UA & Pac-12 Basketball Thread

[AzStevenCal]

I missed the Oregon/UNLV game, assuming it was even on Tv here but I really like Mike Moser from UNLV - Thaddeus Young type like player.

Other than U of A games, I don't have much gamefilm. Last year with the lockout, I swear I had a about 75 CB games recorded before the NBA Season even started. lol

BTW, I was surprised Lindy's didn't have U of A in their top-10 Frontcourts.

It's a real young front court and last year we were really weak so it's no surprise they overlooked us. As I mentioned earlier, Vitale didn't have us in his list of top front courts either although I think they'll all change their tune by the end of the season. OTOH, I could just be so overwhelmed by the improvement from last year that I'm overstating the quality.

I watched the Oregon/UNLV game last night on my computer. It was only available on ESPN3 (on-line) as far as I could tell. As for Moser, I wonder if Howland wishes he'd hung on to that guy.

Well, it's time to go, the ASU/Creighton game should be starting soon. I love college basketball season.

Steve

 

[PhxGametime]

Doug McDermott reminds me of Wally Szczerbiak when he was at Miami (Ohio) and Jahii Carson has some talent!

 

[AzStevenCal]

Doug McDermott reminds me of Wally Szczerbiak when he was at Miami (Ohio) and Jahii Carson has some talent!

I don't see much similarity between the two. Doug is probably a little smarter than Wally, is a better teammate (read:nicer guy) than Wally, has less of an ego than Wally but is a long way from the player Szczerbiak was. If Doug had Wally's athleticism he might do even more with it than Wally did but his lack of quickness will make him mostly a non-factor at the next level. Also, at the college level, one of Wally's biggest strengths was his clutch play. While Doug is solid down the stretch, Wally demanded the ball and usually delivered.

Doug mostly plays the 4 in college and obviously there are no thin 6'7 power forwards in the Association. He can't defend on the perimeter and I don't think he'll be able to get his shot off consistently without the mismatches he thrives on at Creighton. He's a great college player that won't really have a position in the NBA. I was really surprised to see that a few "experts" are floating his name around for player of the year.

Steve

 

[PhxGametime]

I just remembered Wally being more of an inside player, posting, and getting physical in paint in College (for a 6'6 guy), though he could shoot from perimeter. All of a sudden becomming strictly more of a 3PT shooter in NBA?? I could be wrong though...

 

[AzStevenCal]

I just remembered Wally being more of an inside player, posting, and getting physical in paint in College (for a 6'6 guy), though he could shoot from perimeter. All of a sudden becomming strictly more of a 3PT shooter in NBA?? I could be wrong though...

He's probably about the same height as Doug but for the most part he played on the wing in college. He'd often take a defender down low and overpower him but he wasn't a good enough rebounder to play power forward. Wally was a great scorer while Doug is a more well-rounded player but well-rounded often falls short at the next level. You need to have that one thing you can do so well that you can do it against just about anyone and Doug doesn't have that IMO but Wally did.

Steve

 

[ozzfloyd]

Lol UCLA is a mess of a team right now. Howland's seat getting a bit hot? ;-)

 

[AzStevenCal]

Lol UCLA is a mess of a team right now. Howland's seat getting a bit hot? ;-)

They have too much talent to lose at home like that to a pretty weak team no less. They were up big late too. It's kind of hard to get the NCAA tourney committee to take our league seriously when we lose games like this.

Steve

 

[carey]

Still 2 more days until we play again. Seems like we were the only team off the entire TG break. None of my teams have played well this year: LSU Football (actually 10-2 is pretty great but it's all about BCS bowls and they can only take 2 SEC teams), New Orleans Saints, AZ Diamondbacks, Suns... really really want the Cats to step up and dominate the Pac12 this year. It's all I have left <sheds a tear>.

 

[overseascardfan]

They have too much talent to lose at home like that to a pretty weak team no less. They were up big late too. It's kind of hard to get the NCAA tourney committee to take our league seriously when we lose games like this.

