SB Nation User Blog: BruinsRule

State of Expectations/Perspective for 2009 (part one)

BruinsRule — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:50:36 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. - N

The performance on the field the past two weeks has left much to be desired, to say the least. Offensively, even the biggest proponent of UCLA or its coaches has to concede we have been abysmal. But I think people are losing perspective. 66 jumped to the rescue when he said we need to relax and keep an eye on where we are and where we are going. He would have saved me a lot of words if not for the fact that I am also a lawyer and therefore find it impossible not to speak.

The second guessers have come out in full force. Brehaut should start. Play calling is atrocious. Neuheisel and Chow are not cutting it. Austin and Embree don't belong in the game. In a sense, this is progress. Last year and in the final years of Dorrell we expected to lose by 14 or more points to Oregon because we knew we were going to be outcoached and less talented. Now, we expect better on-field results. We expect that an offensive coordinator with the reputation of Chow will magically turn our offense into a juggernaut. After that 3-0 start, we may not have said on this site that we expected to win 9 games, but we certainly thought it possible that the turn around we know must be just around the corner was coming a year early, and oh what a treat!

Thoughts of keeping perspective reminded me of a lengthy post I began last summer about my expectations for 2009 but didn't finish because I wanted to add something to it and never found the time. Yes, it may be too late for expectations on a season that is nearly halfway over, but when I thought back to what I wrote then, it helped to provide perspective on these last two games. So, I've reproduced the essence of that post below and have updated it so as to reflect that weeks have passed and things have happened.

I've often said in arguments here that I don't know the difference between expectations and predictions. That's still the case. As fans, we constantly combine the two, our hearts holding visions of roses in January (which in a way represents our expectations of where we want the program to be in the near future) while our rational minds try to tell us that it's not possible this year (leading to our expectations of a 5-7 or 6-6 type of season). This is a post about our expectations and regaining perspective, so I am going to leave all of that emotional fan stuff behind and get analytical and rational.

Any set of expectations for 2009 needs to take into account where we were in 2008. And today, to gain perspective on where we are as a program, we need to remember and what changed between last year and this year and should assume that we want this year to show us we are on a path toward our near future expectations where we come out smelling like roses.

Last year, we were 4-8, which obviously was not very good. But how bad was it? Of the 65 teams in the 6 major conferences, we were one of 6 teams to finish with a 4-8 record. Six other teams were worse than 4-8. Our record alone puts us in the 9th-18th percentile (ouch).

That lowly position was not over- or under-stated by tons of close losses or an especially difficult or easy schedule. Two of the teams we beat, WSU and UW, were probably the two worst teams of these 65 big conference teams (indeed they beat no other BCS division school except in the one game when they played each other). Our other two wins last year required last minute touchdowns for us to win by a field goal at home against 5-7 teams.

Of our 8 losses, only two were competitive games: Fresno State (31-36) and Oregon (24-31 in what may have been our best game of the season and surely was our best road game). The other 6 losses were by a minimum of 21 points (that’s right 3 TDs!). So the reality is that we could improve quite a bit and still have trouble eliminating a 3-TD gap between us and the 6 teams that blew us out.

Based on these results, we can easily conclude that we were one of the 7 to 12 worst teams in college football in 2008.

I went on in my pre-season expectations to conclude that we were likely to beat SDSU, KSU, UW and WSU and also thought we'd beat ASU. It seemed unlikely that we'd beat Tennessee or Stanford on the road, less likely that we'd beat OSU, USC and Arizona on the road after they'd pummeled us at home. Cal seems possible but we still had to bridge a considerable gulf. 5-7 season, here we come, I thought, and if we can knock off Cal, Stanford or Tennessee, we'd see a bowl game. Win the bowl game, and we're in the top 50%, which doesn't seem like a lot to cheer about, but that would be like getting all Fs in 2008 and then turning in all Cs the following year with a few Bs sprinkled in. A huge, huge step. Of course, going 5-7 seems a lot like going 4-8. You're still losing way too much. So, I set different expectations for us. Expectations not based on wins and losses but on what progress we should look for on the field to start to feel like we're moving in the right direction.

So what were my expectations heading into 2009 (other than a 5-7 season or maybe 6-6)? And how are they faring?

(1) MY EXPECTATION IN JULY: Developing an offensive line that can protect well enough to allow occasional 5-step drops and gives the QB a chance on most plays to get to his 3rd option. Fewer sacks and occasional holes for the running game. Also, I’d like to see some continuity develop on the line as the season progresses so that by the end of the year, we have 5 guys in place who will be back in 2010 and expected to start then as part of a solid to good line.

AFTER 5 WEEKS: Granted, this request was modest, but it seems like we're making progress in all points. We went to more 3-step drops against Oregon, but we've been mixing it up, and our QB is staying upright far more often than last year and most often having enough time to go through progressions before being under siege. Our RBs have holes and are not often getting stopped behind the line of scrimmage. We've started the same 5 guys in all 5 games. Based on what we hear about their performance, it seems that at least 3 of the 5 are going to be starters again next year (Sua-Filo, Baca and Maiava), while I would guess that the other two (Williams and Harris) will compete for starting jobs with Hasiak, Kia, Ward and Abele. It should also be noted that the current line has very little experience, with only Baca and Maiava having started at the D-1 level before this year and 4 underclassmen among the 5 starters. Next year, we will have some experienced players with size and talent, and based on the improvement I've seen, the 2010 line could be the foundation of a good offense.

(2) MY EXPECTATION IN JULY: A running back (or tandem) with consistent hole hitting and occasional break away ability. Last year, our longest run from scrimmage was 44 yards. I don’t have the stats for this, but we had a high percentage of tackles for losses. We need the o-line to open up holes, but we need a RB to run through them and get the consistent 3-4 yard gains, as well as a back who has home-run burst. As with the o-line, this may take time to develop, but it would be nice to go into 2010 knowing that we have 2 or 3 guys who can carry the rock effectively and at least 1 guy who has big-play potential.

