UA & Pac-12 Basketball Thread

[Russ Smith]

I think if the Wildcats play defense like they did against ASU (especially after the first 10 minutes or so), UCLA will wilt and we'll win by 15+. If not, it's anyone's game but obviously you have to give the edge to the home team. You mentioned earlier that you thought that Howland would play us straight up but we've struggled much more against the zone. If they man us, our athleticism and quickness could cause a lot of problems. I'm getting antsy, the clock isn't moving fast enough. As always, it will probably turn for us on the play of Lyons and to a lesser extent Solo.

Steve

We've played maybe 4 possessions of zone since SDSU and both the players and Ben have admitted multiple times they only practice zone now to practice zone offense. Would it be smart to have one in your back pocket for UA, yes, Ben usually doesn't do it though.

As a UCLA fan my best hope is Ben is REALLY good at the Thursday games where he has extra time to prepare for a team. I think straight up UA is the better team.

maybe the food poisoning Adams and Anderson had will have the same impact on them it had on Oregon's Woods who had a career high while sick against UCLA. they need Adams to get hot again that's for sure.

I just think the whole atmosphere will be a bit much for the freshmen. Someone pointed out on BRO we're unbeaten with Walton working our games but I still would rather he didn't. While I am not a Howland fan I could do without 2 more hours of him complaining about timeouts and small chairs.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I just think the whole atmosphere will be a bit much for the freshmen. Someone pointed out on BRO we're unbeaten with Walton working our games but I still would rather he didn't. While I am not a Howland fan I could do without 2 more hours of him complaining about timeouts and small chairs.

I was a fan of Walton the player and I even enjoyed his work as an analyst in the NBA but he's a dinosaur these days. His feelings about Howland are pretty obvious and between those rants and his oft-told Wooden/UCLA-of-old stories, he grows tiresome. He's no longer a student of the game and it shows in how ill-prepared he seems to be on these telecasts. At least he seems to like Sean Miller.

Steve

 

[Russ Smith]

I was a fan of Walton the player and I even enjoyed his work as an analyst in the NBA but he's a dinosaur these days. His feelings about Howland are pretty obvious and between those rants and his oft-told Wooden/UCLA-of-old stories, he grows tiresome. He's no longer a student of the game and it shows in how ill-prepared he seems to be on these telecasts. At least he seems to like Sean Miller.

Steve

That's how most UCLA fans I know feel too. Great player, wish he'd stop broadcasting.

 

[AzStevenCal]

After that flurry of missed layups, UCLA has gained confidence and now looks like the better team. It's still real early but we look flat and tight out there.

Steve

 

[ozzfloyd]

Cats got this

 

[AzStevenCal]

We need to start making our layups but Nick is getting us back in this.

Steve

 

[AzStevenCal]

It's back to a double digit lead, hopefully Lyons decides to play ball in the second half.

Steve

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

This team's consistent stretches of lazy basketball is getting old.

 

[AzStevenCal]

This team's consistent stretches of lazy basketball is getting old.

Yeah, I was hoping we had turned that corner. Obviously not. I really thought we had a quickness advantage here but they've had no trouble taking us off the dribble, play after play. I hate to say it with almost 13 minutes remaining but I think this game might be over if we don't get it together in the next 3 minutes.

Steve

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Well the good news is Shabazz is never going to step foot in McKale center ever again.

 

[ozzfloyd]

UA's sloppy offense and lazy passing caught up with them tonight...

 

[AzStevenCal]

UA's sloppy offense and lazy passing caught up with them tonight...

Our lazy perimeter passing has been the one constant you can depend on this season. Even still, if we had made our layups early on this might have been a completely different story. The really bad news is we don't get to play Oregon again and we have to play this Bruins group at least once more.

Steve

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

UA's sloppy offense and lazy passing caught up with them tonight...

Sloppy offense will probably remain, there's no true PG on this team.

When Lyons isn't scoring he's a complete disaster.

 

[TJ]

Opportunities galore given by ucla. David Wear out. Adams out for a minute. Howland burning timeouts like wildfire. Bad substitutions.