Steve

Just goes to show you can have all the talent in the country but you have to have a coach that can make all that talent mesh into a cohesive team. Howland should be gone after this year but if recruits keep coming it will prolong his tenure.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Just goes to show you can have all the talent in the country but you have to have a coach that can make all that talent mesh into a cohesive team. Howland should be gone after this year but if recruits keep coming it will prolong his tenure.

I was really surprised he could still bring in a top class given the apparent dislike a lot of stars have for his style. I think he's an effective coach but his teams don't seem to get proportionally better as his talent level rises. It's probably a little unfair to rip them currently though as it can't be easy to mold them into a unit given the youth of their talent and the eligibility issues. But they have enough advantages just being UCLA so I don't mind piling on a little.

Steve

 

[Russ Smith]

They have too much talent to lose at home like that to a pretty weak team no less. They were up big late too. It's kind of hard to get the NCAA tourney committee to take our league seriously when we lose games like this.

Steve

Honestly I wanted him gone after last season, i don't believe in mid season firings but if I were AD I'd fire him now, promote Phil Matthews to interim head coach and start puttnig out feelers for the next coach.

he's lost the team, they didn't play hard last night except for one 12 min stretch when they turned the game into an 18 point lead and then coasted to the loss.

He has major issues with favoritism(Wears) unhappy players etc. he's got to go.

And yes it's terrible for the conference. UCLA will struggle but likely beat CSUN and then lose to SDSU and Missouri. So they go into conference with probably 4 losses. They're already unranked. If they do any gelling at all with this much talent they will knock off some other teams and hurt their RPI's as well.

Just brutal. Between the Cards situation and this it's pure misery.

 

[Russ Smith]

I was really surprised he could still bring in a top class given the apparent dislike a lot of stars have for his style. I think he's an effective coach but his teams don't seem to get proportionally better as his talent level rises. It's probably a little unfair to rip them currently though as it can't be easy to mold them into a unit given the youth of their talent and the eligibility issues. But they have enough advantages just being UCLA so I don't mind piling on a little.

Steve

It's his fault plain and simple. He recruited a team that can't play his man to man and is still trying to make them play it.

And he's lost control. Josh Smith is still fat, year 3, at some point it's not just on the kid it's why can't you motivate him and if you can't, why not just bury him?

Shabazz clears and first thing I said when he hit the court against Georgetown is why is he so chunky. His dad now admits he's 12-15 pounds overweight. How? The ankle healed by the start of August, the shoulder healed ahead of schedule. he can't ride the bike or run with a shoulder injury?

My guess is he didn't expect to clear that quickly and got a bit lazy, but there is zero excuse especially given his reputation as a hard worker. These kids just aren't happy and it's manifesting itself in terrible play.

they should have lost to Irvine as well.

 

[AzStevenCal]

It's his fault plain and simple. He recruited a team that can't play his man to man and is still trying to make them play it.

And he's lost control. Josh Smith is still fat, year 3, at some point it's not just on the kid it's why can't you motivate him and if you can't, why not just bury him?

Shabazz clears and first thing I said when he hit the court against Georgetown is why is he so chunky. His dad now admits he's 12-15 pounds overweight. How? The ankle healed by the start of August, the shoulder healed ahead of schedule. he can't ride the bike or run with a shoulder injury?

My guess is he didn't expect to clear that quickly and got a bit lazy, but there is zero excuse especially given his reputation as a hard worker. These kids just aren't happy and it's manifesting itself in terrible play.

they should have lost to Irvine as well.

I had to laugh at that. Isn't he even fatter or did 6 months out of the public eye soften my memory of him? So much talent wasted there. I can't imagine anyone would be looking forward to giving him a long term contract.

Again though, I don't see how he can still bring these kids in when the basketball world has been astir for several years with stories about him and his program.

Steve

 

[DWKB]

I had to laugh at that. Isn't he even fatter or did 6 months out of the public eye soften my memory of him? So much talent wasted there. I can't imagine anyone would be looking forward to giving him a long term contract.

Again though, I don't see how he can still bring these kids in when the basketball world has been astir for several years with stories about him and his program.