AFTER FIVE WEEKS: Hit and miss. Our RBs are doing a better job of finding and hitting holes this year. Franklin shows some speed and ability to gain positive yardage consistently, and Thigpen and Knox have shown some burst. I cannot say we have a home run hitter. Of our top 5 backs, 3 are freshmen, 1 is a sophomore and 1 is a junior. There is a chance for major improvement between this year and next year, but I would like to see a couple home runs before I'm willing to be happy with what we have going into 2010.

(3) MY EXPECTATION IN JULY: Turning around the TD-INT numbers at QB. We threw 9 TDs and 22 INTs last year. Craft threw 7 TDs to our team and 6 to our opponents. Throwing for 22 TDs and 9 INTs is probably too much to ask of a redshirt freshman QB, but I would have to think that more TDs than INTs—14-12 perhaps—is possible.

AFTER FIVE WEEKS: The interceptions have decreased to an average of 1 per game, which incidentally puts us right on pace for 12 INTs. Unfortunately, we're throwing even fewer TDs than last year (on pace for 7). I will be interested in watching whether the # of TD passes go up the rest of the season. I still think 14-12 is attainable.

(4) MY EXPECTATION IN JULY: Deep threat at WR. As with our running game, we didn’t have a deep passing attack last year. Our longest pass play went for 43 yards (not a TD). Only 2 WRs (Embree and Moya) had even 1 catch for 30 yards or longer. Part was lack of pass protection, part was Craft’s arm, and part was lack of great speed at WR. With other things coming together, we need to develop a deep threat in the passing game. All the better if it’s someone who will be returning to the team in 2010 (meaning not Austin, who’ll be a senior this year).

AFTER FIVE WEEKS: We've only had 8 pass plays of longer than 20 yards, 4 of those were longer than 30 and one of those was longer than 50. Three of the 8 longest plays were by Austin and another was by Paulsen. Suffice it to say that our deep threat (who will be returning next year) has not been found. Carroll and Rosario are possibie deep threats in the future. Rosario's catching ability seems very good, and I would not be surprised if he plays more down the stretch. I did see against Oregon the validity in his not playing more than Embree: on a WR screen to the left, Rosario missed his blocking assignment and allowed a CB to blow up the play for a 4 yard loss.

(5) MY EXPECTATION IN JULY: Finally, I expect us to fight in each game. We showed some grit last year in many of our games (BYU excepted). Playing with a woeful offense, we hung tough in many games for 2 or 3 quarters before the wheels fell off the clunker we were trying to drive to the auto show. Fight and improvement in the areas described above will manifest in fewer blowouts and more competitive games. Perhaps we still go 4-8, but instead of 6 blowout losses, we have only 1 or 2. Or we stay competitive in 10 games and more of those into wins than predicted. These are little things, but I think they are important. Just as you have to walk before you can run, we need to get back to being average before we can be good. Being competitive against good teams is the beginning of that ascent.

AFTER FIVE WEEKS: We haven't been blown out! We haven't been blown out! No, that's not something to cheer about, but if we keep that up for 7 more weeks, it could be considered a form of progress. Perhaps this expectation is one of the reasons I don't feel so bad about the last two weeks. In 2008, the team would have fallen apart after falling behind to Stanford 24-6 or when the unfortunate chain of events led to 21 Oregon points in 4 minutes. Instead in both instances, we stemmed the tide and were able to make the games interesting. We have stolen one of the wins that could be the difference between a bowl and no bowl.

I've reached the point where I'm too exhausted to write more. Usually I would save the draft and try to come up with the conclusion tomorrow and wait for tomorrow to become three months from now. Instead, I'm going to post it as part one of my perspective on the team. Part two will be a more in-depth look at the coaches and personnel through the first 5 games (or 6, in case I don't finish it before the Cal game) and why, adding it all up, it makes the future seem bright (notwithstanding the most recent results).

Go Bruins.

NBA GMs Lend Credence to Holiday's Abuse Excuse

BruinsRule — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:06:48 -0000

For better or worse, Jrue Holiday is gone to the NBA. When he declared, he had the reputation of a high-school prodigy who couldn't make a smooth transition to the college game. Average to better than average Pac-10 guards had rendered him impotent on the court. What's a guy in that situation to do?

He could have taken responsibility for his poor freshman season. But no, in Jrue's case, he went on the offensive, displaying with his mouth the finishing skills that his body could not produce on the floor during his freshman campaign. He and his handlers spun a story about how he was misused by the coaches, lied to about his role, kept at arm's length by the seniors, blah blah blah, what I like to call the "Holiday Abuse Excuse." The fans' disappointment over Holiday's freshman season numbers and disappearance in losses and confusion that a player so overmatched could actually generate lottery interest from teh NBA quickly turned into irritation that he would denigrate the four letters that he represented on the court. At the end, he received "good riddance" comments from fans who must realize that, objectively speaking, he would likely have been our best player in 2009-2010 and could have made the difference between a Pac-10 title and a Pac-10 also-ran.

But now that he's gone, let's look at the efficacy of the Holiday Abuse Excuse.

When Holiday declared in April, initial reports were that he shouldn't leave, that he wouldn't stay in the draft:

Came into the season with huge hype but left people wondering what all the fuss was about. Obviously has great size for the PG position, if in fact he's a point guard. Pundits have long hyped him in a similar, almost programmed fashion, but for someone that was supposed to be polished entering college ball, he looked downright awful at times and never took over or dominated. Pac-Ten writers and insiders all think he's overrated. The early lottery projections were way off, and the DWade and Westbrook comparisons are a farce. With all the early entry candidates, Holiday is no lock for the first round and should return to school and prove himself by running the point guard position for UCLA next season. The UCLA system constrains statistics, but by leaving now, after such an average year, it makes it appear as if he has something to hide. Likely late first to early second rounder.

The Holiday Abuse Excuse campaign began, and one month later, the acceptance of Jrue's Abuse Excuse for his disappointing first year was gaining momentum:

A point guard by nature, Holiday spent the majority of his time playing off the ball due to the presence of Collison. This fact, coupled with Ben Howland’s slow-paced offensive system, prevented Holiday from getting very many touches or allowing him the freedom to create. Scouts who have seen tape of the freshman from his days as a prep star in California know that Holiday is a blossoming talent with an intriguing skill set to go along with good size for his position.

