice. :)

first, a Daily News feature on Dijon Thompson, chronicling his work habits over the summer and during this season. Props to Rico Hines for getting his name in the paper!

next, an article in the Daily Bruin on Arron Afflalo, specifically addressing his reduced role in the offense, especially compared to what he did in high school.

And the Daily Breeze and Press-Enterprise give some thoughts on the Bruins' season and the chance of them making the tourney.

As mentioned in a previous post, none of UCLA's incoming class will be playing in the game. Kansas, Duke, and North Carolina are represented rather heavily. From the Pac-10, two of Washington's recruits made the West squad, but none for Arizona. See both rosters here.

the article doesn't go quite as far as to say the Pac-10 should only get two teams in, but it certainly has few nice things to say about the conference. it implies that in the actual RPI rankings used by the selection committee, the Pac-10 is the fourth highest conference, not the second as has been widely reported. it also has an interesting fact: no Pac-10 team has ever made the tourney without at least 10 conference wins (this shouldn't be an issue for UCLA, as right now we stand at 8-7). the article also makes a point that our performance in the Pac-10 tourney will have an impact, which i believe to be true. unless we win out the remainder of the regular season, losing our first-round tourney game would leave us with 17 wins and most likely on the outside looking in.

we knew it was going to be a tough game in a tough venue and it certainly was. unfortunately, we had no answer for Chris Hernandez, and aside for the first ten or twelve minutes of the game, we really weren't competitive. the disappointment isn't necessarily that we lost, but that we allowed Stanford to play harder than we did, at least according to Jordan Farmar: "You could see it in their eyes. They got every loose ball, every offensive rebound. They played with passion and togetherness. They played the way we were supposed to" (Taken from the LA Times, with similar quotes in the Daily News, OC Register, and Daily Breeze).

So now, are our NCAA tourney hopes alive? of course, but we better play with maximum effort in each of our remaining games, because we cannot afford to lose any games that we're supposed to win.

More game reviews:
UCLA official site
Press Enterprise

in terms of a tourney berth, that is.

1. it would give us a very good chance to have 18 wins before the Pac-10 Tourney. A win gives us 15 wins with three regular season games at Pauley (in which we will be favored) plus a road game in South Bend.

2. beating Stanford would give us a quality road win. Despite our excellent road record in the Pac-10 (5-3), none of our wins have come against opponents ranked as highly as Stanford. No impressive wins away from Pauley could hurt us with the selection committee.

3. a win would put us on at least equal level with Stanford. not that it will necessarily come down to us and them for a tourney berth, but if we lose, we will almost certainly finish behind them in the conference and be 0-2 against them head-to-head. In that situation, it would strike me as being very difficult for us to make the tourney without Stanford making it as well. CBS Sportsline, in an article about the top ten games of this weekend, suggests this game is an NCAA elimination game (i wouldn't go that far).

Regardless, a win on Sunday would be another huge step in the turnaround of the program. Here is the UCLA preview.

one focused on Howland, the other on Farmar.

looking back at the 1995 season, since we are now coming up on the ten year anniversary of UCLA's last hoops championship. This piece allows us to catch up with Ed O'Bannon and get his thoughts about that magical year.

Among many other topics, the article mentions the problems Ed had with his knee, and I can definitely confirm his struggles. I saw him play at the Forum a few years ago with his ABA team (the squad also featured Toby Bailey and Jaron Rush), and his knee was definitely bothering him. It looked like it took him maybe half a quarter to get it loose to the point where he could move freely around the court. Once that happened, it was the same old Ed, running up and down the floor, being active, and hitting his trademark lefty jump hook in the lane.

again, a very encouraging win Thursday. probably the best part about it was the team defense. it's nice to see the team improve as a unit, playing better together (i.e. the ability to give help, rotate, recover, and still grab the defensive rebound), not just the enhancement of individual skills by individual players, which is the only type of improvement we have seen around here in recent years (i.e. Gadzuric learning to not shoot the ball like a two-handed shotput, Earl Watson improving his ball-handling, Matt Barnes becoming a good 3-pt shooter his senior year, etc.). Hopefully our defense can be as effective against more potent offensive attacks.

