MAVERICK'S CORNER
The Dragovic Saga:  A Juror's Perspective
By MaverickBruin
Publisher

When I heard what Nikola Dragovic's lawyer had to say at his press conference today, it brought back a lot of memories.

Thirteen years ago this week, I was a juror in a criminal case with a number of similarities to Dragovic's. 

My peers and I acquitted an MTA bus driver -- we'll cal him Alex (not his real name) -- of murder charges, even though he admittedly killed a guy, his neighbor, shooting him four times in the head.  Like Dragovic, his defense was self-defense.  Unlike Dragovic, perhaps, Alex was a simple and sympathetic figure, with a loving wife who was in the courtroom every day and a lawyer who was far more likable than the young, arrogant D.A. who was prosecuting him, and we acquitted him in a few hours.  There were other differences between the two cases, too, some of which make me think that Dragovic will have a more difficult time obtaining a defense verdict than Alex did.

As I said, Alex was a bus driver.  He had no criminal record or history of violence of any kind.  He and his wife lived in an apartment complex in a middling neighborhood, a complex plagued by an erratic, dangerous resident we'll call Vic.  For Victim.  We didn't leanr much about Vic in the trial, presumably because the judge excluded a lot of the negative, inflammatory stories about Vic that didn't bear directly on the night of the killing.  Alex's lawyer constantly tried to sneak such evidence in, but kept getting cut off at the pass. We, the jurors, got the idea, though.  No doubt Dragovic's lawyer has dug up a lot of dirt on Dragovic's victim, and will try to sneak that into the trial as well.  He has already succeeded to some degree by publicizing his claim that the victim was drunk -- an issue that, if I were the prospecutor, I would seek to exclude.  Unless a reasonable jury could conclude that the victim's drunkenness was known to Dragovic and contributed to causing Dragovic to reasonably fear for his safety, it doesn't seem relevant.  But Dragovic can make it relevant if he testifies.  In Alex's case, he was not planning to testify (though he eventually did -- more on that later), and his lawyer therefore struggled to get the evidence in.  We sort of got a general inkling that Vic was the neighborhood maniac, but we never got the full picture.

What was clear was that on the night in question, Vic had been aggressive and he and Alex had had a confrontation.  Just as in Dragovic's case, the confrontation took place in two stages.  Dragovic's lawyer says that on the third floor of the club, Dragovic and his friend got into a dispute with the victim, at which time the victim slapped Dragovic's friend, and then a short time later, the parties met up again, at which point Dragovic feared for his life and shoved the victim into a plate glass window.  In Alex's case, following his shouting match with Vic, instead of retreating to his apartment, Alex got his gun, sat on the steps in front of his apartment, and smoked a cigarette.  When Vic showed up and approached Alex with his own gun, Alex pulled out his gun and shot Vic. 

And then shot him again.

Which the D.A. eventually acknowledged was sort of O.K. 

But then Alex shot him again.

And again.

Which the D.A. argued was not O.K.  But we, as jurors, felt that even though Alex may have shot too many times, Vic, having provoked him to begin shooting, could not complain that he got shot two times too many.  In a uniquely stressful situation like that, expecting Alex to modulate his aggression on the midst of a gunfight was too much to ask. 

The D.A. argued that "this is not the Wild Wild West" and Alex should have gone back into his apartment and called the police rather than sit on his front steps with a loaded gun and a cigarette waiting for a confrontation.  We rejected that argument not because it makes no sense -- it clearly does -- but because we believed that, based on Alex's lack of criminal and violent history, he genuinely felt that he needed to protect his family.  He did nothing but sit on the steps of his small family home.  Vic had no reason to return to that place, especially armed with a gun.  Alex was wedged between his closed front door (behind which was his family) and Vic approached Alex with a gun, trapping Alex, and Vic got what he deserved.  Or so we found.

