SB Nation User Blog: Penny2i

centering my thoughts

Penny2i — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:45:33 -0000

Well the boys showed some ability and heart tonight. As it turns out our maligned guard play is not my biggest area of long term concern. JA did earn some minutes back, although I would still rather see them coming off the bench at the moment. Roll is a solid citizen and Lee showed that he can be a bonafide star down the line. Which brings me to my greatest concern and why I think we should go bigger.

Obviously our great guard play had enabled us to make our recent return to college hoops elite. But what seems to be overlooked is the importance centers have played in our success. Our first run was fueled by a Ryan Hollins senior season epiphany half way through the year. Lorenzo Mata, despite my personal reservations early in his career, manned the middle well enough as a legitimate center to allow another run. Then Kevin Love's greatness goes without saying. But what gets missed in having a center that can get the job done was how it allowed the Luc to be what he needed to be for the squad. Sure he was defensively good enough to guard opposing centers in a pinch, but his effectiveness logging the majority of his minutes there would have diminished his greatness. Last season we were forced to make due with a terrific Aboya elevating his game immensely for his senior season. Unfortunately he became our defacto center and the end result against Villanova left us all knowing despite his incredible season he is not a center.

We are now in a predicament where Reeves Nelson appears to be a special type of player. But watching him battle players like Aldrich and Varnado as well as other centers to come for the majority of his minutes will diminish what his real value will be if we can get a real center in there to free him up on the front line. Sure we can get away with this playing opponents without big men or those that play 3 guards or go small, but to take it to the next level it behooves the bruins to find a real center who can at minimum 'get in the way'. That is to say block some shots, take up space, rebound a little, keep balls alive, force opposing centers to work hard, etc.. Unfortunately that leaves us with Morgan. Morgan shows the size and strength at times that he in fact can man the middle well enough, then the next minute he tries to finish a play in the most impotent of fashion. I am sure it must be painful for Howland in practice. And that brings me back to Mata and Hollins and even Fey who had a trial so to speak. He forced them all on me. I remember thinking will Fey once in a while can make a shot, Hollins once in a while got after it to block a shot or grab a rebound and Mata I am not sure what he is doing, but he did get in the way. At times I thought we have better players than this and it was too much, but in the end it was the right thing to do. Last season due probably to higher expectations than in the past he went away from his own system in a sense by not giving Morgan the minutes to improve and therefore making his sophomore season our painful learning season. Now I realize we have Josh Smith coming in next season, but does anyone really believe he will be able to play that hedge well enough as a freshman to see the court in a meaningful way much next season? I really and truly believe CBH knows he needs to wipe that grin off Morgan's face and ride him or any other big man who wants the minutes as far as they can help take our program. If only for Reeves Nelson we must get minutes from any center necessary. At minimum Smith could use a real sparring partner as a freshman.

I would assume in a practice situation Morgan must be guarding JK and ND who are probably money shooting from the perimeter in practice and exposing his worst flaws. That however is not what his real game experience nor his critical importance to our long term health is about. The only real experience a kid like that will get is in the game much to our dismay. Learning what is like to take his licks and what he really needs to do to give it back. Punish him with minutes until he either gets a clue or transfers out. "Kid this is who we need you to be now show up or move on." In my opinion we worried too much about making JK an interior player that he is not. He does not have the legs to hold his spot or leap in there no matter how much strength he added. In the end I think that was his downfall. He is a shell of a basketball player that now unfortunately may have his career ended. Now we have a wiry kid like Lane. I cringe when I heard the comparison to JK and not because of Keefe's shortcomings, but because I am worried we will try to make him something he is not. I am not sure how many people have played enough on the interior to know it is tough to battle in there and still be a good shooter. It is as mentally tedious as it is physically. When I hear Keefe hits 20 straight jumpers in warmups it did not surprise me in the least. This is another reason why getting that center and pushing them as far as they can go will allow your other basketball players to flourish.

Lastly I would love to see Stover get some minutes somehow especially if Keefe is now done for the season and he is not going to redshirt. If he as at least a shot blocker than that is something of merit that we could use and develop.