Some more recaps of the Cal game:
Cal Embarrassed in Loss to UCLA
Reversal of fortune for Bears
Cal's postseason push suffers with loss to UCLA
UCLA Putting Pieces Together, 77-62
M. hoops: Bruins outshine Golden Bears
UCLA Turns Tables on Cal
UCLA sings redemption song
Bruins go see Cal for a good deal
Revenge just what the Bruins ordered
Better than average Bears

i am the furthest thing from a recruiting expert, but it is my understanding that while official announcements have not been made, this year's McDonalds All Americans have been notified that they have been honored as such. Word has been getting out regarding who made it and who didn't, and I guess none of UCLA's incoming class made it. One of our senior commitments, Ryan Wright, is Canadian, and therefore is not eligible. of our remaining four incoming recruits, PG Darren Collison and F Alfred Aboya made the final 100 (you'll need adobe's acrobat reader to view the list).

Going back to Ryan Wright for a sec, there is an All Canadian game consisting of Canada's top 20 players, and he is the only player mentioned in this brief article about the game.

I'm reading that our class is underrated (which of course is what I want to hear), but even if this is not the case, if these guys come in as hungry and unselfish as our current freshmen, we should have an excellent foundation for the next few years.

so i flip on sportscenter this morning, and what's the lead story? a regular season game between duke and virginia tech. it warrants top billing because it's such a HUUUGE story that Duke lost. wow. hey espn, it's their 4th loss in 7 games, they're not invincible, they are going to lose some conference road games. it's not groundbreaking.

anyway, i continue watching to see if there are any highlights of our game, but there aren't. no Pac-10 coverage AT ALL. now i realize our games on the west coast are ending right about the time the 10 PT sportscenter is starting, but nothing from the entire conference? does this always happen on Thursdays? i know ESPN had access to at least some footage because one of the "Top Plays" was from the Arizona-Oregon game. Two nba games on the night, no nhl, but it's still impossible to show any Pac-10 hoops highlights. geez.

"a nice shooting touch, ... a healthy shoulder, um, an attractive haircut, a pleasant disposition..."

"Things that Richard Midgley is missing!"

"Correct!"

As usual, Dijon Thompson did the heavy lifting with some help from Jordan Farmar, but everyone seemed to contribute something tonight. Mike Fey, although still shying away from contact at times, received the ball inside several times and was able to turn these opportunities into some points. He also had a nice putback basket late in the game to stem some Cal momentum. Josh Shipp was extremely active, especially on the offensive glass, consistently keeping the ball alive and giving us additional scoring chances. And defensively, i believe this was the Bruins' best effort of the year. Granted, Cal is no offensive juggernaut (i don't think they made a shot outside of one foot until about 8 1/2 minutes were left in the 1st half), but if the Bruins can defend like this consistently, they could make some noise come tourney time. maybe we should be willing to double in the post more often, because we looked great doing it tonite.

Going back to Thompson, he did just about everything required for the team to succeed. Maybe his most significant play was when Cal got to within 11 with a couple minutes to play, he grabbed an offensive board off a missed FREE-THROW and laid it back in. He hit several key jumpers, and he also rebounded and passed the ball well.

Anyway, this was a very encouraging win. The team was only 3 of 12 from 3-pt land and still won by 15 on the road. About the only negative was Farmar's silly technical foul late in the game. Hey Jordan, if you're gonna do something like that again, make sure it's when the other team has the ball so we don't lose possession. :)

See the AP recap and box score.

not much time for me to write, but as I said in my last post, this is our most winnable road game left, and (broken record) we need our big men to provide some inside presence on both ends of the court.

Here are some more game previews:
Paris lighting the way
M. basketball: Trip to Bay key for NCAA berth
Farmar's Motivation Is Rooted in History
Bruins center attention on Fey
In need of cure for Bay blues
Farmar is finally letting his game do all the talking

This is a quote from Arron Afflalo in an article by Dan Weber: "The way we're playing, the way we're attacking the zone right now, I don't see us losing again in the Pac-10." Now I love Arron Afflalo's game and the way he plays. He's probably my favorite player on the squad, but is there any way this was taken out of context? Arron, am I missing something here?