Speaking form a juror's perspective, this is where the story Dragovic's lawyer spun seems to run into problems.  Dragovic was not at home.  He was in a public place.  Even if one assumes the truth of Dragovic's story that when they were on the third floor of the club, the victim slapped Dragovic's friend and threatened to do bodily harm to them, nothing in the lawyer's version suggests that when Dragovic met back up with the victim on the street, Dragovic lacked the ability to retreat.  Why not just get in your car and leave?  Unless Dragovic can provide a better explanation than his lawyer did of why he felt the need to charge the victim when they met back up on the street, I would find it difficult as a juror to accept that he couldn't just walk away. 

Which brings me back to an earlier point -- whether Dragovic will testify.  A lot of the inflammatory stuff Dragovic's lawyer raised in his press conference will only be admissible, most likely, if Dragovic testifies.  And when Alex finally ended up testifying -- I think he insisted on doing so over the strenuous objections of his lawyer -- bless his heart, he almost ruined his case and got himself sent to prison for a long, long time.  I think we jurors were fully ready to acquit Alex with extreme prejudice and even more extreme hostility toward the young, aggressive prosecutor whom none of us liked, but when Alex insisted on testifying, he threw a real monkey wrench into the case.  You can certainly understand a guy who had little education and was facing the prospect of decades in prison of wanting to explain himself, but the reailty was, he was inarticulate, not able to deal with the kinds of quesitons the D.A. threw at him, and ended up making unnecessary and probably mistaken admissions that could possibly have doomed his defense, had we not been so clearly in his favor at the time (which he didn't know, since he clearly was worried enough that he insisted on testifying).

Dragovic, a foreign citizen whose command of English remains limited and to jurors will sound like one of the prison guards on Hogan's Heroes, and seemingly has had a snide, arrogant expression pasted to his face over the past four years, clearly lacks the inherent benefit-of-the-doubt that we jurors gave to family man Adam.  For his defense to succeed, he needs to explain why he truly feared for his safety when the alleged victim reappeared -- but putting him on the stand risks giving the jury a taste of his personality and bringing in his girlfriend issues.

Taking off my juror hat and putting on my lawyer hat for a moment, the most intriguing issue is the relationship between Dragovic and his co-defendant friend.  His friend is the one who supposedly got slapped by the victim which led Dragovic to being in such fear that later, when seeing the victim again, he felt the need to charge him to protect himself.  So Dragovic needs his friend's testimony to help bolster his self-defense defense. 

But Dragovic's friend is also a detriment to Dragovic's defense because he apparently starting wailing on the victim after Dragovic threw the guy into the late glass window, by which time the victim arguably was no longer a threat.  So at some point, the interests of Dragovic and his friend will diverge.  Dragovic will want to argue that his friend behaved excessively and he is not to blame for that. Which would put his lawyer in a conflict situation and would require serparate representation -- and arguably lead to a situation in which Dagovic and his friend blame each other for the situation. Which I suspect Dragovic's friend can't currently afford, and which Dragovic's lawyer is probably telling Dragovic they don't want, because they need to control the friend, lest he turn on Dragovic and blow their defense to smithereeens.

The cynical soul in me imagines that the lawyer's press conference comment that Dragovic needs to start making his three-pointers was not just a cute one-liner. Because if Dragovic is going to have a successful, financially lucrative basketball career in Europe, then perhaps there is an incentive for his aggressive European friend to help resolve this court case as benignly as possible.


UCLA 75, COLORADO STATE 63
Bruins Avoid Another Low Point
By Captain Haggerty
Staff Writer

Since I know a lot of you didn't get to see the game, here are the basic talking points from one who did:

Colorado State is not good.  Other than New Mexico and maybe Bakersfield, they were the worst team UCLA has faced all season.  Clearly not as good as, say, Condordia.  And their coach is a nerd.