Fast forward to today, the Holiday Abuse Excuse continues to generate acceptance in NBA circles

One general manager said of Holiday: "[UCLA's] Ben Howland is an excellent college coach, but he had his thumb down so hard on that kid that he was afraid to take a shot at 15 feet. ... I think the coach had him scared to take most shots." The counter, of course, is that Howland's primary job is to win at UCLA, not run a farm club for the pros.

And Holiday is now projected as a lottery pick. Coincidence? I think not. Holiday could have performed well in workouts and measured well at the combine, but NBA general managers know to trust their eyes and the results of a player's one season in college. Let's not forget that one of the main reasons the NBA imposed the age limit was to give teams a chance to evaluate players against better competition (than in high school). Prior to the rule, GMs were making bad choices drafting on potential because they didn't have adequate ways to measure how a 6'11" prospect in Mississippi would stack up against another similar player in Ohio. After one year of NCAA ball, and GMs can see the cream rise to the top.

Thus, prior to the Holiday Abuse Excuse, GMs had the "potential" of Holiday, counterweighed by his poor freshman season. The counterweight of a bad college season has sunk many players and forced them back to college for another season. GMs do not risk their jobs drafting (and asking their boss to spend millions on) guys whose potential was not matched by the one year of performance against college competition. But if they can shift responsibility for the poor performance onto Ben Howland forcing Holiday to play out of position, well, then, you can go back to looking at the potential of Holiday the Point Guard and not the player you saw overmatched--Holiday the Shooting Guard.

So there you have it. Holiday Potential + Disappointing Season + Holiday Abuse Excuse = Lottery. Jrue Holiday used what I thought was a poor excuse, a bush league performance, selling out his coach and teammates, absolving himself of responsibility and irritating the hell out of Bruin fans everywhere. I don't excuse him for what he did to the Bruins, but I have to tip my hat for how he played to his audience for all of this: NBA GMs. He brilliantly played his hand to the tune of hitting the lottery and making millions more for himself. Wow.

And then I realize: This is how the mind of an NBA general manager works? How much do these guys get paid?

And with that, I'm back to being confused.

All Three Bruin Rookies Get Recognition

BruinsRule — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:24:43 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Many teams lost 1 player to the NBA last year, many lost 2 (Stanford and Memphis come to mind), but as far as I can tell, only UCLA and Kansas lost more than 2. But all 3 of UCLA's NBA rookies have established themselves in the league, which is remarkable. BAsketball Prospectus seemed to be the first to notice how well our Bruins are doing in the transition to professional basketball, and that continued with BP naming Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook to its All-Rookie first team and Luc Richard Mbaha a Moute to the All-Rookie second team. The same article put Love 2nd in the rookie of the year balloting (behind Brook Lopez). I am not sure I agree with that lofty position for Love because of his relative difficulty scoring, but Love certainly was a beast on the glass,

We all knew that Luc was an excellent defender. I used to rewind and replay action from games when he would make a play that made my jaw drop. The dive-steal at the end of the Gonzaga game (which is still on my tivo) and plays against LSU and Oregon (home 2007) where he covered 15 feet in two steps to steal a pass and block a shot, respectively, are in the category of plays I had to see again and again to believe that they actually happened. We saw on this year's Bruins team the difference between having an otherworldly defender at the 4 and an ordinary defender at the 4.

Still, I am surprised that Luc took no time to establish himself as one of the top defensive power forwards in the NBA. Usually, getting noticed for defense takes several years. But Luc is receiving all kinds of recognition for his defense. At Basketball Prospectus, he received honorable mention on the all defensive team at the power forward position. BP noted the enormity of his accomplishment:

Rare is the rookie who can step into the NBA and become an elite defender right away. Mbah a Moute has been just that at both forward positions for the Bucks, helping Scott Skiles turn the Bucks from one of the league's worst defenses into an average one overnight.

John Hollinger of ESPN noticed as well, naming Luc to his 3rd team all-defense at power forward:

It's rare for a rookie to crack this list, much less move into the upper tier of the league's frontcourt defenders, but Mbah a Moute was that good. The 6-9 forward from UCLA guarded 2s, 3s and 4s, and with his quickness, long arms and surprisingly developed knowledge, he proved adept no matter the assignment.

SI.com also ranked Love and Westbrook in their top 5 rookies of the season.

What does this mean? First, congratulations to all three Bruins to their success in the NBA. Second, when the NCAA season started, I don't think anybody fully contemplated at the time just how significant the loss of these 3 players would be to the 2008-09 Bruin team. Despite what Collison, Aboya and Shipp meant to the team, only Collison is an NBA player, and it is doubtful (to me at least) that he will have the kind of impact that any of the 3 2009 NBA rookies.

In 2008, we were all disappointed that we did not win a national championship. Looking at the 3 players from that team who succeeded in the NBA this year, I understand the disappointment. However, that 2008 team lacked an important quality that ultimately led to its downfall: depth. Beyond the 3 who left last year and Collison, the 2008 Bruins had no future pros. With Shipp struggling mightily at the 3 and no backups at the point guard or two wing positions, we really were playing with 4 excellent collegiate players. We had solid backups at the 4 and 5 spots, but Luc and Love were so good that the drop off to the bench in those spots was severe.

Why did we lack depth and can it be remedied? If we go back to 2003, we may have the answer why. Howland arrived in Westwood when UCLA was at an all-time low in recruiting circles. He immediately brought in some guys, but it takes time to build a depth of talent. Many local guys will commit based on faith that success will come (JF, AA, JS, LMR, thank you), others, namely nationally prominent recruits, want to see the success before they sign. The 2005 class (Collison's), which was signed before Howland had a winning season at UCLA, was excellent, but it did not have any recruits that were getting offers from what were then the national powers. The 2006 class, signed before Howland had an NCAA tourney win at UCLA (Keefe, Westbrook and Dragovic) included one player who could have gone elsewhere but signed on faith (Keefe), one foreigner who wasn't highly recruited, and one rising star who signed after the season we went to the NCAA finals.

Love was the first senior to commit to UCLA after it had national recognition, the first to sign with UCLA over a national power (UNC), and he was the recruit who stamped "national player" on UCLA hoops recruiting. We probably arrived too late to the scene to get Harden (whose close friend Glasser was already at ASU), but we had arrived.

