not going to happen because UCLA is going to win the championship and Collison, Love, and Westbrook are going to go pro... Mata-Real graduates, who knows what shipp does. Leaving the team basically with Mbabute, who should of gone pro after his freshman season and Roll.
and UCLA will be about as good as WSU was this year. which is obviously still good.
Meanwhile at arizona... the best starting 5 in the country
PG- Jennings
SG- Bayless
SF- Budinger
PF- Hill
C- Withey (39th on rivals, 7 footer)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3iMEoQVflfY
Bench
G- Wise F- Horne F- Negedu (ranked 31 on rivals) G- Johnson
giving us the best bench as well.
Love and Collison for sure. I'm not sure on Westbrook I think anybody who's watched the last 10 games or so can see his shot needs work? 46% over all, 32 from 3, both are way down he was shooting at 40% from 3 about 20 games into the season. Part of it is his ankle, part of it is teams defend him differently now.
He's 19 of his last 64 in his last 5 games that's just under 30%. Great kid and talented but he's a guy without a position right now shooting guards have to shoot better and he's not a polished PG. I would hope he stays you never know. He's certainly less NBA ready offensively than Bayless, he's a much better defender though.
Luc is going to file, but he'll not get a guarantee so who knows, his knee problems aren't helping but basically he's shown all year he's not a 3.
Withey isn't 7 foot, he's listed at 6'11" he's more like 6'10", he's taller than Love for sure but he's no 7 footer. Good shot blocker, can face up and shoot, he's not very strong but he's a much better player than Jacobson he'll contribute right away. Good kid too, he didn't fit at Louisville I'm glad he reneged and went somewhere else much better fit for him.
I seriously doubt all 3 of Bayless, Budinger and hill come back but if they do it's largely because Budinger isn't as good as he was supposed to be and was told he should come back. He got better this year but he's still soft on defense.
The question on UA isn't how much talent they'll have it's how well they'll defend, that's been the problem for the last few seasons people act like Lute had no talent and Ben had a ton of talent. Lute had some bad luck like the injuries to McClellan but it's not like UCLA hasn't had injuries either. The main difference is Ben has been better at recruiting people who fit his system while as Mao says, UA has been recruiting kids who didn't fit because Lute wasn't involved enough.
Jennings has a ton of talent, but he might just be another one of those kids
who seems great now but doesn't fit, we'll see. I don't think he's a mistake mind you I just don't think he impacts the team as much as some people expect, he'll put up numbers but he may not add all that much to the bottom line wins and losses.
But since you were speculating on next years UCLA don't forget Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee, Jerime Anderson and Drew Gordon, the #1 rated recruiting class in the nation. Apparently Holiday was chosen the Gatorade HS athlete of the year(like Love last year) but it hasn't been made official yet so not sure on that. He's UCLA's best recruit since Baron Davis, he's better than Love, just not a big.
I think ASU could be very good, I think Oregon and WSU fall quite a bit lost too many seniors. USC who knows the Times said Jefferson's handler says he's staying, now I read on their blog that the guy has already gone back on that statement(the handler not Jefferson). Gibson did the same thing announced at a banquet he was coming back, then told others he was filing for the draft. As usual you can never predict a Tim Floyd team until the roster is actually set.
Stanford will likely lose Brook Lopez, they might even lose Robin but I'm guessing he stays.
Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't you the one 2 years ago who said UA had the best starting 5 in the country?
Didn't know if it needed it's own thread since I didn't find a source online, but it's great news nonetheless.