Sorry for the rambling. I am just trying to keep hope alive in my mind. And here is a minutes breakdown from recent seasons...

stats to look through for hollins, mata and even fey if you desire.
2005
2006
2007

Morgan did not log enough to get on the breakdown last season.. and has logged a lower percentage and less effective in terms of rebounding, but more effective blocking shots in a tiny sampling thus far this season through the 1st 8 games.
2009
2010

My starting 5

Penny2i — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:18:55 -0000

Personally I would like to see ML, MR, TH, RN, JM starting. I would like to test bobo and see what he has. I would protect him and MR some by mixing in zone. It’s a crazy trial for me, but I saw signs on offense if he can’t get experience. Initially he was an easy double, but in the 2nd half he showed more awareness actually passing out of a double to TH, who actually threw it back in on a repost and a nice bank. No offense, but ND will not do that once this season. I don’t care how many boards ND gets he lapses big time either boxing out or just not battling someone he should be at least battling for a board. Granted JM is hesitant to mix it up, but I think with time and other players banging him he will self-motivate more to not get beat. ND gets some rebounds because of his length on tip outs over the top, but other than that I am pretty sure he has never boxed out anyone.

The reality is that when Keefe and ND are in we have 2 players on the interior that can’t hold their spot. RN is by far the best player that can hold his spot and even move someone out with his lower body. He also has some surprising hops and a knack for the ball. He should be logging most of the interior minutes from here on out. At least bobo is not easy to move.. he does however need to be scolded to find a body and get it on someone when rebounding. TH actually is the only other guy who can go and get it on the glass and he should be starting soon. I can live with ND playing decent minutes, but I’d rather have him come in as a specialist to knock down some shots.

Until JA proves he can play in control and make a consistently positive impact I can’t see him getting more than 15 minutes. ML and MR should get the bulk of the minutes and JA should spell some rest for them and that is it. I would rather see Moser, TH getting minutes with both Roll and Lee on the court than have a smaller lineup with JA, MR, ML. I think we need to play with size and get anyone active in there who can get us extra chances with our inability to shoot the ball consistently.

In all I think we gave our best effort tonight. We seemed in general to have a good attitude out there. I don’t think there were nearly as many breakdowns and players were helping out more albeit sometimes late. Better than not at all. Our days of being able to contain man-to-man with little or no help off the dribble are gone right now. MR and JA can’t stay in front of any decent guards, so I can’t see how it’s possible to play 40 minutes of tough man to man defense without cheating our help to their aide and consequently leaving other big men open for passes or easy 2nd chances off misses.

I am probably the biggest cynic around, but I have not given up hope on this year yet. As far as the committee is concerned we are 0-1 without gordon and with honeycutt in a loss to the number 1 team in the country. Yes that is wishful thinking, but I do not think the cupboard is bare in this program. And I am certainly not convinced the pac 10 is littered with more than a couple programs that have more talent than us this season.

UCLA off/def statistical analysis

Penny2i — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:10:48 -0000

Since I got flamed for an off the cuff post about offensive deficiencies and called out for a lack of statistical backup I took the suggestion to go to the kempom site and break it down. I posted this as a reply, but no one is probably still reading it so I am reposting it below....

offense eft fg% TO % OFF reb% FTM/FGA raw adj

2008 UCLA[1] (P10) 52.2 ( 75) 18.6 ( 47) 39.3 ( 10) 27.4 ( 89) 11 7

2007 UCLA[2] (P10) 53.5 ( 41) 18.4 ( 36) 33.5 (166) 21.9 (274) 41 23

2006 UCLA[2] (P10) 53.2 ( 36) 22.3 (224) 36.2 ( 50) 26.6 (112) 54 28

2005 UCLA[11] (P10) 50.9 ( 94) 22.0 (211) 33.1 (123) 27.6 ( 83) 120 79

defense

2008 UCLA[1] (P10) 46.5 ( 37) 21.7 (131) 27.8 ( 9) 25.6 ( 9) 8 3

2007 UCLA[2] (P10) 47.6 ( 76) 23.2 ( 54) 29.9 ( 38) 30.2 ( 47) 10 2

2006 UCLA[2] (P10) 45.9 ( 37) 22.1 (104) 29.1 ( 49) 31.7 ( 73) 23 3

2005 UCLA[11] (P10) 49.4 (172) 19.8 (245) 28.8 ( 46) 33.0 ( 96) 133 58

I may have overstated my disenchantment with the offense making it seem like I am displeased with Howland. If I had to grade his tenure it would be the best since I have been watching UCLA basketball since 1981 or so... an A-. If I have 1 critiique of the tenure using your kenpom it would be to point out our offensive ability trails our defensive ability. the adjusted final rankings each year reflect that. Clearly I think we would all agree last year was our best offensive team both with our eyes and the final number.