Since Love's signing, we have brought in 10 top-100 players (according to scout.com) in 2 years (5 each season). In the 4 years ending with Love's signing, we brought in 10 (out of 14 total recruits), and no more than 3 in any season (AA, JF, LMR, DC, Ryan Wright, Roll, Keefe, RW, KL, Stanback). Prior to Love's signing, we signed fewer players (3.5 per season) and fewer top 100 players (2.5 per season).

It is clear from the above data that being a top-100 recruit is not everything (Luc was not in the top 100, Stanback and Wright were). However, I think it's fair to say that top-100 recruits have better odds than those who are not. Now that UCLA is locked a loaded in recruiting circles, I think it's safe to expect that no one will turn down UCLA because it lacks national cache or fails to produce pros. Academic and fit requirements will be challenging for Howland, but with the national presence, he should continue to find top players willing to come to UCLA.

With the last two classes, UCLA appears poised to counter the lack of depth of the 2008 team, which was only magnified when Farmar and Afflalo, two of the 10 top-100 recruits who would have been eligible on the 2008 team, left early for the NBA and Mike Roll, a 3rd top 100 recruit, was lost for the season due to his plantar tendon injury.

I am not certain whether the frosh-soph talent on next year's team will develop quickly enough for us to win a Pac-10 title next year, but I'm looking forward to watching it unfold and I have a lot of optimism about the next several seasons.

A Few Fun Facts About UCLA Basketball

BruinsRule — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:58:43 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

With UCLA having suffered an early exit from this year's tourney, we UCLA fans are bound to run into a joker or two who will try to denigrate our program as having amounted to nothing since the retirement of John R. Wooden shortly after UCLA won its 10th national championship in 1975. I heard from one of those jokers today, so I did a little research and learned some fun facts that might help you if you encounter these Bruin-haters.

Before getting into the data, it is important to note that I do not subscribe to a theory that college basketball began in 1975-76 (Year 1 AW (After Wooden)), or in 1985 (Year 1 of the 64- now 65-team field). The previous years are meaningful. Morevoer, no one would suggest that Duke fans should be forced to remove the Coach K years or UNC to remove Dean Smith's tenure or Indiana to remove Bobby Knight's success from any discussion of which program is the greatest.. That being said, if we were to pretend that college basketball began when Coach retired, UCLA holds up very well against other programs and has clearly been, in this 34-year stretch, one of the 5 or 6 elite programs in the country.

Since Wooden retired, UCLA has:

won 13 conference titles, which ranks 4th behind UNC (17), Kansas (16), Kentucky (14).
appeared in 27 NCAA tournaments, which ranks tied for 4th (with Arizona, Louisville, Kansas and Kentucky) behind UNC (32), Indiana (28) and Duke (28).
been to 6 Final 4s, which ranks tied for 4th behind Duke (11), UNC (11) and Kansas (7) have been to more)
won 1 championship, which ranks tied for 10th behind Kentucky, Indiana, UNC and Duke (3 each), and Louisville, Kansas, Florida, UConn, Michigan State, (2 each)

So, in the last 34 years, we rank 4th nationally in 3 of the 4 categories involving major accomplishments, and we're two national championships away from being at the top of that category. Only UNC has done more in every category. We've even handicapped ourselves (or you could say that Pete Dalis handicapped us) during this period by having 7 years of Hair Gel and 7 more with Farmer and Hazzard at the helm. That's a pretty phenomenal record since Wooden retired, a record that about 340 Division I teams would gladly trade with us. Indeed, if you are as optimistic as I am, you have to believe that the next 10 years will have at least one more and maybe as many as 2 more titles for the Bruins (I say 2 because no team has won more than 2 titles in any 10 year period since Wooden retired), which would move our national ranking even higher. If you wanted to assign points for these accomplishments based on their significance, I would use something like 1 for a tourney appearance, 2 for a conference championship, 3 for a Final 4 and 5 for a championship (recognizing that a national championship would actually be worth 9 because it is a tourney and Final 4 appearance) UCLA would rank 5th:

UNC 114
Duke: 99
Kansas: 90
Kentucky: 88
UCLA: 76
Indiana: 74

So, next time someone says, what has UCLA done since Wooden retired, you'll be well armed. Of course, in our universe and any other that includes Woden, any argument about greatness in college basketball can be won merely by saying 4 words: UCLA, Wooden. Alcindor, Walton. If you prefer more detail:

43 tournament appearances (2nd to Kentucky (50)
18 Final Fours (1st)
11 championships (1st)
99 tournament wins (2nd to Kentucky (100), but could fall behind UNC this year (99))
40 Conference Championships
1,642 wins
10 consecutive Final 4s (most ever)
37 First Team All Americans
31 First Round NBA Draft Picks

Go Bruins!

RPI Should RIP

BruinsRule — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:31:16 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I started this post on Friday afternoon but didn't have time to finish it. In the intervening 50 hours, the point has become more personal for Bruins fans than it was previously. I think this offseason is the right time for the NCAA selection committee to finally eliminate RPI in favor of a formula that considers margin of victory. By ignoring victory margin, the committee is handicapping itself in its quest to identify the 34 best at-large teams.

This year in particular Consider how the incessant "bubble" discussion would change for Pac-10 teams if a measure like Sagarin's Predictor (which uses margin of victory), Sagarin's Rating (which synthesizes his Predictor with a model that does not consider margin of victory) or Ken Pomeroy's Pythagorean formula were used instead of RPI (rankings through last Thursday's games--I compiled this on Friday; it's close enough to how these ended up for you to get the point):

Team    RPI    Sag Prdctr    Sag Rtg        KenPom
UW         11        14 (-3)        17 (-6)    14 (-3)
UCLA    27        7 (+20)        14 (+13)        6 (+21)
ASU       30       12 (+18)        21 (+9)        13 (+17)
Cal         40       28 (+12)        27 (+12)        29 (+11)
USC       49       30 (+19)        39 (+10)        33 (+16)
Ariz         58       40 (+18)        44 (+14)        38 (+20)
WSU      90       36 (+54)        52 (+38)        31 (+59)
Stan      104      49 (+55)        64 (+40)        50 (+54)
OSU      156    120 (+36)    114 (+42)    121 (+35)
Oregon 177    142 (+35)    140 (+37)    152 (+25)

AVG 74.2 47.8 53.2 48.7
MED: 53.5 33 41.5 32.0

As you can see, in every case but Washington, the numbers in the other rating systems rate each Pac-10 team significantly higher than the RPI system does. According to RPI, USC's rating was low enough that it was not even on the bubble when we played them. Had Kenpom been used, USC may have already been a lock to make the tournament. Of course, they weren't and we lost to them, a loss that cost us another 6 spots in the final RPI rankings.

