I commend Coach Howland. Nelson is not UCLA basketball!!! If he can’t get it together, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. He can play, but he’s a dime a dozen.

Amen Semi-Pro,

Howland is the boss; Reeves needs to seek advice from level headed people he respects. The question is, does he have anyone in his life that he respects who can bestow some sound reasoning upon him?

Either he gets it or he doesn’t. It sure seems to gave come to a head. There are two ways to go, it’s on Reeves to show he can grow from this experience.

We shall see…

There aren’t many details yet (doubtful they are ever revealed), so it is hard to speculate. All I’m saying is that this better not turn into the same crap like Drew Gordon. I’ve never thought highly of CBH’s offense, but this is an especially bad indictment coming from someone with Nelson’s (limited) offensive skill. The season is barely underway and I’m already worried that those rumors of CBH’s schemes are what made Honeycutt and Lee leave early. I was looking forward to Basketball season starting, but this is not the way to start. C’mon Bruins, imagine the vacuum created if there are no Laker games this season, you guys will get all the basketball love/exposure! Time to get your s#!t together!

16 pts 20 rbs vs Grand Canyon!!! OMG what was Howland thinking!! No one puts up numbers against top ranked Grand Canyon!! They’re so hot ESPN doesn’t even have any information on them since all the traffic would crash their website.

Bruinpain:

You’re facts are opinion based and you know what they say about opinions.

1.) We have no shortage of players who play with less passion and inspiration than Nelson. Again, he is the only player left on the team who actually plays Ben’s style of ball.

2.) BS, they so no upside in staying another year and playing under a Howland system that didn’t showcase their talents and this was a very thin draft. So a combination of factors, but one main one that would have been alleviated had Howland’s system featured their talents more.

3.) BS on Holiday, he and his family made it NO secret they were less than enamored with Ben’s system and playing him out of position. Therefore, again, even though Holiday did not have a so called 1st round season and numbers, they saw no upside in staying another year under BH’s system. Not all facts can be found in the newspaper, which is where it seems you get most of your information. Ask Jon, if you don’t believe me.

4.) BS Coach Wooden didn’t butt heads with Alcindor, this is actually the reason why Sam Gilbert got involved with the program in the first place. Sam got involved because Willie Naulls an ex UCLA player and assistant coach brought 2 sophs at UCLA who were unhappy with Wooden because they felt he was unbending and both being black they felt Wooden didn’t understand their need to be individuals. Those 2 sophs were Lew Alcindor and Lucius Allen and the year was 1968. Naulls knew Sam was a big fan and felt he could help convince the 2 sophs to give Wooden a chance. They felt Wooden was too structured and didn’t understand Blacks, because he didn’t understand their style or let them grow their afros or facial hair. Naulls, who is black, said Gilbert was able to convince them it wasn’t a racial thing, Wooden treated everyone that way. And if you think that Walton only butted with Wooden over his hair, well, that’s the only part of the HBO special you remember and you know nothing about UCLA BB. Walton butted heads with Wooden about EVERYTHING, the weather, politics, being a hippie, getting arrested during a protest and Wooden bailing him out, smoking weed. You kidding me? Difference is, Wooden dealt with it better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sgLFGf8UTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MBCgrsgZ2I

“The enigmatic Walton gave Wooden all he could handle off the court, but between the end lines, he was every other coaches problem.”

Yeah, it was just about that haircut. pffffff.

5.) Nothing Machiavellian about suspending a player for breaking team rules. However, everything else about him is Machiavellian. Have you even met the man more than once? Real Charmer that guy. About as charming as a prick. No question he is a Great coach, but there is more to coaching than X’s and O’s. How can he ask his players to change, when he himself is unwilling? A bit Machiavellian, no? He and Bobby Knight could probably compete for that award.

6.) If Nelson was trying to get the team to get the ball into Smith, that’s makes my point all the stronger. How could Howland go off on him for being UNselfish.

7.) No connection, just an example of another player Howland drove away that we could use. No D? He never got the chance to show his D. He looked fine on D on Sat night.

8.) You forget McCrary was also key in landing Anderson and although we didn’t land Shaq, CRN might have more to do with that, we got in on Tony Parker and are still in the running because of him. BH lands players because they already have an interest in coming to UCLA and he is persistent. His charisma and style of play do him no favors.