Well, maybe since we looked so good in the second half of the Zona game, and since we dominated the two bay area schools when they came to Pauley earlier in the season, I guess it's obvious that we will sweep this week and then win out the rest of the Pac-10 schedule. Oh, another good sign is that we've lost the last four games at Cal by an average of 18 points (according to Brian Dohn). And, also improving our chances, Richard Midgley, Cal's leading scorer, should be in the starting lineup on Thursday (he didn't play in our first game against Cal).

Sarcasm aside, I will be rooting for Afflalo to prove prophetic, but I won't be shocked if he's wrong. I doubt we will be favored in either game up north, so I will be extremely happy with a split. But at the risk of stating the obvious, instead of thinking of the rest of the season or even this week, all of us (including Afflalo) should be concentrating on only one thing: the next game, which happens to be against Cal. And while much of the reason Cal spanked us in Pauley was that we couldn't attack their zone defense, the bigger issue is that we were unable to match up with the strength and athleticism of their big men. So unless we have figured out a way to prevent Cal from repeatedly getting uncontested four foot shots, I can't imagine the outcome is going to be very different from the first game. That said, this is definitely our most winnable road game left on the schedule, so hopefully we will play well and give ourselves a chance to pull out a W. A victory will be another significant step as we continue to inch closer to a NCAA berth.

From today's TJ Simers column, Alsio High in Reseda is changing its name to John R. Wooden High. Simers interviewed Coach Wooden at the ceremony, and exerpts of their interaction are in the article. Definitely worth a read.

Putting aside Coach's best quality (his character) for a second, let me say that I can only hope that even at 64 (let alone 94), I will be as insightful and articulate as Coach Wooden currently is. It is truly amazing to hear him speak. A few months ago, while SportsCenter was showing highlights of the Wooden Tradition, they played a short clip of Coach being interviewed after the game. He was breaking down the game as well as any network analyst i've ever heard - just incredible.

Coach Wooden is obviously a bigger man than I, as he is going to travel out to Tucson to attend the practice of (gulp) the Arizona Wildcats. We already played them twice, but maybe he's just doing some spying in case we play them in the Pac-10 tourney. Actually, no, it seems that he and Lute Olson are good friends.

Is it possible there are things more important in life than college hoops rivalries? Nahhhhh.

one of Howland's recruits for next year, is the subject of this article from BruinReportOnline. A glowing report indeed, not only of the player, but also of Howland's efforts to recruit him. If all of it is true (and keep in mind the target audience of the article is people like me desperate to see UCLA basketball continue to improve), then kudos to the coaching staff. They not only secured a player who looks to be a great addition, but also established a solid relationship with the school, thereby (hopefully) opening a pipeline to some more talented players in years to come. One can only hope that Howland and his staff are doing the same at other schools throughout the country.

from one of the guys over at the Fire Karl Dorrell blog, and they even mentioned this blog in one of their posts. They have lots of good basketball (and of course football) info over there, including snippets of game wrap-ups by the local press. A good example is yesterday's post about the Arizona game.

in a column from the Daily Bulletin. Regarding the Bruins this year: "They aren't very talented, they don't play very well together, and you wonder how well-coached they are." Specific criticism about yesterday's performance: pathetic interior play, questionable discipline, and shaky fundamentals. The writer also takes several digs at Ben Howland, including:

Ben Howland came to Westwood from Pitt, where he was beating up folks in the Big East. His rep was rebuilding programs.

But with nearly two seasons on his Westwood watch complete, Howland's Bruins are 24-25, including 14-17 in the Pac-10. With nine defeats on their home court.