Why is it the case that RPI is so different from these other two respected rating systems? Simply put, RPI's ignorance of the score of games creates a lot of incongruities that should lead its users to question its effectiveness for its purpose. Here is a sample scenario, if BYU were to beat UCLA by 1 point in Provo, it would have the exact same effect on UCLA's RPI as BYU beating Mississippi Valley St. by 51 in Provo would have on MVSU's. In fact, move the UCLA-BYU game to Pauley, and the game would have a more negative effect on UCLA's RPI than MVSU's because RPI gives 60% weight to road losses and home wins. I'll say it another way: MVSU loses to BYU by 51 in Provo, and we lose to BYU by 1 at Pauley, and RPI would rate MVSU as better than UCLA.

The committee shows much evidence of its recognition that RPI is not an effective measure of a team's strength. For instance, Arizona got a tourney bid despite a #63 RPI, while San Diego State was left out of the tournament with a #34 RPI. UCLA, one spot higher in RPI, picked up a 6 seed, but the Aztecs are NIT-bound.

Of course, had the system used by the committee viewed margin of victory, UCLA's wins would look more impressive. After all, despite finishing 2nd in the Pac-10, we led the conference in point differential by a significant margin, and we also pummeled all of the crummy competition we scheduled in the preseason. Use these other measures, and UCLA is a protected seed.

Alas, we have the RPI this year, and Coach Howland was unable to game the system as well as some other coaches did:

-Siena RPI #18 despite 7 losses and only 12 games against top 100 (compared to UCLA's 18 games vs top 100)

-Utah RPI #10, despite a worse record than UCLA (by 1 less win), no road wins over an RPI top 100 team, a loss to a #195 RPI team Idaho State, a home loss to Cal, and fewer games and wins over top 100 competition. And by the way, their only wins of note were against Gonzaga when the Zags were reeling, SDSU and BYU.

And that's the system that sends us to Philly to play a tough 1st round game and if we're fortunate enough, Villanova in its secondary home.

Addendum:

I thought of this while noting for myself that before the USC game, we were something like 5-5 against RPI top 50 teams. USC was 49th in RPI. Had we beaten USC, they would have fallen out of the top 50 (despite being the same team they were all along), and our record against the top 50 would have fallen to 3-5, which would have been a black mark in the selection process. It struck me as odd that no matter what happened against USC, our record against the top 50 was doomed to get worse.

Of course, we did lose, and our record against the top 50 did also get worse. And a few minutes ago I reflected on the fact that we dropped RPI 6 positions after a neutral court loss to a team that was in the top 50. In the rating systems that consider scoring margin, we didn't drop nearly as far. The irony thickens.

In Praise of Jrue

BruinsRule — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:45:33 -0000

With the economy being where it is, I've had a lot of time to read about Bruin basketball. Over the past several weeks. I've read many a commentary on other Bruin fan sites and to a lesser extent this one, that have expressed grave disappointment in our top freshman player, Jrue Holiday. I could go to those other sites and express my contempt for a lot of those thoughts, but I frankly don't think they deserve to know any better. My friends on Bruins Nation, however, are always prone to reviewing and appreciating the facts, so I thought I would reconstitute my call to stop bashing Jrue into a post about why it's okay as a Bruin, and possibly even essential, to praise what he's done for us this year. To me, he has become akin to the girlfriend that you take for granted and break up with, only to realize how great she was when you try to find her replacement.

It probably started with unrealistic expectations. Kevin Love was the last HS player of the year before Jrue, so Jrue came with Love-like expectations. And he surely has not equaled Love's performance. Looking back, we shouldn't be too surprised. Kevin was a once in a generation type of player in a once in a generation freshman class. That's the wrong comparison to use.

I think that this comparison with Love is causing us to overlook some obvious and not-so-obvious contributions that Jrue has been making to the 2009 Bruin team. As Meriones said, he's sort of like a Swiss army knife. (Question for history majors: Why is it called a Swiss army knife when the Swiss have always been neutral?) When you peel back the banana, the facts show that Jrue is a valuable member of the team.

What has Jrue contributed? On the team, he ranks 3rd in rebounding, 2nd in steals, 2nd in assists, 1st! in blocked shots, and 5th in points. He is 4th in the conference in assists to turnover ratio. Coaches (not Howland--he can't vote for his own players) thought enough of him to name him to the All Pac-10 freshman team.

Offensively, Jrue has not been a great scorer. He is the 5th scoring option in our offense in part because Shipp and Dragovic have been shooting the lights out and in pat because that part of his game is less developed than other parts. Being the 5th option comes with it fewer opportunities to score, and he has, indeed, scored less. He also is playing off the ball, and in an offense designed to have the point guard dominate the ball, he doesn't have it in his hands very often. But he has still been a very good player on offense because of his passing, rebounding, and low turnover rate. He also shoots at a pretty good percentage (though not as high as the other starters). All of this combined, gives him a 110.3 Offensive Rating according to Pomeroy's tempo-free stats. That rating is only good enough for 6th best on the 2009 Bruins (behind Roll, Collison, Aboya, Shipp and Dragovic). Or you could say, he is the 6th best offensive player on the 3rd best offense in the country--a team that is the best in the NCAA at shooting and in the top 10 in fewest turnovers.

