UCLA Basketball: A Mid-Season Report
Now that the mid-way point in the basketball season has arrived for the UCLA Bruins, three words best describes coach Ben Howland’s team:
Youth. Inexperience. Mediocrity.
After starting the year 2-6 with losses to Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State (of all people!), the Bruins have gone 5-3 since that horrendous beginning, including 2-2 in the Pac-10 conference.
It was a foregone conclusion that UCLA was going to be rebuilding after losing standouts like Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, and Jrue Holiday to the NBA.
One could say that the team has improved over the past eight games in winning five out of their last eight, but issues still remain.
Malcolm Lee, Tyler Honeycutt, Reeves Nelson and Jerime Anderson are young layers who have talent and potential, but have made costly mistakes such as turnovers – which cost them in their 70-59 loss to Stanford yesterday.
Nelson, in particular, is a beast in the paint as far as battling for rebounds, but can’t shoot free throws. Anderson has continued to make too many mistakes at guard; his tipped pass at the end of overtime at California could have spelled disaster for the Bruins if not for the ball falling into Michael Roll’s hands and him making the winning shot with less than two seconds left this past Wednesday.
In short, UCLA has suffered from a combination of freshman growing pains and Howland’s reluctance to open up the offense and needing his arm twisted to play zone defense, which he has finally done at times these past two weeks.
One source of hope is the fact that the Pac-10 is down this year with no teams standing out, which makes these conference games winnable. The one team that’s ranked in the top 25, Washington, is sure to fall out of the polls after an 0-3 start in league play, which included getting swept by the Arizona schools this weekend.
With their record currently at 7-9, UCLA does have a shot at finishing at .500, which Howland has marked as his goal. It all depends on how much the Bruins continue to progress and which team shows up at games.
USC comes to Pauley Pavilion this coming Saturday, and although the recent sanctions have rendered their season meaningless, with them being banned from all tournament play, the Trojans did go on an eight game winning streak led by forward Leonard Washington and transfer guard Mike Gerrity, who immediately turned ‘SC around upon arriving at Galen Center.
Beating them will be difficult, as Garrity clearly has the edge over Anderson and Lee at Guard and Washington has the edge in the frontcourt over Nelson and Nikola Dragovic.
Hopefully the Bruins, with their fans’ help, will find a way to win in their friendly confines.
It’s more or less a given that the only way UCLA will see post season play will be to win the Pac-10 tournament in March.
Unfortunately, no one in Bruin Nation is expecting that this year, so the only thing to do is to look for progress and improvement from this bunch.
If they show that, then the future will look quite bright in Westwood.
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