Steve

You have LA atmosphere and an apparent lack of discipline in the program. Perfect for a certain type of player recruit. Maybe not the kind you want associated with your program, but certainly high profile OADs who think they are NBA ready can see the advantages.

 

[Russ Smith]

I had to laugh at that. Isn't he even fatter or did 6 months out of the public eye soften my memory of him? So much talent wasted there. I can't imagine anyone would be looking forward to giving him a long term contract.

Again though, I don't see how he can still bring these kids in when the basketball world has been astir for several years with stories about him and his program.

Steve

No he's lighter than last season and in better shape but nowhere near where he needs to be. The kid doesn't love Basketball, he's admitted it several times. he wanted to play football or baseball but outgrew it so he plays basketball.

But at some point if plan A doesn't work you go to B and C etc. If you're going to keep him on the team, play him. Start him at the 5, Wear at the 4 with other Wear as the backup 4. Parker as the backup 5. maybe 10 MPG for Travis Wear at 5. If it doesn't work you go back but what he's doing now is just not working. Smith plays one good stretch each game, 3-4 minutes and then nothing the rest of each game.

the whole team is unhappy you can see it with the lack of effort. they played 12 hard minutes last night and then quit and blew the lead.

he's completely lost the team and it's 6 games in, 4 of these kids are freshmen how do you lose freshmen in 6 games?

The kids wanted to play together those 4. UCLA was the place because Bazz wanted to be closer to Long Beach where his family is originally from(moved to Vegas for the sisters tennis career). So the other 3 followed him. The dad Believed Howland would make him a better defender, and he will eventually, but it's too late to save the season. They didn't fire him last year because of this recruiting class, in hindsight they should have just fired him. Which I was saying last year even if we lose the class, get rid of the problem the kids don't want to play for him. Look UCLA isn't the only team with issues, UA had Turner last year, Kansas had a guy dealing drugs to their team etc. But all those programs have other system and checks in place to "weed" that out (pardon the pun). It didn't happen at UCLA. And now we've gotten rid of the bad seeds, but the program is still sick, because the kids don't like to play for Ben Howland.

 

[Russ Smith]

You have LA atmosphere and an apparent lack of discipline in the program. Perfect for a certain type of player recruit. Maybe not the kind you want associated with your program, but certainly high profile OADs who think they are NBA ready can see the advantages.

Didn't kansas recruit Shabazz? Didn't they recruit Kyle early on? Weren't they a finalist for Parker? Didn't they try and recruit Josh Smith but UCLA was the clear leader(with UW and briefly Oklahoma).

They're not going to UCLA because of a lack of discipline Smith had family in the area and apparently absolutely loves college. Which is great except he's totally let his team down again.

They're being fooled into thinking Ben can make them the type of defenders he had when UCLA was in the FF 3 years running, it's not working and the kids get there and realize they made a mistake and aren't happy.

He's got to go.

 

[DWKB]

No he's lighter than last season and in better shape but nowhere near where he needs to be. The kid doesn't love Basketball, he's admitted it several times. he wanted to play football or baseball but outgrew it so he plays basketball.

But at some point if plan A doesn't work you go to B and C etc. If you're going to keep him on the team, play him. Start him at the 5, Wear at the 4 with other Wear as the backup 4. Parker as the backup 5. maybe 10 MPG for Travis Wear at 5. If it doesn't work you go back but what he's doing now is just not working. Smith plays one good stretch each game, 3-4 minutes and then nothing the rest of each game.

the whole team is unhappy you can see it with the lack of effort. they played 12 hard minutes last night and then quit and blew the lead.

he's completely lost the team and it's 6 games in, 4 of these kids are freshmen how do you lose freshmen in 6 games?

The kids wanted to play together those 4. UCLA was the place because Bazz wanted to be closer to Long Beach where his family is originally from(moved to Vegas for the sisters tennis career). So the other 3 followed him. The dad Believed Howland would make him a better defender, and he will eventually, but it's too late to save the season. They didn't fire him last year because of this recruiting class, in hindsight they should have just fired him. Which I was saying last year even if we lose the class, get rid of the problem the kids don't want to play for him. Look UCLA isn't the only team with issues, UA had Turner last year, Kansas had a guy dealing drugs to their team etc. But all those programs have other system and checks in place to "weed" that out (pardon the pun). It didn't happen at UCLA. And now we've gotten rid of the bad seeds, but the program is still sick, because the kids don't like to play for Ben Howland.