How good is a 110.3 rating? Well it's 429th in the NCAA. If you consider that there are 343 teams in division I and about 8 players per team play enough minutes to get rated, he ranks well within the top 20% of all NCAA players offensively. But on such a good offense, not playing in a featured role, he is overshadowed or lost in the shadows. In fact, UCLA is the only team of the top 15 Pomeroy offenses that has 6 players in the top 500 in individual offensive rating (it would be surprising if we weren't the only team in all of division I with 6; as you go down the list, you find fewer and fewer players on each team that rate in the top 500). Only Pitt and UCLA have 5 players with a higher rating than Jrue's. In many of the top-15 offenses, Jrue's rating would place him in the top 3 on the team. If Jrue is good enough to be a top 3 player on a top 15 offense, we must conclude that Jrue is a very good offensive player.

I mentioned above that the comparison to Love was both unfavorable and unfair to JH. The more apt comparison would be to Westbrook. After all, he replaced RW in the line up at the 2 guard and has been asked to do similar things. Looking at him and remembering what I remember about RW, I would say that he sure doesn't seem like he's as good as RW was last year. So, I found it fascinating that RW's ORating last year was 109.6, which is close to but not as good as Holiday's 110.3. Holiday's rating is also higher than Shipp's rating was last year (110.2). So, if this were last year's offense, JH would be the #3 most effective offensive player on the team. We would probably be singing his praises and wondering why he can't play more minutes over Shipp or Westbrook. Instead, we're saying that he should be benched in favor of Lee, who's O Rating is 96.3 and commits 5.4 fouls per 40 minutes. Now, I really like what I see from Lee, and I think he should continue to be used in spurts and can't wait to see him develop over the next two years, but his offense is nowhere close to Jrue's at this point. His defense, though good, is not as polished, which helps to explain why he commits 70% more fouls but only manages 33% fewer steals (by rate).

Speaking of defense, it is clear that JH has not been the "stopper" that RW was, or for that matter AA. He physically is not as versatile as RW was. But Jrue appears to be getting way more than his fair share of criticism for the team's poor defense, when the reality is that he is probably our 2nd most consistent defender, behind Aboya. (Note: Pac-10 coaches disagree, having named Collison to the All-Defense team.) Aboya is our only defensive rock (of the starters anyway). Jrue is most often assigned to the other team's #1 scorer, and some of those scorers have produced fairly well against Jrue. Others, like Calvin Haynes, have flailed against Jrue. Despite facing some top guys like Christopher (who performed lower than his averages against Jrue) and Harden (who overmatched JH and nearly everybody else in the league), Jrue hasn't surrendered any Pac-10 player of the week performances (unlike another guard on our team). It's also uncommon for Jrue to get beaten back door or to be lazy getting back on defense. He does things effortlessly, which belies the effort he puts into his defense. Although we don't have a great measurement for individual defense, his numbers do show that he does some defensive things well, namely rebounds, blocks and steals. We also must remember that he is a freshman. As much as we remember that AA and RW were stoppers, they really didn't excel at it until they were sophomores.

I hope that some of you will read this and agree with me that Jrue is a very good all-around player, a top-flight player on a top-flight offensive team and an important defender on a team that struggles to defend well. His contributions not only go unnoticed, but they are also punished because he is not as good as we wanted him to be. He's not as mature as Love, or as good, and that is an albatross we are making him bear. This is not his fault but ours. In comparison of his all around game to the sophomore RW, he holds up fairly well offensively and his failure to be the stopper RW was does not mean that Jrue has been a below-average defender or that he is not a better defender than Shipp and Dragovic or more consistent than Collison.

Those who think that the team will be better off next year without him are mistaken. He is already our best underclassman (on offense, by a wide margin) and when you factor in defensive contributions, he is probably our best non-senior. He will only get better with an offseason under the best coach in America, to the point that perhaps like his predecessors at the 2 guard, he could be a legitimate stopper on defense while excelling as a distributor-first point guard. If he goes pro, it will be a setback for a program that will be left with no back-up point guard and scarce backcourt depth. Should he return, we will once again compete for the Pac-10 title and could be a major threat in the post season. the difference between the two scenarios is staggering.

Whether or not you agree with me about my praise of Jrue's contributions, however, is less important to me than this: Jrue is a Bruin; he plays hard; he seems like a good kid; he supports his teammates; he accepts his role; he doesn't get into trouble; and he represents the Bruin community well. A Bruin who exemplifies so many of the qualities that we love to see in our Bruins does not deserve the fans' ire or scorn or good riddance. He deserves our support, our well wishes (if he does go pro) and our thanks for his effort to make the 2009 Bruins a great team (whether or not they get there).

On Thursday, I will be watching the team with great interest, and I will be watching and appreciating the little things that Jrue does, even the things that I struggle to notice. I will be hoping that Jrue and his teammates play their best basketball over the next 3 weekends to stay allive to play a 4th. Go Bruins!

Defense and Leadership

BruinsRule — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:14:06 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. - N

I have been waking up in a cold sweat every night at the horror that is my memory of the Washington State game. We picked a grand time to puke out a loss against a mediocre team in a trap game. No sooner could we say "We have the most favorable schedule of the 4 teams in a virtual tie for 1st" (a mouthful no doubt) that we dropped into 3rd, tail between our legs.

The image I can't escape is just how easy it was for Washington State to shoot so well. Rarely with a hand in their face, rarely did I think "That's a bad shot." No, it seemed almost like shooting practice. It was so odd that I kept expecting to see CHP on the sideline in a sopping wet dress shirt and $25 tie. It was under his less than watchful eye that we got used to things like this happening:

WASHINGTON STATE senior F Caleb Forrest scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the win at UCLA. In two games vs. the Bruins this season, Forrest is shooting 14-of-17 (.824) from the field and averaging 15.5 points. For the year, he's averaging 6.4 points per game and shooting 50.4 percent.

I know that two games is a small sample size, but the difference is so striking, so staggering, it's frightening. Caleb Forrest? Are you kidding me? Forrest hit 2 of his 3 career 3-pointers and scored his career high--19--against us in Pullman earlier this season. Otherwise, he's never scored more than 13 in any game. He's only exceeded 11 points 6 times in his 4-year career (twice against us). He's shooting better than 50% against only 2 other Pac-10 teams this year, but just by one made shot (8-15 vs Cal and 4-7 vs Oregon).

