We are truly blessed to have Ben Howland as our coach. To have a championship contender year in and year out is the best anyone can hope for.

Well said, DD. I trust our Athletic Director will see what having a real coach means to a program. It’s still not too late to save next football season by getting rid of Dorrell now. (OK, so I’m a dreamer.)

It’s never too late to dream Fox. DG and our athletic department are too scared to pull the trigger on Dorrell. Maybe Howland’s success will change things. I don’t know, but I dream too.

Expecting to reach the Sweet 16 this year and nothing more was unreasonably low. We were clearly going to be the best team in the Pac 10, we had just made it to the final game, and there was very little question we would improve with Shipp returning and DC playing more minutes. No offense, but it’s as though you have higher expectations for football at UCLA than basketball.

Peter … we’ll take the criticism, but you are dead wrong. We dont have higher expectations for football than basketball, and this year’s bb team was not expected by many to go past the Sweet 16. But you claim our Sweet 16 expectations were “unreasonably low” … cmon man, un”reason”ably low?! Before we get to the “reasons,” a point in your favor: both major preseason polls, AP and ESPN, had UCLA ranked 6 and 5 respectively … which we will assume for argument’s sake is not Final 4, but Elite 8. That is only 1 single win past Sweet 16. So, would it be “unreasonably low” to expect 1 win less than the AP and ESPN pollsters expected? Besides that, we think there was some premium added to UCLA’s preseason ranking based solely on the finals game surprise of ‘06. The truth about our bb team preseason was uncertain and conference watchers knew better than national coaches and writers of the AP and ESPN polls.

Here are your “reasons:” Shipp returning was a great thing, but it wasnt clear what impact his injury would have on his abilities. And many analysts and bb commentators were uncertain about DC leading the team before the season, replacing the domination, control and scoring punch of Jordan Farmar. We also lost big men AND seniors, AND 3 starters from that championship game team, including our undisputed leader Farmar. Also remember, All-Century recruit Chase Buddinger and his All-NBA team at Arizona was pretty much picked to win the conference. Given all that, it is fair and “reasonable” that we expected Sweet 16 and not Elite Eight at the beginning of the season.

As for football, expecting to challenge for the conference title is high expectations? Surely you weren’t suggesting that.

Maybe “unreasonably low” is a little ott, but reaching the Sweet Sixteen in basketball is roughly equivalent to 2nd or 3rd in the Pac-10. To win the conference title in football you have to finish first.

About my reasons: No argument about Shipp’s injury creating a question mark; Jordan Farmar was a great scorer, but he often took contested shots too early in the shot clock and it was DC who spurred the run that put us back in many games; Jordan was a great leader, but as Howland said earlier this season, Arron is the heart and soul of this team; also, I’m pretty sure we were picked to win the conference at media day (though Pucin was quick to point out we weren’t prohibitive favorites).

Peter … maybe you should tell Washington State that the Sweet 16 is equivalent to 2nd or 3rd in the conference. They never made it that far. We won the pac-10 conference championship this year. Expectation met. The tourney is different, its a bowl game or several in a row, its not the regular season. Anything can happen. Bottom line, we treat both programs the same and have the same expectations for both. One coach is meeting those expectations, the other isnt.

Now, DD, I usually agree with you on almost everything, but I will have to disagree somewhat on this.

We have a stronger tradition in basketball than football. While we’re THE basketball school, we’re only 10th (as I remember from BN) in football. That alone means our expectations for basketball have to be a bit higher as we are likely to get better recruits for basketball. This has no bearing on our expectations for football though - we should expect a BCS bowl game for our Bruins this coming season with such a senior-dominated team.

Secondly, placing UCLA basketball at the Sweet Sixteen expectation is too low. That, IMO, is actually lower than what we have placed for football (which Peter has mentioned) because to win the Pac-10 football title the team generally needs to be a top 10 team. Even Steve Lavin took the Bruins to a bunch of Sweet Sixteens, and he was a terrible coach. I believe it would be more reasonable to adjust our expectation for our basketball team to be at the Elite Eight year in and year out.