Now there is some truth to what he says, but it is all out of context. Without knowing any background of this year's Bruin team, if you turned on yesterday's game, yes, I could see how you might think we're not talented, disciplined, or fundamentally sound. But how can you not understand that this is a result of starting three freshman? Three freshman who are first, third, and fourth on the team in minutes played. One of these three is the point guard who has no backup and is expected to not only run the offense, but be the number two scoring threat. And another freshman who is expected to shut down the other team's best perimeter player each game.

and if you think Howland is taking too long with the turnaround, consider that he has had only one recruiting class of his own at UCLA, and he has had only one full off-season with this team. and perhaps most significantly, this year he is missing two players that would have made substantial contributions: Trevor Ariza and Cedric Bozeman. Ariza would have given the bruins more size and experience, and he would have been the first or second option on offense. And Bozeman would have played minutes at the point and provided some added perimeter defense, alleviating pressure on both Farmar and Afflalo. There is no doubt that this team would be further along if both of those players were in Bruin uniforms this season.

So a message to all casual observers unwilling to look below the surface to evaluate the program: take a deep breath and be a little patient. Howland has this thing headed in the right direction.

i'm not sure what happened. i don't think anyone in blue and gold knows what happened after that - i think we all were blindsided. all of our shots that rattled home in the first half rattled out after that point - it was like our shooting in the cal game. but of course a team is susceptible to that type of thing when it has no inside presence. overall, our effort was solid, but everything on offense was from the perimeter. fey and hollins combined for 4 points on 2 for 5 shooting. defensively, our problem (again) was just giving up too many easy looks close to the hoop - either off a post player catching the ball too deep or guys getting offensive rebounds.

on a positive side, farmar played great. career high 27 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 turnovers. but obviously, it was not nearly enough.

looking forward, it would seem that two events that took place today improved our chances of finishing third in the conference: Stanford lost Dan Grunfeld for the rest of the year, and ASU lost to USC. despite this, the bruins still have plenty of work before they have a spot in the NCAA tourney sewn up, so hopefully we will take care of business, beginning with the NoCal schools this week.

Recap and box score of today's game.

yikes! how far has Cade McNown fallen? He and Freddie Mitchell appeared on screen during the Arizona-UCLA telecast, and while Steve Physioc and Marques Johnson took a few seconds to talk about Mitchell, they didn't even acknowledge McNown's presence. I mean, I know he flamed out in the NFL, but the guy had as good a college career as any other UCLA quarterback, including being a Heisman finalist.

On a somewhat related note, both Baron Davis and Ed O'Bannon also were in attendance.

focus on Salim Stoudamire and Afflalo's responsibility to guard him. with the way stoudamire's been playing, this no doubt will be a key matchup. but just as important, (like every game) an important factor will be how much of an inside presence our big men will provide.

gosh, it wasn't so long ago that this was THE game in the Pac-10. oh well, i hope it's just a matter of time (maybe a year?) that we return to the highest echelon of the conference.

Here are the previews:

LA Times
Daily News
Daily Breeze

And an article from the OC Register, that has a section comparing Salim Stoudamire with JJ Redick:

Redick has hit 42.2 percent (129 of 306) of his field goals and 42.3 percent (77 of 182) of his three-point attempts. Stoudamire has hit 53.0 percent (132 of 249) of his field goals and 55.3 percent (73 of 132) of his three-point attempts.

To get his field-goal percentage to 52.9, Redick would have to hit his next 70 shots.

Why oh why, ESPN and Dick Vitale in particular, do you insist on propping up Redick as the best shooter in the country when at least one person is shooting over TEN percent better than he is (from both the field and behind the arc)? I understand that these are just numbers, but they're not even close. And is it just me, or in terms of NBA prospects, doesn't Redick have Trajan Langdon written all over him?

i guess i have to give him some respect for not hooking up with San Antonio just to get a ring. he was a great player, even last year, and he perhaps is the best PF of all time. but i won't be shedding any tears for his lack of winning a championship. watching him year after year falling down and begging for foul calls (and the refs giving in, especially in Utah) was unpleasant to say the least. particularly all those years the jazz knocked the lakers out of the playoffs.

the upside of us winning this game is just as big as the downside would have been had we lost to ASU. a victory would give us a badly-needed quality win (albeit at home), and really give us a boost toward reaching 18 wins. of course, winning most likely will mean doing something about Salim Stoudamire - the guy has been absolutely unguardable. He's hitting everything from everywhere. Don't believe me? just ask him (this is a quote from an article in the LA Times): "... I asked myself how I'd guard me. Honestly, I don't know. Not with how I'm playing."