So Caleb Forrest owns us. We saw that with our eyes. (In fairness to the 2009 Bruins, Caleb also shot 4-5 against us in Pullman last year.) But he's just one player. Which leads me to Taylor Rochestie, who last week became the 2nd consecutive point guard to win Pac-10 Player of the Week honors in large part by going off against the Bruins and, in particular, Darren Collison (emphasis mine):

Rochestie had a career-day as he led Washington State to an 82-81 upset of No. 20 UCLA on Feb. 21. The Santa Barbara, Calif., native finished with a career-high 33 points, while totaling five rebounds, four assists and two steals in 40 minutes of action. He shot 71.4 percent (5-7) from beyond the arc and was a perfect 10-for-10 from the free throw line. This marked the second 30-plus scoring game of the season for Rochestie, as he became the first Cougar to score 30 or more points in multiple games since Marcus Moore had three 30-plus games in the 2002-03 season. The win Saturday was just second in school history for Washington State at UCLA.

Then I read this (emphasis mine):

With the 82-81 win at UCLA, it was just the fourth time in 181 games over the last six seasons that WSU allowed more than 80 points in regulation, but this marks the first time the Cougars were on the winning end. In the 2002-03 season, the year before the arrival of the Bennetts, the Cougars were 0-12 in games in which their opponent scored 80 or more points in regulation.

So, Washington State beat UCLA in a shootout, Rochestie had a career day, and Forrest owns us. Strange world. When those things come together, it's no wonder that WSU had the highest Offensive Efficiency Rating against us all season (127.1). Not only that, WSU's offensive efficiency was the highest UCLA has suffered since 2004, when Arizona exceeded it twice in CBH's first season.

It got me to thinking, just how porous has our defense been this year? So I looked back at the game-by-game point-per-100 possessions (Defensive Efficiency Rating) data at kenpom.com from the past several years. Eyeballing the data, it appeared to me that an average defense would hold an opponent to about 1 point per possession, which would equal a rating of 100.0. A rating of less than 90 is very good. A rating of more than 100 is below average, beyond 110 is mediocre, in excess of 120 is extremely poor. I removed Howland's first season from the data I reviewed because that team was, well, not really a Howland team. [On further reflection after finishing the rest of the post, I now think that average is probably slightly higher than 100, perhaps 102 or 103, so adjust accordingly.]

The game against Washington State was indeed the worst defensive performance we've had in the 4 2/3 seasons I reviewed. Moreover, 5 of the Bruins' 10 worst defensive performances in these past 5 seasons have come during the month from Jan. 22-Feb. 21, which spans our last 10 games. Put another way, in 160 games from Arron Afflalo's first game in Nolv. 2004 through the Jan. 17 loss to Arizona State, we had 5 games in which our Defensive Efficiency Rating (points per 100 possessions) was in excess of 117.0, an occurrence rate of 3.1%. It took only the next 10 games for us to have 5 more Defensive Efficiency Ratings that exceeded the 117.0 threshold, an occurrence rate of 50%, an increase in occurrence rate of approximately 1600%!.

So the evidence does seem to match our eyes: Over 10 games, we've had 5 woeful defensive efforts. Five of the worst performances in the CBH era, all bundled together in a painful month. We are 1-4 in those games (the sole win was the squeaker in Pullman). In our other 5 games in that stretch, we defended exceptionally well in two of them (USC (81.2) and Stanford (87.8), fairly well in two others (Cal 92.0) and Notre Dame (93.8) and about average (99.8) in our win over Washington.

Not surprisingly, the team does not fare well when its Defensive Efficiency Rating is high. Here is the breakdown over the studied period:

                                 Record-->
Def. Eff. Rating      2005    2006    2007    2008    2009 TOTAL   PCT.
<89.9                       4-0        14-0     16-0     19-0    10-0    63-0       1.000
90.0 -99.9               9-4        11-1     6-1        9-0      6-1      41-7        .854
100.0-109.9           1-3         6-2       6-2        4-2      2-1      19-10      .655
110.0-119.9           4-4         1-4       1-3        2-2      2-3      10-16      .385
120.0+                     0-0         0-0       1-0        1-0      0-2      2-2          .500

Further detail on this shows that when we have held opponents to a Defensive Efficiency Rating of 98.0 or less, we are almost assured of victory, and if we have a higher rating, we are basically a .500 team:

Def. Eff. Rating      2005    2006    2007    2008    2009 TOTAL   PCT.
DER <98.0             12-1      24-0     22-1     25-0     15-1    98-3       .970
DER >98.0             6-10       8-7       8-5       10-4      5-6     37-32     .536

One may look at that and note that the number of games in 2009 in which our DER is greater than 98 is not out of line, as compared to the number in prior years. I think it's too early to address that data because we tend to play more good teams as the season progresses and we reach the conference tourney and NCAA tourney. As such, I'd like to reserve on analyzing that data until we complete the season.

So, we've looked at the data and learned that if we play defense at about 2% better than an average team [Note: 5% better than average if average = 103.0], we are nearly unbeatable. And that leads me to the next point. As mentioned above, in the middle of this woeful defensive stretch (stench?), this same team brought a lot of pain to our opponents when they tried to score. Cal's Coach Montgomery was completely befuddled. He gave up. Floyd had no answer. Harangody went for 5 and 1. From this excellent stretch against capable teams, we know that--despite the lack of RW, LRMAM and others--we are capable of playing well, quite well, on defense. We know that when we bring major defensive effort, we can run teams right out of the building.

So why, if we can, are we not? Coach Howland gave us some of the answers this week. It's about taking it personally when you give up a basket. It's about executing the defensive game plan with quick help and recover, strong, timely double teams, challenging shots. It's about a team comprised of players with character of champions recognizing that defense is all about honor, pride, team and effort and that defense wins (championships). Converting these simple premises into concrete results requires a leader to take the reins and not let his man beat him. It requires a team of players to follow that leader with the best effort they can give.