But none of that matters if the ball doesn't go into the hoop. Couldn't even make a simple layup. Team didn't look ready to play, particularly Lyons. Then of course, Shabazz happened.

Painful. Not the week to be ranked.


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[MaoTosiFanClub]

When you don't have a PG you inevitably have bad stretches because nobody is controlling the flow and tempo. This team generally plays good enough defense and has enough scoring talent to win a lot of games this year but ultimately they are flawed and always have been in that major aspect. Probably a Sweet 16 team is my guess.

Next year's team with McConnell/NJ/Ashley/Gordon/Jerrett is going to be insane.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Something to think about - when you consider that Momo and Lyons are essentially the same exact player (not a PG, reckless, generally huge in big moments, ability to shoot you in and out of games) what if we never took pothead Josiah and kept Momo?

Roughly about the same place this year but likely would have made Tourney last year.

 

[TJ]

Something to think about - when you consider that Momo and Lyons are essentially the same exact player (not a PG, reckless, generally huge in big moments, ability to shoot you in and out of games) what if we never took pothead Josiah and kept Momo?

Roughly about the same place this year but likely would have made Tourney last year.

Yeah, Momo is in effect Mark Lyons. Cut from the same mold.

If we never took Josiah, we'd have Jahii Carson. that still pisses me off.


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[MaoTosiFanClub]

If we never took Josiah, we'd have Jahii Carson. that still pisses me off.

100% incorrect. Jahii's people were wary of him playing with NJ as they were concerned about Nick being moved to point guard so we moved on to Turner. Obviously not very bright in retrospect for either party. Can't wait for McConnell next year and Miller's first actual PG.

 

[TJ]

100% incorrect. Jahii's people were wary of him playing with NJ as they were concerned about Nick being moved to point guard so we moved on to Turner. Obviously not very bright in retrospect for either party. Can't wait for McConnell next year and Miller's first actual PG.

I recall it was our choice of Turner or Carson. Not sure where the notion of Nick to PG came from seeing as he's a #2 born and bred and never in consideration for point until Turner went Turner on us.

As long as the freshman continue to develop (and Zeus becomes aggressive) McConnel will be an invaluable asset in 2013-2014


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[Russ Smith]

Color me surprised, didn't think UCLA was ready for that atmosphere.

Totally agree on Lyons, its why I didn't want him at UCLA(we contacted him). Good player but not a PG and he's too concerned with being tough, he's too busy talking instead of playing, and if he gets beat, he tries to get it back. Drew just baited him into shooting over and over all night, 0 assists in 34 min as a PG?

Also why did Miller play Tar I can't spell it that much when it was so obvious he couldn't guard? With Travis out the 2nd half maybe you can play him a bit against Parker but he's useless against either Wear because theyr'e not going to play near the bucket. The only play he made all night was blocking Drew and staring him down, 1 board 0 points. He's way too bulked up, needs to change his program and lean out some, and spend the summer having someone pass him balls and learn to catch them.

I think they should have gone with Ashley and Jerrett alternating at the 5 the whole game, it was really obvious right away what UCLA was doing. find the mismatch and take it, Kyle blowing by Ashley, Adams blowing by Jerrett, everyone blowing by Kaleb etc. he did go small with Hill at the 2 and that started the comeback but too late.

I didn't see it but apparently in the 2nd half Parrom took a swing at Norm Powell, its apparently on tape so don't be surprised if the conference disciplines him before USC, but again I didn't see it so no idea what it was. he did hit Parker in the face and Tony got the foul but that was an accident he was in the process of hooking him with his off arm.

Drew just ate Lyons alive, that was the whole game. the amazing thing is Travis out whole 2nd half, Adams and Anderson recovering from food poisoning and now I'm hearing Bazz and Powell were possibly under the weather too.

The reason Ben called so many timeouts last night aside from he likes to, is he was getting rests for his exhausted team. I would have gone zone a few times just to rest them more but it worked.

Nice win on the road in those conditions. Miller made it pretty clear in the postgame, Drew dominated Lyons, that was the game.

 

[TJ]

Color me surprised, didn't think UCLA was ready for that atmosphere.