Another great quote from Stoudamire, this one about the Wildcats' difficulty playing against USC at the Sports Arena, "The only reason why it's tough to play here is because there's nobody here. It felt like a high school game, to tell you the truth."

Check out the UCLA release previewing Saturday's game.

Here are some NCAA tourney previews. I know it's still early, but i'm always interested in looking at how the national (read: East Coast) media views us. CBS Sportsline has us in, while ESPN and SI have us on the bubble. Note that these came out before the ASU game, though I doubt our win on Thursday will have much impact on these rankings. I'm not especially thrilled that the ESPN guy thinks our game in South Bend could be a tourney elimination game. In any event, i think if we continue to play well, things will take care of themselves and we'll make it in.

All Dijon, all the time...
Daily Bruin
More Daily Bruin
LA Times
Daily News
OC Register
Daily Breeze
Press Enterprise
Arizona Republic
Arizona State Web Devil

Reggie Miller plans to retire after the season.

We finally dropped the hammer on someone. Season-high in points and margin of victory. Very nice. thompson was spectacular - he scored 19 of the Bruins' first 22. He had 27 at half and finished with 39, on only a total of 18 field goal attempts. And Don McClean told me REPEATEDLY that Thompson was very unselfish in the 2nd half, putting the W before any personal accomplishments. Farmar recovered from a slow start and foul trouble in the first half to score all 18 of his points after halftime. This was a very convincing victory and hopefully a sign of things to come.

Now for at least a little bit of realism: we will not shoot 60% from the field every night. Nor will we go 13 of 20 from 3 every night (13 is a season high in this category too). There is no way most teams are going to let us run up and down the floor like we did tonight. Oh, and Fey and Hollins combined for 7 points.

But hey, this was a great win. I'm looking forward to Saturday.

Quick note: Howland is saying that Josh Shipp had a badly bruised thigh and he was fortunate to even play tonight. Hopefully this won't be any type of problem down the line.

See the game recap.

Arizona Republic
ASU Web Devil

Here in SoCal we get Washington-Oregon and Arizona-$C. I guess I'll be in front of my radio tonight. BTW, Bruins are no longer on AM 1150; the games are now on 570, except for tonight (and a few other days) when the game will be on 690 because of a conflict with the Laker game. Getting pre-empted still sucks, but it's not as bad as when Dodger spring training games have priority over Bruin games.

One other option (besides heading to Pauley or paying to listen over the internet) is something I read in this week's UCLA news release: listen to the game over the phone. I had never known of this, but supposedly you can dial up (800) 846-4700 ext. 5929 and listen to the game. Has anyone ever heard of this or actually done it? Does this work from anywhere?

**UPDATE: Never mind, the phone option is a pay service. Click here for more info.

a feature on Jordan Farmar in the Daily News. You gotta love it when a highly touted incoming freshman acknowledges that he might be better off if he had a backup trying to take away his playing time. Plus he says, "Sometimes I wish [Coach Howland] would be even more critical." To say that it is refreshing to hear about this type of attitude would be a huge understatement.

Other previews from the Daily Bruin, Daily Breeze, Orange County Register, and LA Times.

Plus a nice story about some folks from the online community raising and donating a good sum of money to the widow of a man who died in the January 26 Metrolink accident in Glendale. The man, Henry Kilinski, was a big Bruins fan and a regular contributor to the message boards at bruinreportonline.com.

a feature on Ryan Hollins. He says despite his decreased playing time, he intends to come back next year. I really feel like his knee injury hurt his development over the offseason, plus it didn't help that he had to play the 4 last year and the beginning of this year. His athleticism is a given (he's amazing on the break), and I think we've all seen flashes where it seems like he might be getting more coordinated and learning the basketball side of things... but then we watch him catch the ball in the post and either dribble right into the defense or take three steps before he makes his move to the basket. it'd be great if he could develop into a productive player and give us a shot-blocking presence in the middle next year (even better if he did it this year).

one of Howland's commitments for 2006-2007 (although I assume his commitment is nonbinding since he's a junior). He sounds like he plays hard and plays tough. Maybe he can give some pointers to Mike Fey this summer :). See the article here.

