P10 Media Day: UCLA’s Ben Howland

Opening statement:
“No. 1, we’re just trying to get healthy. We’ve had more injuries sustained during early practices. I think we’re getting closer. I’m hoping by Monday we’ll have everybody out there. Jerime Anderson will be limited still. We’re a very young team and we need the practice time. We have nine underclassmen, and they’ll be key for us to have success this year. We’ve got games coming up real quick. A month from today we’ll have already played five games. When you have a young team learning things for the first time, that’s really important.”

On what UCLA lost:
“We lost a lot. When you talk about Darren Collison, Josh Shipp and Alfred Aboya and Jrue Holliday, a first-round pick. For freshman, it does take a very long time. We’re asking Reeves Nelson to guard four guys on the perimeter. But basketball is a game of habits, and in order to get good at something, you need a lot of practice.”

On the youth of the team:
“We’ve had seven players leave early in my six years. There’s no way of really being able to project what’s going to happen. We have 13 scholarships, and I have yet to have 13 scholarships. I’m looking forward to that day. Jerime is going to be an outstanding point guard for us, and he has yet to practice. Malcolm Lee will back him up. It’s tough. We’ve had four point guards in the last four years drafted in the first round. That’s a real key to why we’ve had a fair amount of success. You’ve got to have a good leader and someone who can make good decisions. I’ll be praying every night for our good health. Malcolm Lee is going to play a fair amount of time, 8-to-10 minutes a game as the backup point guard.”

On Drew Gordon:
“We expect a lot out of Drew. We keep stats every day in practice. There’s accountability every day. Drew has been our second-leading rebounder thus far. Drew gained a lot of experience last year. He’s a strong, physical presence. Drew is going to end up playing a major role for us this year.”

On the Pac-10:
“You have to look at who you guy’s picked, and I think you’re correct. Washington, who won the conference, and Cal is the best shooting team in the conference. They really are efficient offensively. They really push it hard, and I thought they did a great job pushing the ball. You look at the rest of the conference, the Oregon schools basically return everybody. I think Ernie’s team took their lumps because they played so many freshmen. Anybody can beat anybody on any given night in the Pac-10. How many pros have come out of this conference? The most in the last three years comes out of the Pac-10. It’s not a big enough story nationally. It’s been unbelievable – three years in a row, the league has had 60 percent in the Pac-10 tournament.”

On dealing with injuries:
“Definitely it’s not fun. In ’06, our first real good year, we had a number of injuries. That’s when Ced Bozeman went down. Josh Shipp filled in for four games. Lorenzo Mata was in and out with a broken leg. We had so many injuries that year. But we somehow found a way.”