Notice in the breakdown where we really shined was the offensive glass which propelled our final adjusted number. In the other categories we don't finish higher than 47th in 2008. We have clearly improved year to year over the last 4 in the adjusted number. Obviously minus Love/mbah a moute/mata/and westbrook gone it is a ton to replace and will most likely crush our 10th rating in offensive rebounding. It is illogical to expect to improve this year on offense unless we attempt something different in my opinion.

Here is my point on expecting to shut down superior offensive teams with a great defense...all over our big wins came against teams who were not statistically among the top few teams, but our losses were against superior offensive teams that would be difficult to keep under 70.

offense eft fg% TO % OFF reb% FTM/FGA raw adj

2008 Kansas[1] (B12) 56.6 ( 5) 19.1 ( 61) 37.8 ( 24) 25.7 (161) 2 2

2008 Memphis[1] (CUSA) 52.8 ( 53) 16.5 ( 8) 38.3 ( 19) 24.8 (193) 9 4

2007 Kansas[1] (B12) 54.5 ( 20) 20.0 ( 94) 37.8 ( 38) 23.9 (213) 27 17

2007 Florida[1] (SEC) 59.6 ( 1) 20.7 (132) 37.6 ( 42) 30.2 ( 41) 1 1

2006 Gonzaga[3] (WCC) 52.3 ( 55) 17.5 ( 12) 33.7 (115) 35.5 ( 2) 1 1

2006 Memphis[1] (CUSA) 51.2 ( 91) 21.0 (150) 40.7 ( 6) 26.9 ( 98) 37 29

2006 LSU (4] (SEC) 50.1 (131) 21.9 (196) 38.4 ( 18) 25.9 (130) 114 50

2006 Florida[3] (SEC) 56.9 ( 3) 20.7 (139) 34.5 ( 88) 30.3 ( 22) 2 2

The exception was that dramatic, frenetic win over gonzaga in a miracle comeback.

gonzaga's defense however was not nearly up to par with the other squads that beat us or in Kansas case went on to win the title the last 3 years.

defens

2006 Gonzaga[3] (WCC) 49.4 (156) 18.4 (312) 31.2 (121) 32.0 ( 76) 223 178

2006 Florida[3] (SEC) 45.0 ( 15) 22.4 ( 92) 30.9 (108) 29.4 ( 42) 19 5

2007 Florida[1] (SEC) 45.2 ( 18) 18.8 (290) 28.1 ( 8) 27.7 ( 13) 14 12

2008 Kansas[1] (B12) 44.3 ( 9) 21.9 (114) 28.8 ( 23) 31.0 ( 64) 4 1

2008 Memphis[1] (CUSA) 43.4 ( 6) 21.9 (119) 29.2 ( 36) 31.7 ( 73) 2 4

Again I believe these statistics reflect that our offense needs to improve to get over that hump. Clearly we can't be championship contenders every year and perhaps howland can work his magic and we can grit our way to a nice run this season. Also I believe this system contrary to the mainstream media's opinion is absolutely perfect for getting his players into the NBA. He forces them to play lockdown straightup defense and the NBA loves that. No one is more prepared fundamentally on defense to play in the NBA than Howland players. That being said winning titles may require something else or some serious ungodly offensive talent given our framework at the moment.

I apologize for appearing to bandwagon losses. I read here all the time and appreciate on the insight. I do care as much about football, but I only post because I have something different to say. What more could I have said about Dorrell's horrible tenure that was football's Lavin/Farmer/Hazzard tenures rolled into one. I am not going crazy with the tough season we are having at the moment in football because I believe we will be going in the right direction at the moment and that is well covered territory. My only issue that seems to ride against prevailing opinion is just this one item about our offense.

I would be happy to post on wins when I feel it was not up to snuff as well. I think we escape many games thanks to our defense and timely play over the last few years. I also think we have played some excellent offensive games along the way just not consistently. I would be happy to throw a mention on those moments as well if it will keep me from getting dumped on.

Sorry for the long post, but I felt the least I could provide was a more substantive analysis.

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