This week at CFHI our bosses decided to give us some freedom. There is no set topic that each writer must cover and we are allowed to write about any subject we want. The Pac 12 has given me plenty of ammunition to go off the rails, but rather than beat down the entire Pac 12 I have decided to study what has gone wrong in Westwood. As a native of Southern California this topic depresses me. Although I am far from a Bruin fan, they are one of the premier programs in the country. There is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be a top 10 program every year. The tradition there is unmatched as they boast 11 national titles (Kentucky is second with seven). When the Bruins are bad it affects the entire West Coast, not just Los Angeles. So let’s dig a little deeper and look at how we got to where the Bruins are a seventh place team in a mediocre league.
Ben Howland is a good coach. Let’s just get that out of the way before I go on my rant. The Bruins made it to the Final Four in 2006, 2007 and 2008 so he obviously has shown he can live up to the expectations of the program. So if he is a good coach, why are they having so much trouble recently? Well, here are the three things that jump out to me as I did some research. If he can fix some of these issues, then the Bruins might return to being one of the top teams in the land.
Transfers
The Bruins have been hit extremely hard by transfers. They have lost Mike Moser (14.7 points, 11.7 rebounds) and Chace Stanback (14.1 points, 4.6 rebounds) to UNLV, Drew Gordon (12.4 points, 10.5 rebounds) to New Mexico, Matt Carlino (12.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.4 assists) to BYU and J'mison Morgan (redshirting) to Baylor over the last couple of years. The first three guys on the list would definitely start for the Bruins and Carlino would have a chance to unseat Lazeric Jones at the point. That is an awful lot of talent to exit one program in a short period of time. On the flip side, all the transfers have forced Howland to look at other programs for help. The Bruins have recently allowed five players to transfer into school, which is an extremely high number for a program of their caliber. The Wear Twins (North Carolina) I can understand since you almost never want to say no to 6-foot-10 McDonald’s All-Americans. Even Larry Drew II (North Carolina) I can fathom since the Bruins don’t have a point guard on the roster for next season. All three are natives of Southern California so I can see why they would want to return to the city of Angels. By accepting these players, it can be construed that Howland is so desperate that he is willing to take players that couldn’t cut it at other elite institutions. Then there are the two junior college transfers. No offense to Lazeric Jones (the best player on the team, afterall) or DeEnd Parker, but the Bruins shouldn’t be in the market for two-year players. While attrition is part of the game, it makes you wonder why so many players are so eager to get out of Westwood.
Recruiting
This trend might be the most worrisome of the trio. When the Bruins were great under Howland, they did it with homegrown talent. While I acknowledge that Kevin Love is from Oregon, the following list is of players from the Los Angeles area: Russell Westbrook, Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison, Jordan Farmer, Trevor Ariza, Aaron Afflalo, Tyler Honeycutt and Malcolm Lee. That’s eight guys currently in the NBA all from their backyard. The pipeline of local players has dried up recently as Howland has focused nationally on recruiting. I looked at the 2009-2012 recruiting rankings and focused on the top five kids from the Golden State. The results were shocking. In the last four years, the Bruins have only signed three of the top 20 players from the state. That is just an unacceptable rate for any top program, much less one sitting in as fertile of a recruiting area as the Bruins. Here are some of the names that Howland failed to lure to Pauley Pavilion: Jordan Hamilton (Texas), Kawhi Leonard (SDSU), Jared Cunningham (Oregon St), Derrick Williams (Arizona) and Allen Crabbe (Cal). The Bruins brand is falling apart in California and that can’t be good for business. The one team that seems to be thriving in the state is Arizona. The Wildcats may have lucked into Williams and Solomon Hill thanks to Tim Floyd’s departure from USC, but they have managed to gain more traction in the state since Sean Miller took over. Last season they signed the top player in the state (Josiah Turner) and currently have three of the top five players in the 2012 class headed to Tucson.
Kentucky has also started to make waves out West which has to be driving the UCLA faithful crazy. The Wildcats have recently been able to grab Terrence Jones, Kyle Wiltjer and Enes Kanter from the Pacific Time zone (they are also in the running for Shabazz Muhammed of Las Vegas, considered the best player in the 2012 class). I must admit that Howland has at least acknowledged this issue by hiring Korey McCray as an assistant this year. McCray was running a very successful AAU team in Atlanta and his hire paid immediate dividends as one of his former players, Jordan Adams, has signed up to play for the Bruins next season. The 2012 class also features stud Kyle Anderson from New Jersey, but it is still lacking a player from California. The Bruins might want to start securing their borders if they want to return to elite status.
Personality issues
Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Bruins have lacked athleticism on the perimeter for the last couple of years but that hasn’t stopped Howland from trying to employ his suffocating man-to-man defensive style. It was great and worked wonders with NBA caliber guards on the roster, but it has been a total failure recently. The Bruins have zoned it up the last two years on occasion, but Howland still sees man-to-man as the Holy Grail. A zone defense might also help keep behemoth center Joshua Smith out of foul trouble and on the floor longer. I don’t prefer one defense to the other, but a coach must be able to adapt in order to be successful.
All the transfers can’t be attributed to playing time issues. Gordon had started all six games of his sophomore season before calling it quits. This season, the Bruins dismissed power forward Reeves Nelson, arguably their best player, after multiple run-ins with the coaching staff. I applaud Howland for making that decision and while most of that can be blamed on Nelson’s immaturity, some of it has to fall at the feet of the coaching staff. Another troubling issue is Smith’s lack of determination to get in shape. I understand that a coach can’t babysit a player and watch everything he eats, but at some point Howland needs to motivate Smith to improve his conditioning. The bigger picture issue is that Howland has trouble getting through and relating to the younger generation. The hire of McCray is supposed to help bridge that gap. If it doesn’t, the Bruins might be looking for a new coach in near future.
Conclusion
Howland has built up some equity and deserves at least one more year to get the Bruins back on track. The Bruins should have the talent to win 20-25 games next season. If UCLA can shore up the above three issues then they will return to their blue blood status. It’s Sweet 16 or Bust next season!