Tag Archives: Kevon Looney

At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 2-seed Gonzaga

Posted on by
Reply

No. 11-seed UCLA (22-13) vs. No. 2-seed Gonzaga (34-2)
NCAA South Regional semifinal
Friday, 4:15 p.m. PT, NRG Stadium (Houston)
TV: CBS (Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill, Tracy Wolfson)
Radio: AM 570 (Chris Roberts, Tracy Murray)

Scouting report: Gonzaga is, simply put, the best offensive team that UCLA has played this season. The Bulldogs have enough weapons to survive an off night from any one player except Kyle Wiltjer.

Gonzaga is ranked first in the country in effective field goal percentage, and is accurate at the rim, beyond the arc, and most areas in between. Only 6.2 percent of the Zags’ shots get blocked, lower than all but four others in college basketball. Parts you could pick at? This isn’t a team that gets to the line all that often, or converts at a particularly high rate (68.7 percent). It’s not a truly dominant offensive rebounding team.

But overall, this is a very dangerous scoring roster. That offensive engine helped push head coach Mark Few over his recent round-of-32 hump, where Gonzaga ended its past five seasons.

UCLA didn’t get blown out in its only loss at Pauley Pavilion, but it also didn’t look competitive for most of the second half. The Zags led by double digits for almost that entire stretch, and easily snuffed out the one run the Bruins made shortly out of halftime. Still, this is a very different UCLA team than the one that lost five straight starting in December. Continue reading “At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 2-seed Gonzaga” »

At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 14-seed UAB

Posted on by
1

No. 11-seed UCLA (21-13) vs. No. 14-seed UAB (20-15)
NCAA Tournament — South Regional, Round of 32
Saturday, 9:10 a.m. PT, KFC Yum! Center (Louisville, Ky.)
TV: CBS (Verne Lundquist, Jim Spanarkel, Allie LaForce)
Radio: AM 570 (Chris Roberts, Tracy Murray)

Scouting report: UCLA might have earned one of the NCAA Tournament’s most surprising bids this year, but after one game, the Bruins are set up as a favorite to reach their second straight Sweet 16.

It certainly helps that this is the team’s second time drawing a double-digit seed in the round of 32. The Bruins dispatched 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin without much drama in 2014, and could do the same to 14th-seeded Blazers on Saturday in Louisville.

The two rosters look quite different, but there is one similarity between SFA and UAB: offensive rebounding. Last year’s Lumberjacks squad was ranked 12th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, while the Blazers will enter the KFC Yum! Center tomorrow at No. 71 in the country. UAB isn’t particularly intimidating otherwise. According to kenpom.com, it ranks outside the national top 240 in effective field goal percentage (47.4) and turnover percentage (20.4).

The team’s biggest key might be freshman William Lee, a former Alabama Mr. Basketball who was hampered by a knee injury early this season and didn’t play against UCLA during the Battle 4 Atlantis’ seventh-place game — a contest that the Bruins took by 12 points and led for all by 22 seconds. Now healthy, Lee is averaging 13.0 and 7.3 rebounds in his last eight games, and his team is 5-2 when he grabs double-digit rebounds.

Lee also pairs with point guard Nick Norton as two of UAB’s more dangerous threats from outside. The former has hit 19 of 43 from beyond the arc, and is the only player on the team shooting above 40 percent there. The latter has hit 55 of 143, slightly behind leading scorer Robert Brown (56 of 176) in volume but comfortably ahead in accuracy.

Norton takes an absurd 84.2 percent of his field goals from 3-point range.

Opposing player to watch: On Friday, UAB coach Jerod Haase was asked how drastically he changed the roles of some of his players this season. “When I told certain guys that you will not shoot any more threes, it’s about as drastic as you can get,” he responded.

The best example of that is sophomore Tyler Madison, who grabbed a career-high nine offensive rebounds in his team’s upset of Iowa State on Thursday. Continue reading “At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 14-seed UAB” »

VIDEO: Kevon Looney talks about UCLA’s win over SMU

Posted on by
Reply

Kevon Looney donned his new mask against SMU, the fully transparent version protecting his still-healing facial fracture. The freshman forward finished 3 of 8 from the field for six points in the 60-59 win, but grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with an assist and a steal.

“Still getting used to it,” Looney said of the mask. “I shot the ball terribly today. Airballed a three. But I’m still doing everything else, like rebound and make plays and get steals and stuff like that. Shooting will come. I’m real comfortable now.”

At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 6-seed SMU

Posted on by
4

No. 11-seed UCLA (20-13) vs. No. 6-seed SMU (27-6)
Thursday, March 19, 12:10 p.m. PT (approximate start)
KFC Yum! Center (Louisville, Ky.)
NCAA Tournament — South Regional
TV: truTV (Verne Lundquist, Jim Spanarkel, Allie LaForce)
Radio: AM 1150 (Chris Roberts, Tracy Murray)

Scouting report: There is good and bad that comes with Larry Brown — the good being that he is a very good basketball coach, and the bad being that he’s not likely to stick around very long. And for college programs, there’s the ugly too: NCAA violations tend to follow him.

Though his degree of involvement varied in the two cases — Brown essentially told Grantland he was in the wrong place at the wrong time in regards to UCLA’s vacated 1980 runner-up finish — the 74-year-old left both the Bruins and Kansas with sanctions in his wake. That might happen again at SMU, his third collegiate stop and the 13th team he has coached in his career.

On the court, there’s little disputing what Brown has done for the Mustangs. Before he was hired in 2012, SMU went 13-19 and ranked 281st and 121st nationally in offensive and defensive efficiency, respectively. The team had significantly improved by his second season, going 27-10 for a runner-up finish in the NIT after being snubbed from the Big Dance.

This year, the Mustangs are back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1993. In the aforementioned efficiency statistics, they now rank 25th (offense) and 42nd (defense) in the country. Although they don’t have any standout wins, all but one of their losses have come against tournament teams. The exception is an 81-73 loss at UConn on March 1, one it avenged two weeks later in the AAC title game.

With a deep, capable frontline that can rebound and defend the rim as well as most teams in the country — as well as a capable point guard in Nic Moore, the AAC Player of the Year — SMU is a team without many glaring weaknesses. Three of five starters are transfers, perhaps a testament to Brown’s ability to develop players that others once overlooked.

It’s fair to wonder how long this rise might last. Continue reading “At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 6-seed SMU” »