Totally agree on Lyons, its why I didn't want him at UCLA(we contacted him). Good player but not a PG and he's too concerned with being tough, he's too busy talking instead of playing, and if he gets beat, he tries to get it back. Drew just baited him into shooting over and over all night, 0 assists in 34 min as a PG?

Also why did Miller play Tar I can't spell it that much when it was so obvious he couldn't guard? With Travis out the 2nd half maybe you can play him a bit against Parker but he's useless against either Wear because theyr'e not going to play near the bucket. The only play he made all night was blocking Drew and staring him down, 1 board 0 points. He's way too bulked up, needs to change his program and lean out some, and spend the summer having someone pass him balls and learn to catch them.

I think they should have gone with Ashley and Jerrett alternating at the 5 the whole game, it was really obvious right away what UCLA was doing. find the mismatch and take it, Kyle blowing by Ashley, Adams blowing by Jerrett, everyone blowing by Kaleb etc. he did go small with Hill at the 2 and that started the comeback but too late.

I didn't see it but apparently in the 2nd half Parrom took a swing at Norm Powell, its apparently on tape so don't be surprised if the conference disciplines him before USC, but again I didn't see it so no idea what it was. he did hit Parker in the face and Tony got the foul but that was an accident he was in the process of hooking him with his off arm.

Drew just ate Lyons alive, that was the whole game. the amazing thing is Travis out whole 2nd half, Adams and Anderson recovering from food poisoning and now I'm hearing Bazz and Powell were possibly under the weather too.

The reason Ben called so many timeouts last night aside from he likes to, is he was getting rests for his exhausted team. I would have gone zone a few times just to rest them more but it worked.

Nice win on the road in those conditions. Miller made it pretty clear in the postgame, Drew dominated Lyons, that was the game.

Ben had no timeouts with ~3 min left in the game when UA cut the lead to single digits. Had UA gone on one of its patented last minute rallies and taken the lead, UCLA would not have had the opportunity to rest or set up a last-second play. Fortunately for UCLA, the ball simply wasn't going into the hoop. In addition to which, I found it perplexing that in the first moments of the game, he took out Shabazz when it appeared that he was on fire and wasn't going to be stopped. There is no reason he should not have dropped 35+ on us.

Don't discount your team, Russ. UCLA is good and should (and will) be ranked.

As for Lyons...well....he played like crap on both ends of the floor. Undeniably his worst game as a Wildcat. Burn the tape and focus on USC.

 

[Russ Smith]

Ben had no timeouts with ~3 min left in the game when UA cut the lead to single digits. Had UA gone on one of its patented last minute rallies and taken the lead, UCLA would not have had the opportunity to rest or set up a last-second play. Fortunately for UCLA, the ball simply wasn't going into the hoop. In addition to which, I found it perplexing that in the first moments of the game, he took out Shabazz when it appeared that he was on fire and wasn't going to be stopped. There is no reason he should not have dropped 35+ on us.

Don't discount your team, Russ. UCLA is good and should (and will) be ranked.

As for Lyons...well....he played like crap on both ends of the floor. Undeniably his worst game as a Wildcat. Burn the tape and focus on USC.

Bazz came out because of defense, and because he apparently wasn't feeling well.

There was a play where Hill went coast to coast, you could see Ben yelling at Bazz to stop the ball. Then off an inbounds play Lyons came off 2 screens, Powell fought threw but was late running at him and Lyons stuck the 3, if you watch, Bazz literally stood there looking at Lyons, no effort to help Powell. that's why Ben pulled him, it was a big shot, the momentum had swung, and he wanted to send his kid a message, play hard all the time ,not just when you feel like it.

He came back in and played better.

I think we're not very good on defense, you guys all saw it you got good shots you just didn't make enough to outscore us. that happens almost every game. I can't believe our defensive FG% is as good as it is, we give up so many easy looks. But I also think UA got sped up, you guys aren't used to playing at that pace and you took a lot of bad one on one moves and shots because of it.

 

[TJ]

Well....that was easy.

Great defense holding USC to 28% shooting.


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[MaoTosiFanClub]

Light is turning on for Ashley. Kid's going lotto in 2014.

 

[TJ]

AP #8

RPI #4

Gotta take care of UW on Thursday. No excuses.