With maybe 12 or so minutes left, the Bruins were down by 8 points (I think it was 53-45 but don't hold me to that).  Jerime Anderson looked as bad as he has ever looked, as did Nikola Dragovic, as did Tyler Honeycutt.  Brendan Lane was being pushed around like a ragdoll inside.  Lee was free-lancing, shooting every time he got the ball as if he was Kobe or something, at one point going one-on-three on a fast break and, predictably, turning it over.  The Bruins' effort was completely nonexistent as Colorado State players were left wide open inside for gimmees, and if they missed one, they were allowed to get the offensive board by the meek and barely interested Bruins.  It was basically more of the same stuff you've seen all season and few in Pauley truly believed the Bruins could come back and win.  It would have been perhaps the Bruins' most embarrassing loss in a season full of them, considering how little Colorado State brought to the table.

Howland called his fourth timeout.  Then everything changed.  The Bruins outscored Colorado State by 20 the rest of the way (30-10?), the Bruins' offense flowed, the Bruins clamped down on defense, and everything seemed to work.  Dragovic was working hard inside, hitting threes and free throws, Anderson was making nice decisions, nice passes, and even shooting the ball when he was open and making it.  Nelson was a beast inside. 

Basically, the last 12 or so minutes of the game looked like the New Mexico State game.  The first 28 looked like the Bruins at their worst this season.  So what does this tell us about the rest of the season?  Probably very little, other than that perhaps the predictions below by my esteemed colleague The Canadian were a tad optimistic.  We'll see.


NOTRE DAME 84, UCLA 73
Predictions For Remainder Of Season
By The Canadian
Special Contributor

Since the Notre Dame game went exactly as we predicted (and exactly contrary to the prediction of a certain pay and ad-filled website that predicted a UCLA victory), there is little point in rehashing the game.  Instead, we will set forth our predictions for the remainder of the season for the currently 3-7 Bruins. 

Colorado State - win
Delaware State - win
Arizona State - loss
Arizona - win
At California - loss
At Stanford - loss
USC - loss
Washington - loss
Washington State - win
At Oregon - win
At Oregon State - loss
Stanford - win
California - win
At USC - win
At Washington State - loss
At Washington - loss
Oregon State - win
Oregon - win
At Arizona - loss
At Arizona State - loss
Pac-10 Tournament 1st round - loss

Final record:  13-18 (8-10 Pac-10)

Compare these predictions to your friendly neighborhood pay site (which not only charges you for access but then bombards you with ads on top of it). 



MAVERICK'S CORNER
Notes From Around The Pac-10
By MaverickBruin
Publisher

OREGON STATE:  Looks like elite freshman guard Roberto Nelson will be ineigible and spend his career in Division II, a big blow for the Beavers.  Meanwhile, Roland Shaftenaar has failed to duplicate his stellar junior season, slumping badly as the Beavers have lost to Sacramento State and Illinois Chicago...

CALIFORNIA:  The answer to to the question whether 7-3 Max Zhang could play at the PAc-10 level appears to be yes.  In 14.5 minutes per game off the bench, Zhang is shooting 64% and averaging 4.5 points and 3.8 rebounds with 12 blocked shots...

STANFORD:   Though they do not have any big wins (unless you count a win over 4-4 Virginia as big), the Cardinal has actually been better than their paper-thin roster would have foreshadowed, with a 5-4 record including close losses to Kentucky and Oklahoma State...

OREGON:  The Ducks' highly touted bigs continue to underperform.  Michael Dunigan is averaging 7.1 points on 47% shjooting fron the field; Josh Crittle 3.0 points on 43%; and Joevan Catron, back despite lingering lower back pain that could affect him all season, 5.5 points on 33% in 4 games.

WASHINGTON STATE:  If Klay Thompson keeps up his 26.4 points per game average (on 51.6% shooting!), he will have the highest per-game average in the Pac-10 since Oregon's Terrell Brandon averaged 26.6 in 1990-91 (Harold Miner of USC averaged 26.3 points per game in 1991-92).