Arguably, every UCLA coach, sans Farmer, has been able to recruit talent to UCLA, so what? Many players, especially local ones, already want to come to UCLA, if anything BH drives many away, that would probably come here. Even with that talent, he has yet to be able to beat the Top Tier programs that he has equal talent, but maybe not equal athleticism. He still can F’n figure out how to break a zone D. His teams play is starting to resemble how teams scheme CRN FB. Stop the run and make them beat you with the pass. Or with BH, play zone, flood the middle and make them beat you with the outside shot. TOO EASY!!!!

He needs to learn to be more diplomatic and not be the Bobby Knight of Westwood. As we can see what happened to Bobby after he stopped winning in Indiana.

Funny you made no comment regarding Smith’s twitter posting.

My point is, if this is purely about Nelson truly getting out of line, then fine, suspend him, but indefinitely? Again, Howland has proven to not be very good at handling off the court issues well. He obviously is not the best communicator and has had issues getting his point accross in a non confrontational or a-hole manner. Again, he rubs people the wrong way. Also, these are young adults, who are often rebellious and anti authority, there are better ways of getting what you want than getting in players faces or worsening the situation. There are reports that Nelson was thinking about quitting. He it must have been some flare up that might have been avoided.

Like Wooden said to Walton when he wouldn’t even shave his beard. “We will miss you Bill and wish you the best of luck”. No one player is bigger than a team, especially that temper tantrum Nelson. SEE YA !!!! now let’s move FWD.

@BruinFaithful My comments on Moser are not correlated to past UCLA losses. I’m simply saying that stats acquired in a game against a team like Grand Canyon should not be used as proof that a player will be something special (not your words but it is implied by suggesting those stats are proof that Howland messed up).

In other words, if we play the Sisters of Mary and Zeke goes for 32 pts and 15 ast I don’t think that is exactly the best indication that he is a new/special player. Or, If our Football team wins by 3 TD’s and puts up 40 on Colorado are you ready to claim we’ll pound sc (and any team in the title game)?

I will confess that the only reason I picked this item is since I tend to agree on your other points. I think too many people are happy to be respectable that they raise CBH to a level I think is too high for what he has achieved (so far). What I mean is many treat it as blasphemy to criticize him.

Yes he has won a lot, but I think he has also fallen short with a few teams. His teams always struggle to score, even the KLove/Westbrook team which I find to be almost laughable. I should say that I am a season ticket holder and try to make at least a few road games every year.

I respect CBH but I often say that in my opinion he is our Del Harris. In other words a coach that restores winning to the team but doesn’t have the “it” factor for making us a Championship team. Another parallel is Harris had issues with Player relationships. I truly believe that we need a Phil Jackson-type to come in and help us take that next step.

Nelson deserves the suspension and I fully support it. As I commented on the other Nelson thread, I was at the game and I was closely observing Nelson’s interaction with Howland as he came off the court during one sequence. He was obviously pouting as he trudged off the court, head down and away from CBH so that he would avoid eye contact, waved his hand in disgust, and then during subsequent timeouts stood at the rear of the entire team (including those not dressed for play) moping. In my opinion this type of behavior is NOT ACCEPTABLE for any player at any time as it is a clear sign of disrespect towards the coach. After the game was over, I said to my friend that I would bench Nelson unless he changes his attitude, because that type of attitude is a cancer that corrupts team morale on and off the floor.

Nelson has been given a reputation as a “lunch pail” type of player I would say as much for his tattoos and appearance as his actual play on the court, which is not steady and workman-like at all at times. While he does possess all-conference talent (despite some obvious deficiencies in his game), his effort level is inconsistent and he is prone to pouting if things don’t go his way. Never mind that watching his outside shot even in warmups has me cringing, against LMU some of the shots he put up not only had no chance the moment the ball left his hands but were so out of rhythm from a team-play perspective it completely disrupted the team’s on-court chemistry and chance to build momentum.

As for CBH, no he hasn’t won a championship yet and yes occasionally we will inexplicably lay eggs against lesser opponents, but overall he has been a godsend for our basketball program. He seems like a no-nonsense type of guy, and I like the way he runs the program (i.e., with discipline). Do I think we should bring in an offensive-minded assistant coach to help with our awful zone offense and take advantage of our athleticism in the transition game? Definitely. But people are taking his success for granted. Three straight 30-win final four appearances, people! CBH probably knows better than anybody how Roy Williams felt at Kansas despite his success there. Of course I am as eager as any Bruin fan for us to win another championship, but there is a degree of good fortune involved in winning it all, not just planning and hard work, and I accept that. As for the comparison of CBH to Del Harris, that is ludicrous. With all respect to Harris, he never got close to bringing the Lakers a championship, while CBH has brought the Bruins to the doorstep. Does CBH have room for improvement? Of course, who doesn’t?! But regarding this issue of Nelson’s suspension, he is spot on.

wait, did someone just compare Reeves Nelson to Kareem and Walton? LOL.