And a common theme is emerging: the Bruins need to win this game if they want to keep progressing toward a NCAA berth. Not only because this is a very winnable home game, the type you need to win simply to be competitive in the conference, but also due to the specific opponent: Arizona State. It's quite possible that the fourth (and final) spot for a Pac-10 team in the tourney will come down to us and ASU. If we win this game, we'll go up 2-0 on them head-to-head, which certainly should help our chances. However, if we lose, we might be looking at a must-win against them in the first round of the Pac-10 tourney (we will play them in the first round if we finish 4-5 in the conference). So hopefully on Thursday we won't fall behind by more than say, I don't know, eight points before we start playing. Is that asking too much?

Official UCLA preview (pdf)
NCAA will be watching closely (Daily News)
Still a chance (Press-Enterprise)

This last article has a great quote from Jim Saia about his team's discussion of sneaking into the eighth spot of the Pac-10 tourney: "We've mentioned it." Come on, Jim! I expect a little more confidence from you! After all, it was a mere two years ago that (as an assistant) you led our Mighty Bruins to an eighth place Pac-10 finish (actually a 3-way tie for sixth!). You need to be an inspiration to all head coaches whose replacements have already been hired.

but Dick Vitale named Jordan Farmar as his Diaper Dandy of the mid-season. I didn't realize Dick Vitale (or anyone else in Bristol besides Lavin) knew UCLA still had a basketball team.

Looks like Norm Chow is leaving

and matt leinart is not too happy: "I decide to walk away from millions of dollars so that I can play under you, and then you turn around and leave for not even a head coaching job." Okay, that's not the real quote, but close enough.

Is the Tennessee OC position really that desirable? What am I missing here?

UPDATE: Ahhh, I guess there is a ginormous raise involved. Makes a little more sense now.

A feature in today's Orange County Register on Trevor Ariza:

The article attributes much of Ariza's "success" this year to fortuitous timing. While certainly it's too early to declare with certainty that Ariza made the right choice, there is no doubt that he has surpassed everyone's expectations to this point. Most people, myself included, were expecting an experience along the lines of Jaron Rush's. In this sense, he undoubtedly has earned the right to say "I told you so."

On the other hand, while it's clear Ariza has (and should have) no regrets, I think one thing that he didn't anticipate was Ben Howland's willingness to play more uptempo this year. I think Ariza would have fit in nicely with what the Bruins are trying to do, even though it would have meant him having to play the 4 and rebound a bit, something I suspect he wasn't too eager to do. And with the way our big men are playing, we might have even seen stretches of him at the 5 and thompson at the 4, with farmar, afflalo, and shipp also on the floor. okay, i'm probably pushing it here, but that would have been fun to watch.

Daily Bruin's coverage of the Washington game:

M. basketball: Bruin comeback falls short

Loss encouraging in the big picture

M. basketball: Bruins make the most of Thompson’s time

BTW, I think these articles have a bit too much "glass is half full" mentality. Yes, one can't complain about a road split in the Pac-10, but looking at this team's prospects going forward, there is still great cause for concern. The next four games are going to be very tough (Az St, Az, at Cal, at Stanford). If this team continues to fall behind early in games, 0-4 during this stretch is not out of the question. This team is still a bit away from being anything more than an average Pac-10 team. We need to come out ready to play on Thursday because losing this game would pretty much wipe out all of the warm fuzzies that developed from pulling out the victory in Pullman last week.