ARIZONA STATE:  Derek Glasser, supposedly not good enough for UCLA according to some now-discredited internet scouts (who instead touted Jerime Anderson despite warnings from longtime scouts like Clark "On The Mark" Francis), is averaging 12.8 points and dishing off 5.6 assists while shooting 48.4% from three and 87% from the foul line.  Meanwhile, Eric Boateng, the transfer from Duke, is finally contributing, with 10.3 points and 6.3 boards per game while shooting 67% from the field...

ARIZONA:  Derrick Williams is running away with Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors, averaging 14 points on 57.5% shooting and adding 6 boards a game.  The Wildcats need his rebounding as they don't play a true center, with Kyryl Natyazhko and Alex Jacobsen not ready to contribute much.  Point guard Nic Wise looks like he's headed for the All-conference team, another defeat for Internet scouts who called him a "bowling ball" ...

WASHINGTON:  Quincy Pondexter looks like the only competition for Klay Thomspon for Pac-10 Player of the Year, averaging 22 points and 9 rebounds per game while shooting 55.5% from the field.  However, the Huskies don't have much of an inside presence, with another player touted by increasingly-wrong internet scouts, Tyrese Breshers, not ready for Pac-10 competition...

UCLA (thanks to The Canadian for this tidbit):  Here are the per-minute rebounding numbers for the Bruins' bigs:

Nelson:  .340
Honeycutt:  .339
Gordon:  .218
Keefe:  .212
Dragovic:  .204
Morgan:  .190
Lane:  .137

When you compare those numbers to historical Bruin figures, you get a feel for what they mean.  Last season, the Bruins' leading rebounder Alfred Aboya had .227 rebounds per minute.  In 2007-08, Kevin Love had .359 rebounds per minute.  In 2006-07, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute had .248 RPM.  The year before, .276.  In other words, so far at least, Nelson and Honeycutt could be a dynamite rebounding tandem, especially in a Pac-10 without any aircraft carriers.  Why not start them in the frontcourt along with Roll, Lee, and Anderson on the perimeter?

Early All-Pac-10 team:

Klay Thompson, Washington St.
Quincy Pondexter, Washington
Isaiah Thomas, Washington
Jerome Randle, California
Patrick Chistopher, California
Nikola Vucevic, USC
Landry Fields, Stanford
Nic Wise, Arizona
Seth Tarver, Oregon State
Malcolm Lee, UCLA



UCLA 100, NEW MEXICO STATE 68
Bruins Turn The Corner!  (Just kidding...)
All you need to know about the Bruins' pounding of hapless New Mexico State 100-68 on Tuesday is this:

UCLA 105, Portland 67.

That was the score of UCLA's win over Portland on December 14, 2002 -- almost seven years to the day before the win over New Mexico.  That win followed losses to Branch West (by 25), EA Sports, San Diego and Duke and a win over Long Beach State.  Following the 38-point win over Portland in 2002, the Bruins went on to lose their remaining three pre-conference games (including to Northern Arizona) and went 6-12 in the Pac-10, finishing the season 10-19.

In the stock market world, they have a word for games like the New Mexico State game -- a "dead cat bounce."  Everything seemed to go right for the Bruins -- even when James Keefe was injured, Reeves Nelson stepped in with a career high in points.  Jerime Anderson, if you had only seen him in this game, looked like a starting Pac-10 point guard.  Malcolm Lee looked like a guy who could go pro after this season.  Tyler Honeycutt looked like a guy who could start for most Pac-10 teams (yet came off the bench for the suddenly, seemingly deep and talented Bruins).

You could make a defensible argument that the young but growing Bruins turned a corner in this game.  But probably, your argument will turn out to be wrong.  The Bruins didn't become a 2-6 team due to bad luck or lack of effort (although they do have that, too) or personnel decisions by Ben Howland.  They became a 2-6 team because Howland listened to the wrong scouts, recruited the wrong players, mismanaged the roster's balance, and seemingly had no plan when he recruited this team's personnel.