Text from CRN to Reeves: “Thanks for taking the heat off of me for awhile … I owe you one. Hell, I’m actually gone already. So, I may even return the favor as early as Saturday.”

@Lifelong Bruin Fan
What is so ludicrous about comparing CBH to Del Harris? I respect Del Harris (as well as CBH), I’m just saying they have similarities.

Both took teams that were not in the post season before their arrival to consistent post season runs (Del has a first round exit but Howland has had 2 seasons where UCLA didn’t even qualify for the tournament). During Del’s last full year the Lakers made the Western Conference Finals.

Sure, the Lakers were swept in that last post season under Del, but CBH also got blown out in those “doorstep” games you refer to. Please don’t bring up that UCLA “only” lost by 10 the second time they played Florida, anyone that watched those 2 losses to Florida and the loss to Memphis knows they were not ever in those games. Heck, this yet again seems to be another parallel; Putting up a good W/L record, advancing in the post season but losing by a large margin.

Again, I respect both coaches and the intent is not to bad mouth them. It was just an attempt to say that certain coaches can make a good/great team special and the jury is still out on CBH. Can you explain why he has not brought in an offensive minded assistant when it is such an obvious need? This has been pointed out for years and yet we still see no progress. CBH is a control freak and that may be what hinders him from taking the next step; he’ll only have himself to blame.

To close with one of my original points, you sound like someone who is happy with the fact that we have been winning games (as I am), we just need to be careful before he is put on too high of a pedestal. Is he better than some of our recent coaches? Of course! Can we put him at John Wooden’s level? Heck no! We can’t even put him on the Roy Williams/Coach K level (as much as I hate to say it) since he has not won any titles. If other schools can boast multiple titles in this modern era we should also strive for that. So let’s not treat CBH as untouchable before he deserves it.

@Powerhouse U:

Perhaps saying “ludicrous” was not my best choice of words, however I think we have fundamentally different opinions of what Del Harris did for the Lakers and what the Lakers achieved, and what CBH is doing for the Bruins and what the Bruins have achieved.

Del Harris was a fine, if not uninspiring, coach that inherited a good young nucleus that was tremendously upgraded with the additions of Shaq, Kobe, and Fisher in ’96, Fox and Horry in ’97, and Rice in ’99. Yes the Lakers did go to the Western Finals in ’98 but were summarily dispatched by Utah in 4 straight, and the following year despite a roster that had had enough time to mature and play together, lost again 4 straight in the Western Seminfinals to the Spurs. At least in my mind, the Lakers, despite a tremendous amount of talent and the most dominating player in the league, was not close to being a championship contender, and this fell on the shoulders of Harris. The fact that the Lakers won the championship the following year without any major lineup changes clearly indicated to me that coaching was the difference.

CBH, on the other hand, inherited a program in disarray when he inherited Lavin’s sinking ship in 2003. In only his third season he had us back in the national title game, and the following two years in the final four. In my previous comment I alluded to fortune playing a part in any championship run, and unfortunately for us we faced a stacked Florida team (a front court of Noah, Horford, and Brewer) two years in a row. In our third straight final four appearance, we faced the best player in the tournament in Derrick Rose. My point here is that we were slightly unlucky and at least IMHO much closer to a potential championship than Del Harris ever was with the Lakers. Of course this is subjective and you may see it differently. I will add that I am confident CBH can win a title(s) at UCLA, while I never felt that way with Harris and the Lakers.

