UCLA Starting Center Drew Gordon Will Transfer

We talkin’ about practice? Practice? Apparently, according to the Los Angeles Times.

UCLA center Drew Gordon decided to leave the team after Coach Ben Howland quietly suspended him for two days of practice this week, his parents said.

The Times report quotes Gordon’s parents saying that Gordon’s problems with the situation had more to do with UCLA’s plodding style of play than coach Ben Howland. They admit that Gordon has a temper, but stopped short of saying he had a “stormy” relationship with the head coach.

However, other people close to the situation describe things differently. One source told ESPN’s Andy Katz that Gordon’s “conduct was detrimental to the team” and that Gordon “was not viewed as having positive energy in the locker room.” Because, see, the rest of the UCLA players walked around the locker room with smiles on their faces singing Kumbaya.

Katz writes that Gordon will likely go to a Mountain West program, unless a West Coast Conference team (like Gonzaga!) is willing to take a chance on him. Gordon’s parents confirmed to the LA Times that he won’t go to another Pac-10 school, but didn’t elaborate, instead saying that several program have already called them.

Let’s assume for a second that Drew Gordon wants to stay on the West coast (a reasonable assumption: most of the schools that recruited him heavily out of high school were West-coast schools). Let’s also assume that he won’t want to transfer to another Pac-10 club, since that would mean he’d have to sit out both this year and next.

Who does that leave as the most logical possible destination for Gordon? Gonzaga, of course. SB Nation’s Gonzaga blog Slipper Still Fits notes that Gonzaga has had success with Division-I transfers before and suggests the program pursue Gordon.

I’m not trying to speculate about potential transfers or anything of that sort. However, Gonzaga will for sure have two openings with the graduation of Bouldin and Foster. Instead of trying to find a diamond in the rough in this mediocre 2010 class, why not push hard for a West Coast kid that was ranked in the top 25 for the loaded 08 class. Coming out of high school, Gordon had offers from UCLA, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Kentucky among others. You can reasonably eliminate any Pac 10 teams as potential transfer schools, since that would cost Gordon two years of eligibility. Assuming that Gordon wants to stay on the West Coast, which is reasonable given the fact he is from the Bay Area, what better school is there for a highly talented and athletic post to play at?

You see this story recycled all the time in college basketball. Talented player comes into established program, doesn’t fit in with said established program and then decides to transfer to a different program where he can get away with doing the things he did that prevented him from fitting in with his previous established program. Drew Gordon is just the latest example of this.

When stories like this happen, fans of the program tend to express their support for the program, not the player. Over at Bruins Nation, UCLA fans are doing exactly that.

Drew Gordon, stat wise has been the best player on this team. However, he has had issues controlling his temper and showboating a little too much on the court. Plus, it struck me as weird how he was taking 3 pointers with lots of time left on the clock in back to back games, when it was clear he wasn’t doing it within the flow of our offense.

Either way there is not much information out there right now. But right now this is big news. I tend to be on the optimist side when it comes to Ben Howland. So my gut reaction right now is that I am hoping this is a stark signal from Coach Ben Howland that this was about sending a clear signal re. who is in control at UCLA.

I’m kind of removed from the situation, being an East Coaster and all, but I personally wouldn’t mind if my team’s best player stat-wise was showboating a bit. As long as he produced, it doesn’t really matter to me.

(I keep telling myself this as a Wizards fan during the Gilbert Arenas era, though, so that might have something to do with my position).