Basketball Woes Suggest Howland Was Just Dealt a Bad Hand

Now I’ve watched this game, and to the casual viewer you’ve probably decided that Howland needs to go. This game in particular was simply just painful to watch.

But all the problems… are really not in Howland’s control from what I’ve seen. I’ve written before about how the Bruins are simply out of shape- the difference between first half defense and the second half is tremendous. (Not to mention terrible free throw shooting… there’s only so many things you can do to make a player better at free throws, the rest is on the player.)

From a strategic standpoint, the Bruins actually completely dominated Arizona. They were the ones taking easier shots (e.g. the high percentage ones) and avoiding the long 2’s that are the death to any college basketball team. They were also dominating the ball- they took 61 shots compared to the 47 shots that Arizona took.

They were a bit unlucky today with the fouls- Arizona shot nearly DOUBLE the amount of free throws, but that’s not worthy of discussion. Every coach wins some and loses some when it comes to that.

But most of all- the players are simply… missing the shots. Our FG percentage was shockingly low. But what makes our shooting particularly atrocious is the fact that… they were all “easy” and short distance shots. I’m not even expecting them to make wide open 3’s (though they should). There are some things that coaches can’t teach, and that is accuracy from short range.When Arizona missed them, that was because they were hard shots. When UCLA misses them… well, not sure what happened there. But just like free throws- that’s on the player, not the coach. If you actually see the plays that set up these easy shots, they are all technically sound.

Simply put, the Bruins NEED to get better conditioning, I am always impressed by their first half defense, then come second half, and it’s just horrible. Ben Howland is also too stubborn to shift to a zone defense. His philosophy to basketball is an “all or nothing” approach (which I don’t agree with, but I digress). It’s either championship caliber tactics (i.e. man to man defense that’s seen in the NBA and in top college teams) or nothing. And for the most part, the defense looked good… for the first couple of minutes until the lack of conditioning shows. Now I’m not suggesting that our team is completely out of shape- they are still much more conditioned than somebody like me- but they are definitely below average compared to the rest of the schools.

Add that to the fact that Reeves Nelson was pretty much tearing the team apart, and the fact that we’ve essentially had no home games this season and you have a decidedly mediocre UCLA team. Howland is probably too nice to players- Nelson needed the boot from the start, but Howland let him finish taking finals.

If there’s one thing I don’t like about Howland other than his stubborness- it’s the fact that he can’t retain players as well. He doesn’t try to convince the players to stay (which may be better for the player’s NBA career, but bad for UCLA basketball). We would be a strong team if we had Tyler Honeycutt and Malcolm Lee, who took up most of our minutes last year (so we’re starting afresh with our new players).

But in the end, Howland may be too good at developing players for his own good- the NBA has been brutal in draining our talent.

What we need is an AD that will support Howland. He’s clearly not getting enough help when it comes to conditioning.