Yoyo … you might be misreading the comments. We agree that basketball has higher expectations to meet than Steve 16 overall. We were referring to only THIS year’s preseason expectations due to the issues the team faced this season that we mentioned. Like we have said, we dont expect to win national championships every year, but we expect “to compete for championships.” Steve 16 year-in year-out in basketball isn’t competing for championships. Some years are going to be rebuilding years, that will happen, and this was one of those years in our opinion. But Ben Howland is making this team play like a champion.

Your point on expecting more from basketball than football is important. Conventional wisdom strongly agrees with you. We think conventional wisdom should catch up to what Florida did this past year … UCLA should have been the first school to hold both trophies. We think we can build both programs with those expectations. All it takes is the right coach … for football.

Why shouldn’t we expect the same? As you kind of suggest, one can’t compare the BCS to the Tournament. There are only 8 teams that make the BCS, 2 at-large teams if you don’t win the conference. 65 teams make the Tourney, 32 at-large if you don’t win the conference tournament. Right there changes the dynamic of expectations for each sport. But still, we expect “to compete for championships.” That is what is the same in expectations. Heck, even Dan Guerrero said it at the hiring of Dorrell press conference.

I understand your point DD and agree with your assessment. Florida didn’t have much of a basketball tradition until they created their own in recent years. And I absolutely agree that our football team has to become a championship contender and that we must bring in a new coach to make it happen.

The way you put it, I’m not sure that we really disagreed much at all.

Hold on fellas!!! When DG hired KD, the announcement said something about contending for championships, beating on SC like a drum, and being in the BCS annually. There were no modest goals for football, as I recall. I, for one, refuse to allow KD (or any other HC) to meet less than the highest of accomplishments…none of this 10 wins, but blown out by SC, and then blown out in a bowl game or winning a toilet bowl contest. We want the football players to hold their heads high at the end of every season!!!
Bill

Bill speaks the truth.

Laying aside the question of whether a Sweet 16 is the equivalent to a second or third place finish, and things like that, don’t you football apologists see a qualitiative difference in the basketball and football programs? Coach Howland has us in every game. We are never embarrassed. We are never complacent whether ahead or behind. We never quit. Coach Howland knows how to prepare his team for a particular opponent. He knows how to make adjustments during games.

Can anyone realistically say the same about our football program? How many times did we get beat because the other coach made the adjustments at halftime that beat us?

I believe DD has displayed the list of something like 16 or 17 different quantifiable reasons why Coach Dorrell has been a failure as a coach. These reasons are totally separate from the expectations which were listed by Mr. Guerrero when Coach Dorrell was hired, and which were recently reiterated by the SID.

One other number. We would all agree that justsc has at best a lamentable history in basketball. Frankly, they have been a joke in Los Angeles for decades. I read in Wikipedia that the trOJan basketball team has a lifetime winning percentage of .580 going back to the early 1900’s. A winning percentage of .580, and their program is a laughing stock. Would you care to guess Coach Dorrell’s lifetime winning percentage? He has 29 wins, 21 losses, for a winning percentage of .580. Put another way, Coach Dorrell is to football what justsc is to basketball.

How long to we have to put up with such a coach who by just about any definition of the word is terrible?

Apologists? I don’t see any Dorrell supporters right here. I think we all agree that we should be competing for football championships year in and year out.

BCS bowl or dump Dorrell!

I hope I didn’t imply that the other posts were by Dorrellistas. I didn’t mean that. I just think it’s sad that we have to throw away another season before the Athletic Department notices the congruence between the records of Coach Dorrell and Coach Howland’s predecessor.

And while we all hope that the stated expectation comes to pass, my fear is that Coach Dorrell will post a slightly better season and have the true Dorrellistas arguing why he really needs to get one more year.

There used to be a joke about any poor fielding first baseman (and I’ll choose David Ortiz, because he’s not really a first baseman.) What do Michael Jackson and David Ortiz have in common? They both wear a glove on one hand for no apparent reason. So what do Coach Dorrell and OJ have in common? They both are on the sidelines at college football games for no apparent reason. And that’s what burns me up the most — Coach Dorrell has made our football program the butt of too many jokes.