We saw in those 4 games who the leader of our defense is. It's the same person who was so competitive that he got in Jordan Farmar's face in one of his first practices to show that he would not back down to anybody. It's the guy who pressured Mitch Johnson so much that Mitch must have wanted to crawl back into the womb. The guy who wouldn't give Jerome Randle an open look. The guy who took enough pride in his defense to significantly slow down Isaiah Thomas last Thursday. The same guy who has now allowed two players of lesser talent win consecutive Pac-10 POTW honors by imposing their will on him, lighting him up for career days. I'm not saying it's only DC's fault that our defense has failed to defend in half of the past 10 games. It isn't. Those types of efforts take an entire team meltdown. But DC is who should be mad as hell about what Wise and Rochestie did and not want to take it anymore. DC is at the head of the defense and can make it difficult for the other team to start its offense. Our coach calls DC the leader of the team and has entrusted him with the offense. If DC wants his senior season to be successful (In Coach's meaning of the word), he needs to look in the mirror and say "Enough." He needs to tell his teammates that he's going to bring his A-game on both ends and demand that they do so as well.

Do that, and success will come. Anything less, and DC will be able to start his pre-draft workouts on March 22, if not sooner.

Go Bruins!

College Gameday Going to Berkeley

BruinsRule — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:02:40 -0000

College Gameday Going to Berkeley

Looks like Bilas, Digger and the rest will be firing up the Berkeley student body before our game on Saturday. We'll need to bring our A-game to beat the Bears, especially with the crowd in a frenzy.

Seth Davis Addendum

BruinsRule — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:15:41 -0000

I was reading Seth Davis's mailbag today when some familar language appeared in a question:

No doubt UCLA isn't the top-10 team some claimed they were, but you went way overboard this week with your UCLA/Arizona comparison. Here are some things to keep in mind. UCLA dismantled Arizona 83-60 a few weeks ago. Arizona is 2-6 on the road, with the only wins coming against the Oregon schools. UCLA is ahead of Arizona in the Pac-10 standings. In the last three weeks, UCLA has outscored its opponents, including two bubble teams (USC, Notre Dame) and an NCAA tourney lock (Cal) by an average of 12 points, even if you include the two losses this past weekend.
-- Ryan Rosenblatt, Los Angeles

It sounded familiar because I wrote every word beginning with "UCLA dismantled ..." here, but it was surprising because I'm not Ryan Rosenblatt. So, to Ryan, whoever you are, I know that it's easy to cut and paste someone's words and submit them to si.com as if they were your own words, but just because it's easy to do doesn't make it the right thing to do. Next time, I would appreciate it if you would please use your own words to convey useful information such as this to others. Thank you.

Go Bruins!

SI.com's Seth Davis (Duke Graduate) Needs a Lesson in Logic

BruinsRule — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:49:31 -0000

Bumped. Not the first time this year we have seen anti-Bruin garbage from an SI.com writer. GO BRUINS. -N

In SI today, Seth Davis penned an article bemoaning the Bruins' ranking.

I'm sorry to hate on my fellow voters, but there is no logic -- none -- to have UCLA ranked ahead of Arizona. And not just ahead, but nine spots ahead. Was I hallucinating, or did Arizona just spank UCLA by 12 points last week? Yes, the game was in Tucson, but it's not like Arizona was a fluke; it was the Wildcats' seventh-straight win. It's time for voters and fans to come to a cold realization about UCLA. The Bruins have yet to beat a team that is currently ranked in the top 25. They have a chance to rectify that when they get No. 22 Washington at home on Thursday night, but for the time being, UCLA is overrated.

No logic? Apparently, they don't teach that course at Duke (I took logic from the esteemed Donald Kalish at UCLA, so I know what I am talking about.) Here is some logic:

UCLA dismantled Arizona 83-60 a few weeks ago.
Arizona is 2-6 on the road, with the only wins coming against the Oregon schools and bad losses to Stanford and Texas A&M. Only 2 of these 6 losses was by single digits.
UCLA is ahead of Arizona in the Pac-10 standings, even though Arizona still has to play at ASU and at Washington and has only 2 remaining home games.
In the last 3 weeks, UCLA has outscored its opponents, including 2 bubble teams (USC, Notre Dame) and an NCAA tourney lock (Cal) by an average of 12 points, even if you include the two losses this past weekend.
Louisville lost to Notre Dame by 33 points, yet Davis ranks the 5-loss Louisville team (which also has losses to Western Kentucky (neutral court) and UNLV (home court)) 11th, an unknown number of spots ahead of Notre Dame.
The Bruins are 7th in Pomeroy and 20th in Sagarin, Arizona is 33rd and 38th.
The Bruins have not beaten a top-25 team, but they've only had 3 chances, two on the road. Sample size.
Poll Rankings are a flawed measure to use to determine whether a team is deserving of a ranking. Had UCLA lost to Cal, Cal would be ranked and we'd be 0-4 against ranked teams. Flip side, if we had beaten ASU twice, ASU would have 7 losses and probably would not be ranked (the only ranked team with 7 losses is Syracuse), and if we had beated UW once, UW would have 7 losses and probably would not be ranked.
Further to the prior point, in 2006, UCLA entered the NCAA tournament with a 1-4 record against ranked teams, the lone win coming against #21 Nevada, and losses to #3 Memphis, #17 Washington (twice) and #23 West Virginia. By Seth's logic, UCLA didn't deserve to be ranked. We all know what happened.
Arizona has 8 losses on the season, and we only have 6.
Our Pac-10 scoring margin is +7.8, Arizona's is +1.8.

All of those reasons point toward UCLA being ranked over Arizona. The only two factors that would put Arizona ahead of UCLA are the head-to-head victory (which is offset by our head-to-head victory by a greater margin) and that Arizona's beaten the 18th, 19th and 20th ranked teams at home (and UCLA, who doesn't deserve the ranking, so why would we count them) and is therefore 4-2 against ranked teams (3-1 if UCLA is not ranked).

And that leads to another reason why Arizona doesn't deserve to be ranked ahead of UCLA. The Wildcats have lost to 6 unranked teams. I don't know about you, but the list of reasons for UCLA being ranked ahead of Arizona far outweighs the reasons for Arizona to be ranked.

Put that in your pipe, Seth, and smoke it.

In other news, we'd better win on Thursday, or I'm going to go postal.