I have no idea what KU BBall players smoking weed has to do with UCLA losing to Cal Poly, but whatever Russ....

 

[DWKB]

Didn't kansas recruit Shabazz? Didn't they recruit Kyle early on? Weren't they a finalist for Parker? Didn't they try and recruit Josh Smith but UCLA was the clear leader(with UW and briefly Oklahoma).

They're not going to UCLA because of a lack of discipline Smith had family in the area and apparently absolutely loves college. Which is great except he's totally let his team down again.

They're being fooled into thinking Ben can make them the type of defenders he had when UCLA was in the FF 3 years running, it's not working and the kids get there and realize they made a mistake and aren't happy.

He's got to go.

I didn't say any particular kid chose UCLA because of the lack of disciple, I said it wouldn't discourage kids from going which was the claim I quoted from Steven. Are you denying UCLA under Howland recently has had a disciplinary problem?

 

[Russ Smith]

I have no idea what KU BBall players smoking weed has to do with UCLA losing to Cal Poly, but whatever Russ....

I'm saying thoes issues are at lots of schools. It's just most schools do a much better job dealing with it than howland did. Arizona booted Turner, Kansas suspended Taylor and other kids got disciplined.

UCLA basically let Howland keep it all in house until he couldn't anymore. they gave him too much rope and he's hung himself. I'm not ripping KU or UA or anybody, I'm blasting Howland.

On the other point what I was saying was it's not the kids UCLA is recruiting are looking for no discipline, I'm saying that when they get to UCLA it becomes an issue. Gordon and Nelson it was well enough known but the rest of them it really wasn't.

Put it this way, there was a time last year where if a kid was visiting UCLA you could almost guarantee one of his player escorts would be Tyler Lamb or Brendan Lane, both kids are now gone, transferred out. Schools handpick kids to do that they pick the ones that sell the program well both to kids and more importantly sometimes, to the parents. the fact that the 2 kids howland himself selected for that duty, both chose to leave UCLA voluntarily should tell you what's been going on.

There's been a huge discipline issue and the kids who do "behave" are so fed up they're leaving.

He lost to Cal Poly because he's already lost his team, they won't play consistently hard for him. He 100% needs to go.

 

[Russ Smith]

if the rumor is true it's about to get even worse for howland and UCLA.

We will find out tonight. If there's another player missing tonight the rumor will be true. Rumor started monday but now appears to be true.
Looks very likely UCLA will have only 8 scholarship players tonight.

 

[carey]

What's the rumor? I'm not on those other sites you guys are on.

 

[Russ Smith]

What's the rumor? I'm not on those other sites you guys are on.

Well I'm not supposed to post it but Josh Smith quit the team. They're trying to convince him to change his mind but seems unlikely.

Ben is getting into Bill Berry/Lou Campanelli player revolt status.

 

[Russ Smith]

Confirmed. I believe the popular phrase now is dumpster fire.

UCLA announced Smith asked for and was granted his immediate release.

Barring a very quick move to make Phil Matthews interim coach, which I think would persuade Josh to come back, what a sad ending.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Confirmed. I believe the popular phrase now is dumpster fire.

UCLA announced Smith asked for and was granted his immediate release.

Barring a very quick move to make Phil Matthews interim coach, which I think would persuade Josh to come back, what a sad ending.

Any idea why he left the team other than the general dislike of Howland? I know he loses a little playing time to a very marginal Travis Wear but it's not like Smith can play 40 minutes.

Also, I don't know the rules on this, once you've been granted your release can you "just come back" or does it require NCAA or conference approval? I can't remember anyone ever being granted their release and then returning so I was just curious about it.

Steve

 

[Mulli]

Does Howland like Tempe?