SB Nation User Blog: Dexter Fishmore

Rivals Honors Norm Chow

Dexter Fishmore — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:13:55 -0000

The recruiting gurus at Rivals have named Norm Chow the Pac-10 Recruiter of the Year, on the strength of his efforts to reel in our highly regarded class. The entire article is here. I'm not sure whether it's behind a subscription wall, so here's a bit of their well-deserved praise:

Chow has been called a lot of things in his long and storied coaching career, but ace recruiter was never one of them. But that changed this season when Chow took on a major role in the Bruins' recruiting efforts. The Bruins' offensive coordinator became more active than ever, and his efforts were rewarded with commitments from five four-star recruits and two three-star prospects. He helped the Bruins pull off three Signing Day surprises with four-star athlete Randall Carroll, four-star offensive tackle Xavier Su'a Filo and four-star offensive guard Stanley Hasiak. He also landed his quarterback of the future in Richard Brehaut and assisted with most offensive targets for the Bruins.

Big congrats to our offensive coordinator for this recognition from people in the know in the recruiting world.

Updated ESPN Bracketology

Dexter Fishmore — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:44:26 -0000

ESPN's Joe Lunardi now projects UCLA to be a seven seed in the Midwest Region of the tournament.

At the moment, we have an RPI of 40. Against teams that Lunardi projects to reach the tournament, our record is 0-4 (the losses coming against Arizona State, Michigan, Texas and Washington). Not counting whoever we might face in the Pac-10 tournament, we have five games remaining against the projected tournament field (at Arizona State, a home-and-away with Cal, home against Notre Dame and home against Washington).

Lunardi predicts that four Pac-10 teams will reach the tournament. The highest projected Pac-10 seed is ASU as a four. In addition he lists Cal as a six and Washington as an eight. USC is included in his "first four out" of the field.

The Key to Thursday's Game: Jordan Hill

Dexter Fishmore — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:16:29 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

For the past couple of years, whenever UCLA has played Arizona, the focus of Bruin fans and commentators who follow the team has been on Chase Budinger (and, last year, Jerryd Bayless). This is understandable: Budinger was one of the nation's most heralded recruits out of high school, has generally produced as a highly regarded prospect should and has been a primary offensive option for Arizona since he entered the program. As the Bruins prepare to face the Wildcats for the first time in the 2008-09 season, however, it's important for us to recognize an interesting truth about this version of Arizona basketball - namely, that its best player is no longer Chase Budinger, but rather Jordan Hill.

The first thing to note about Jordan Hill is that he's bigger than he was last year, when he was listed at 6'9" and 211 lbs. He's now listed at 6'10" and 235 lbs., and even accounting for the sketchy measurements that typically populate college media guides, it's clear that Hill is now more of a load than he was last season (when he was already awfully good).

Hill is playing both more minutes and a larger role in the Wildcats' offense than he's ever done. More important, he's managed to increase his role without sacrificing performance. (Using Ken Pomeroy's tempo-free metrics, his personal "offensive rating" is about equal to what it was last year.) Although Hill's shooting is a little down this season, his turnovers are also down, his assists are up, and most crucially, his offensive rebounding is up significantly from what was already an impressive starting point. NBADraft.net remarked recently that Hill is quite possibly "the most improved player in the nation" and project that he will be the 5th overall pick (seven spots ahead of Budinger) in the 2009 NBA draft.

It's that last statistic noted above - offensive rebounding - that concerns me the most heading into Thursday's game. Last year, Hill rebounded 11.4% of his team's missed shots, which is a very good number that ranked 152nd in the nation. This year, however, he's rebounding a ridiculous 17.7% of Wildcat misses, good for 5th in the nation. The Bruins' problems with defensive rebounding, much discussed on BN, result in the danger that Hill could wreak significant havoc on the offensive boards on Thursday night. So when you're watching the game, keep an eye on our defensive rebounding early on. If Hill is creating numerous second chances on the offensive glass, klaxons should begin to sound in your head.

(Incidentally, this might result in increased playing time for Drew Gordon, who has been our best defensive rebounder on a per-minute basis.)

As for Budinger, he's still a dangerous player, of course. But so far in 2008-09, he has not been using as many Arizona possessions as he did last year, despite the departure of Bayless. In addition, his turnovers are up, and his assists are down. He remains Arizona's top perimeter threat, but at the risk of oversimplifying, I don't think that the matchup between him and UCLA's wing defenders will be where Thursday's game is won or lost.

In my view, the outcome will be largely decided in the paint, in the battle between Jordan Hill and the Bruin big-man rotation.