Basketball Media Day yesterday!! Unbelievable. Unbelievable. If you want to know how it's done just read the quotes from our players and coach. It's total Commitment to Excellence. Just read this from Rich Perelman LA Times What's Bruin blog:
Center Lorenzo Mata-Real, whose playing time will be the most affected by Love, wasn’t concerned. "It’s Coach Howland’s team, and I’m going to be a leader," he said. "I’m OK if I play 10 minutes or if I play 25 minutes. I’m going to play; I’m not worried about that. He [Love] is going to help us win some games."
That is how it's done. Taking read more
While Dorrell cultists find numerous excuses for why Karl Dorrell has cemented our football program in mediocrity, two other coaches are going about doing exactly what they were hired to do, without excuses. We all know about Ben Howland and our basketball team. Two Final Fours in his first 4 years, top recruiting classes, from a program that had its first losing season in half a century, that had 20 losses.  John Savage, our baseball coach, has taken a moribund program and in his first 4 years took UCLA to the College World Series Regionals in ‘06 and then the College World Series Super Regionals in ‘07, one game away from the CWS. And that is after having sustaining key injuries. Now, Rivals is calling Savage’s program the #1 rising program in college baseball! Here is what Rivals has to say (HT to rybreadraz at BN):
Why are they rising?
After four seasons as the head man at UCLA, coach John Savage finally has the Bruins thinking Omaha on a consistent basis. The Bruins have yet to break through and reach the College World Series, but the future prognosis looks promising. The Bruins turned some heads by reaching the Regional round two seasons ago. But in 2007, they overcame adversity at times throughout the season and faced in-state foe Cal State Fullerton in the Super Regional round. UCLA took two giant steps forward during the past two seasons, but now they’re aiming for more. Just look at the Bruins’ returning roster. Sure, they must replace talented right-hander Tyson Brummett. But left-hander Gavin Brooks finished his freshman campaign on a high note. Additionally, reliever Garett Claypool was a Rivals.com Freshman All-American, while fellow sophomore Charles Brewer should be outstanding if he can stay healthy. The Bruins also have much to look forward to offensively with the return of Brandon Crawford and others.
“Bruins thinking Omaha on a consistent basis.” And Howland has Bruins thinking Final Four on a consistent basis. That right there says it all.  Does Dorrell have Bruins thinking BCS on a consistent basis?? Hardly at all. How about just Pac-10 championship on a consistent basis? How about a Pac-10 championship just once?? Exactly. The differences between good coaches and a bad one could not be more striking!!
Great season, let’s start off with that. There is no other way to look at the loss though, it was ugly, again. So much to say but we want to keep it short … we are in no mood to dwell on it. Some thoughts:
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The refs did not lose this game for us. But they had too much of a hand in both games yesterday too early and too often. The NCAA should seriously take a look at what they did to their showcase event. Everyone anticipated two high quality games and got essentially two ugly games with the stars on the bench (except Florida). Horrible horrible job. Many will say read more
“I don’t think my teams played as good a defense as Ben’s teams,”
That from the legendary coach John R. Wooden in the LA Times.  Read the full article, it will put a smile on your face. More Wooden on defense:
“I’ve always said, in any sport, defense most often will be the deciding factor. I still love to watch a 1-0 or 2-1 baseball game.”
True that. We love our focus on defense. More from the article … Wooden jokes that he will live at least 5 more years because he just got his driver’s license renewed. We would be so lucky.
It’s Final Four week and so its the season for UCLA basketball. We want to keep the focus on that. And we will. We have to interrupt our programming though to bring you something of note. If you haven’t heard about the ugly hit piece on Ben Howland by Dennis Dodd of CBSSportsline.com you have to give it a read. It’s unbelievable how a national sports journalist can turn what appears to be a personal vendetta against a college basketball coach into a front page article and pass it off as fact. Two flashpoints appear in his article. First, he calls BH “an a–hole” in the very opening sentence. Second, he writes that BH treats his players “like dogs” later in the piece as if it were fact.
We can write pages on read more
Final Four Baby!! Howland will take our basketball team to the Final Four for the second year in a row, and the second time in his 4 years as our coach. Both times have been unbelievable. Last year, no one expected it, yet we all knew it was possible. The pundits picked us to lose nearly every single game … the bigs would be too much … the fast pace would be too much … etc. etc. This year, after losing 3 starters to the NBA (two of which would never have made it were it not for a great coach and mentor in Howland), we at DD certainly expected a Pac-10 championship, but a win after the Sweet 16 … not so much. And yet, here we are … depleted …. without the point guard (Farmar) who supposedly was our only game winner, the force, the determination of our team … without any seniors … going to the Final Four again! What other coach in the NCAA today could do what Howland has done with these two teams??? With this team???
And that is the difference … great coaching!!! Sure, we have an read more
We will pass on talking football during the season of UCLA basketball, the NCAA tournament. Big game on Thursday against Weber St. We know nothing about these cats other than they seem to score a lot, and allow a lot to be scored on them. Vegas oddsmakers have UCLA -20 to -21, depending on the service. We think Ben Howland will have our boys ready to play. Now is the time to bring it. One game at a time. We will be following here.
More Vegas odds (as of Sun night):
- UCLA to win it all: 7-1 (#3)
- Others to win it all (#1-7): Florida 7-2, NC 5-1, GTown 8-1, Kansas 8-1, Ohio St. 8-1, Texas A&M 10-1
- UCLA to win West Regional: 6-5 (#1)
- Others to win West Regional (#2-5): Kansas 8-5, Pitt 6-1, Duke 10-1, Southern Ill. 10-1
What a difference a great coach makes. Pac 10 champions last 2 seasons, better record, seeding and RPI (#2) this year than last year’s NC game run. In Ben Howland We Trust. This is how it’s supposed to be. Our expectations in line with our tradition and strength. We don’t expect to win them all, but we know we will challenge for everything. And that is what we are doing in basketball, even with our 2 game losing streak, even when we lose 3 starters, even when we don’t expect to make it to the final four. The disappointment of the last week highlights the renewed optimism and excitement we have with our basketball program. Right where we want to be. And challenging for #100?!! Get out of here … only in Hollywood. Wait, THIS IS HOLLYWOOD!! Go Bruins!!
As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we are on a once a week (Monday) schedule for the off-season, although we will post things of note no matter when. Towards the end of last week there was some activity regarding Dorrell, specifically a somewhat chastising article on ESPN.com regarding Dorrell’s now solid reputation for churning assistant coaches. Many of you have sent in links to the article, thanks! Other sites have picked it up and have reported on it. It was one of those weeks where DD editors had business trips and a funeral of a close friend that left us too early and we just couldn’t get to the news. We will address the ESPN article in a couple of days in more detail.
Like everyone, we are watching our basketball team. A win against UDub and we would have locked our #1 seed in the West. Now we have some work to do to get that important seed. Who cares about #1 overall seed, it doesn’t matter at all. Ben and the boys will get it done. Ben Howland has shown what a real coach can do. 2 Pac-10 championships in 4 years, 2 in a row! 1 Final Four appearance, 1 Finals appearance in 3 years! First home court undefeated season since the 70s. We’d say Dan Guerrero can check off Howland on his performance review as getting the job done. What a stark contrast we have in Karl Dorrell, 0 Pac-10 championships in 4 years - not even a 2nd place finish. No BCS bowl games … and well you know the grim details. We will just keep pointing to the man, Ben Howland, and his tenacious teams and his elite program. Go Bruins!!!
