Quick Conference Call with Howland, Honeycutt

UCLA head coach Ben Howland on Tyler Honeycutt:
"Tyler's one of our best players. He has a really good nose for rebounding the ball. Today we did a drill 5-0 and every time his team shot it, he got every rebound. He's a very good rebounder, great passer, he's improved his outside shot, I think a lot, I think he's going to be a much better perimeter shooter than he was a year ago. He's improving in all aspects."

Howland on a comparison to Honeycutt: "I don't know. Not off the top of my head."

Howland on the point guard battle: "I wouldn't say I made any decisions there. They're both going to play I thought Zeke had a real good week. He's doing a really good job defending, and shooting the ball well."

On Jerime Anderson: "His prep for last year's season, I thought he had a really poor summer. I thought he had a much better summer. He shoots the ball a lot better now than he did a year ago. He went and spent a lot of time on his own working on his game.

On Tyus Edney: "Tyus brings a lot. First of all, he's very bright, intelligent. He knows basketball and he's a good mentor for he's kids. He's an example for hard work and dedication. He's a good example for a lot of the kids we recruit. He played and did a great job, had a long career professionally. This is kind of the first step, so I'm really excited to have Tyus in our program."

Honeycutt on last fall: "I was practicing, but I had just started to practice and then had a stress reaction in my shin. I was just working myself into practice. That put me out about a month. It sucks no matter what sport to be on the sideline. I feel like I'm making a difference now that I'm able to practice, and I'm just taking advantage of it."

Honeycutt on his role: "I'm being a little more aggressive to score. I have to take more of a leader role now that this is such a young team. Trying to make every play, but make it as smart as possible. I'm trying to be a leader out there, someone coach can trust."

Honeycutt on the differences between Jerime Anderson and Lazeric Jones:
"It's kind of different, but it's similar the same way. Jerime is the smarter in terms of turnovers. That's one thing coach doesn't like. Even if he might see a play, he might not react on it. With Zeke, he's getting into it. He's new to everything so he's learning how the bigs are hedging the ball screens, how he's supposed to read it. Once he gets the hang of it, his turnovers in practice will go down."

Honeycutt on the hip flexor injury: "It kind of happened two Fridays ago. I don't know if I planted wrong or if someone ran into me off a screen, but starting Monday I could feel it still bothering me and I finally said something about it."