This is not to say I don’t think there is any room for improvement with CBH, as I have clearly stated. I do think we should bring in an offensive-minded coach and that we should fully exploit our athleticism by running more to get easier transition points. I also agree with Rob M that we should be able to play zone as another defensive option without sticking to some philosophical notion that M2M is the only way to play defense. I have often bemoaned the fact that we never press either full or half court, even if no more to give the offense a different look and confuse them. I also am occasionally befuddled by CBH’s pattern of calling timeouts and the fact that we don’t have any in the closing moments of a game. But these are relatively minor quibbles for me as I believe he has done so much for this program to bring it back to national prominence. I think CBH is very much comparable to Roy Williams when he was at Kansas. Williams in his 14 years at Kansas went to 4 final fours and was runner-up twice. In CBH’s 8 years at UCLA we have gone to 3 finals fours and were runner-up once. In any case, I don’t believe I am putting CBH “on a pedestal” and am the first one to point out what I believe are some of his deficiencies. However in the context of this suspension and the subsequent criticism directed towards him for this action, I stand in his corner.

How do SC and ucla sports fan spell entitlement?

If SC had ucla basketball it would be hanging up Final-4 banners at Galen Center, and would be thrilled

If ucla had SC football it would be hanging up Pac-10 championship banners at the Rose Bowl, and would be ecstatic.

@Lifelong Bruin Fan
We can agree regarding the suspension which in reality is the main point of Jon’s original post.

You make very good points and I’ll admit that I see many of the same minor issues that you note regarding CBH. To me it just seems that several minor issues can add up to something bigger especially when as you factor in luck (as you rightly noted).

I can remember several close games on national television against ranked opponents where his (horrible?) timeout management cost us late in the game. Some of those early timeouts were blown on not knowing how to attack a team that threw a zone at the Bruins, or their inability to get any semblance of offense for that matter. Wiping out these minor items perhaps would put them in a position to be lucky to hit the game winning shot. I was at many of these games but I mention the national TV thing since I am also frustrated with some big losses (big as in opponent) and how they impact the perception of the program but this is getting into a different topic.

I guess it comes down to your confidence in his ability to improve on these minor issues and my skepticism. I definitely hope that you are right and I am wrong.

@Powerhouse U:

Well said. I think history has shown that it takes more than just luck for any program to make the final four three times in a decade, let alone three straight years (just three years removed from a sub-.500 program to boot). To do it in an era when players leave after one or two years is all the more impressive. Early departures and the unfulfilled promise of the 2008 class took their toll in subsequent seasons, but let’s not forget that if Honeycutt and Lee had stayed, we would be talking title run *this* year. My point here is that there are many factors involved in whether a team can and will make a run or not that are not in the coach’s control. Nevertheless your points about those factors within the coach’s control are well taken. Let’s see how this season goes and reevaluate then. From what I have seen of the team thus far, I am very high on the Wear twins, particularly David, and think De’end Parker will turn into a strong contributor. Maybe the horrid season opening loss will be a good reminder for the team not to take anything for granted and light a fire under them. We’ll see how they respond tonight but I remain bullish on this season.

@Rob M:

Regarding your comment about CBH’s player development, Russell Westbrook is a clear example of a player who is a much better offensive player in the NBA. I give a lot of credit to CBH for Westbrook’s development. I still remember Westbrook struggling mightily as a freshman when he took over at point guard for an injured Collison against West Virginia. But Howland saw the potential and kept developing Westbrook at point guard despite the fact you could argue he is not a “natural” point guard. Now he is averaging 22 ppg and 8 apg as an NBA all-star point guard.

Fox Sports just reported on Pre-Game show that Nelson and his parents will meet with BH tomorrow. BH will give him terms and conditions and if he agrees, he will be admitted back to the team immediately. I wonder what those conditions will be, specifically.

BH should meet with Smith and his parents and discuss his diet and weight loss conditions.

At what point is 2-17 shooting (through a game and a half)from the starting point guard “conduct unbecoming a member of the UCLA basketball team”?

F’ you guys who think Howland is better than me! Pathetic Ben lost another embarrassing game. Of course UCLA should now put up a statue in his honor!

You guys were right. Nelson is the problem. Get rid of Nelson and the Bruins are NC’s.

How ironic that I see many of you posters from above changing your tone.

You don’t get it. BH is a stubborn SOB who plays his style of BB no matter the personnel. If he had 5 midgets on the team, he would try to play his style of BB and play slow and pound it inside. He is TOO easy to scheme for. When he has the players, he does great. When he doesn’t, he refuses to adjust. Losing to LMU and Mid Tenn St anywhere is a joke, at home, it’s a travesty. Our second team should have mopped the floor with these scrubs. When will BH LEARN!!!! He must be a joy to be around at home. Can you imagine him as your dad? He probably walks around the house ALL day yelling , MOTION, MOTION, MOTION!!!!