Collison staying and other UCLA news

[Russ Smith]

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/6702432


One week after meeting with UCLA head coach Ben Howland to determine his playing future, Bruins point guard Darren Collison has decided to remain at the school for his junior season.
The Bruins' 6-foot point guard, who emerged as one of the top floor leaders in the country this past season, met with Howland last Wednesday, then used the weekend to discuss the possibility of turning pro with his family before ultimately deciding to return to Westwood, according to a source close to the situation.
Collison averaged 12.7 points, 5.7 assists and shot 45 percent from long distance this past season. And in doing so, he somehow managed to make UCLA fans forget about Jordan Farmar.

Collison's return means that Howland and the Bruins have a legitimate chance to get back to the Final Four for a third consecutive season. UCLA was 32-7 this past season and lost to Florida in the national semifinals.

UCLA will return everyone except for Collison's backcourt mate, All-American Arron Afflalo, and the Bruins will add incoming freshman center Kevin Love, arguably the best big man in the senior class.

Jeff Goodman is a senior college basketball writer for FOXSports.com. He can be reached at [email protected].


There's a rumor on BRO that one of the current Bruins will be transfering out.

3 guesses so far, Nikola Dragovic back to Serbia, Ryan Wright following Keating to Santa Clara, and one rumor that Russell Westbrook might be unhappy with his freshman PT and rumors of Alex Legion(now looks unlikely) and might want out. I listed them in the order I consider them reliable.

Seems very unlikely Westbrook would leave, he's likely the starting SG with Afflalo gone, and Howland loves him. Dragovic said a few months ago he wanted to stay but hes' supposed to play on the Serbian National team this summer and there's been rumors he might not come back from that so my guess is he's going to announce that.

Excellent to have Collison back.

 

[bko32]

3 guesses so far, Nikola Dragovic back to Serbia, Ryan Wright following Keating to Santa Clara, and one rumor that Russell Westbrook might be unhappy with his freshman PT and rumors of Alex Legion(now looks unlikely) and might want out. I listed them in the order I consider them reliable.

Seems very unlikely Westbrook would leave, he's likely the starting SG with Afflalo gone, and Howland loves him. Dragovic said a few months ago he wanted to stay but hes' supposed to play on the Serbian National team this summer and there's been rumors he might not come back from that so my guess is he's going to announce that.

Excellent to have Collison back.

I'll be disappointed if Dragovic leaves. Although he didn't play much last year, he seemed like a pretty good shooter when he did get some burn. He seemed like he could help UCLA with his shooting ability.

If Wright leaves, not a big deal, because UCLA's frontcourt is pretty overloaded with Love, Aboya, Luc, Mata, Keefe, etc.

 

[Russ Smith]

Dragovic can really shoot but his release is too slow and he's reportedly not very good on defense. Howland called him the best shooter on the team
more than once this year.

We'll see, Wright to Santa Clara following Keating would make sense as long as Howland and Keating had an agreement on that. Wright is an extremely bright kid and he's not going to play much at UCLA so he might want to make a move like that. But he's much closer to Donny Daniels who is the bigman coach at UCLA.

I was watching the replay of the slam dunk contest from last years Mickey D's game briefly last night on ESPN2(no idea why they were showing it). When Budinger did his insane windmill I was chuckling to myself about all the UCLA fans who were calling Dragovic "Euro Budinger" before any of us had seen him play.

 

[bko32]

I think Dragovic can become a more lethal version of Roll. I think his defense will improve if he stays at UCLA and that will become less and less of an issue. As for his release, that's something that he'll have to work at, but on the collegiate level where he'll simply be a spot up shooter, I don't think it'll make a huge impact. If Dragovic wants to become more of a pure scorer, than he'll definitely have to work on that release.

 

[Russ Smith]

It's Ryan Wright transferring. No school named yet but rumor is he'll follow Keating to Santa Clara.

http://uclabruins.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/041807aaa.html