Game recaps (basically just articles about turnovers and offensive rebounds):

Huskies board by Bruins

Young Bruins Wash-ed out

Huskies Fatten Up on Bruins With Crash Diet

Bruins lose board game

Seattle coverage (all about Brandon Roy):

A "big deal" — Huskies end hex

No. 13 Washington defeats UCLA, 82-70

Roy takes his turn as Husky star du jour

well, not a terrible performance

but we gave up way too many easy points: fast break layups and second chance points in the 2nd half. We turned the ball over 23 times and gave up 22 offensive rebounds - that will not get the job done. i really think farmar and afflalo are getting run down, and the lack of backup point guard is affecting both of them. Afflalo's minutes plus tough defensive assignment every game seems to be seriously impacting his offense. Afflalo spent a good part of today chasing after nate robinson, and afflalo ended up with 5 points on 2 for 8 shooting.

all in all, the week was okay, and our chances for an NCAA berth are still solid. before the trip we were #40 RPI, and i imagine we move up with a road win and a loss to RPI #6 Washington. plus 18 wins supposedly makes it very likely that we make the tourney, which means we can make it by going 5-2 the rest of the way in the conference regular season, with a win either at Notre Dame or in the first round of the Pac-10 tourney. regardless, this team needs to continue playing hard and improving, and let's hope our freshmen can manage to fight off the fatigue of the season. 6 more wins is very possible, but unfortunately so is 6 more losses.

some comments as i watch the uw game:

- will conroy and nate robinson are 1 and 2 in the Pac-10 in assists - how often do two players from the same team lead the conference in assists? has that ever happened? in any conference?

- Michael Fey just got fouled but made the hoop for a possible three-point play. I'm not sure i've ever seen that before. typically, the best way i can describe the way Fey goes to the rim is "apologetically".

- nice to see Josh Shipp scoring some points early

- Ryan Hollins is starting the second half again today. interesting.

- bruins need to get back on defense!

- bruins are giving up WAY too many offensive rebounds in the second half, this is ridiculous

Some previews for today's game against UW, including some commentary on Fey and Hollins' playing time:

Huskies seek new streak vs. UCLA, Seattle Times

Fey May Need Patience, LA Times

Fey, not Hollins, to start, Daily News

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

UW game is a homecoming for Brian Morrison

If the Bruins somehow manage to win this game, well, it would be VERY VERY nice. I'm not sure what else to say.

Okay, first up, some comments on Thursday's game between the Bruins and the Washington State Cougars at Pullman. It was a solid conference road win, notwithstanding blowing a six point lead in the final minutes. Howland obviously recognized the importance of the game, as he basically played only five guys in the 2nd half and overtime. Interestingly, Ryan Hollins played center, with Michael Fey not getting any PT after halftime. Hostile environment, some questionable calls, and the Bruins still pulled it out.

That said, it is still a major concern that so many of the bruin wins could easily be losses (Michigan, Pepperdine, both WSU games, the first Washington game, and SC), while few of their losses could have been wins (Arizona probably the only one). Perhaps it shows that they can play under pressure, or it shows that they're lucky, or (most likely) a little of each.

Anyway, if this team wants to succeed the rest of the year, most obviously they will need some physical presence from their big men (we've known this all year). Beyond that, they also need Afflalo and Shipp to regain their early season form on the offensive side of the ball. But overall, I think this season is shaping up to be what many expected: extreme highs and lows due to the youthful talent, yet right around 4th or 5th in the Pac-10, a NCAA berth still a distinct possibility.

Some writeups on Thursday's game (to avoid having to register at any of these sites to read the articles, I highly recommend Bugmenot):

Daily Bruin
LA Times
Daily News
Orange County Register
Official UCLA Site

Well, this is something I've been meaning to do for awhile: post my thoughts about the UCLA basketball program, the players, individual games, etc. With the Pac-10 season just past the half-way point, and the NFL season about to end, I figured now is as good a time as any. I might also mix in a few comments about other West Coast / Southern California / Los Angeles sports teams, like the Dodgers, Lakers, Angels (of Anaheim), and yes, perhaps even the Clippers. If you're looking for coverage of the USC Trojans, you might be in the wrong place :).

Please feel free to add your own comments.

If you have general questions or suggestions for the site, you can send me an email at jd77e-uclablog(AT)yahoo(D0T)com.