Karl Dorrell was rightly criticized when he insisted on running his version of a West Coast Offense but then recruited scrambling quarterbacks like Osaar Rashaan and Chris Forcier with no discernible skills for that type of offense.  Howland is subject to the same criticism.  A player like Bobo Morgan, who runs the floor like an animated ostrich in a 1930s Max Fleischer cartoon, clearly is never going to master the hedging that Howland favors.  Why was he recruited?  Reeves Nelson may be the coolest, gutsiest player the Bruins have ever recruited, but if he can only play center because he can't shoot from outside (as Howland supposedly requires from his power forwards) or guard quicker players on the perimeter (maybe he can -- we'll see), his future could resemble that of former Cal enforcer, the vastly inferior Taylor Harrison.  Even in the midst of his solid New Mexico State performance, Anderson still seemed reluctant to take wide-open shots, even from inside the key -- though shooting when open is something a Howland point guard needs to do to open up the floor for others.  Malcolm Lee played a lot of point guard in the New Mexico State game but still doesn't seem to be really getting the hang of it.

With three nonconference games left before the Pac-10, the Bruins should probably win two of them.  A road win at Notre Dame seems out of the question, but Colorado State is terrible (even Oregon beat them and Oregon may be as bad as UCLA -- they also lost to Portland, as well as Montana and St. Mary's, and by 37 to a mediocre Missouri team) and Delaware State is worse (lost to Arizona State by 32).  So the Bruins ought to finish their pre-conference season 5-7, which all things considered, is not that ... wait, who are we kidding, it's horrible.  Even iof you make the most optimistic assumption possible that given the weakness of the Pac-10, the Bruins can go 12-6 in conference and win two games in the Pac-10 tournament, the season ends up at 19-14 -- not close to getting into the NCAA tournament.  More likely, the Bruins go 6-12 in conference and lose in the first round of the PAc-10 tournament, leaving them with a record of 11-20 -- just a tiny statistical notch above Steve Lavin's final season record.  That's progress.

On the other hand, the New Mexico State game could be the first win of a 31-game win streak in which the Bruins run the table and win the national championship, finishing with a record of 33-6, the best record of the Howland Era.  That result is still within grasp. 



QUICK TAKE
Some Sobering Notes...
about just how bad we really are this season -- as if we need more sobering reminders. 

We're ranked #241 out of 347 division I teams in Jeff Sagarin's power ratings.

Portland, that mid-major powerhouse that humiliated us by 27 points, recent lost three straight games, to West Virginia, Portland State, and Idaho (by 20).  In other words, they ain't even Gonzaga.

Cal State Fullerton, that upstart local mid-major that beat us at Pauley, also recently lost three straight games, to Centrl Arkansas (by 20), Stephen F. Austin, and San Diego State (by 14).  In other words, they are a horrible team.  And they beat us at Pauley, and probably would again if the teams played tomorrow.

Long Beach State, the team that dominated us and it wasn't even close, they would beat us 10 out of 10 times, lost to Texas last week by 33 points.

And of course Mississippi State, the team that walked all over us as if we were some Division II doormat and could have won by 50 if they had tried, lost to both Rider (by 14) and Richmond earlier this season.  At home.  Rider has gone on to lose big to San Houston State (by 12) and LaSalle (by 9), at home.  Richmond's road win over Mississippi State was sandwiched between losses to William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth.

This is bad, folks.  Lavin never had a team this bad.  UCLA hasn't had a team this bad since World War II.  I don't know how it got so bad so fast, but the program is in absolute ruins.  



MISSISSIPPI STATE 72, UCLA 54
Is Howland Digging A Hole That Will Engulf Him?
By Captain Haggerty
Staff Writer

Another game, another embarrassing loss, this time in the Wooden Classic.  The team prety much violated every one of the 15 blocks in Coach Wooden's pyramid, but especially Competitive Greatness, Poise, Confidence, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Industriousness, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation, and Enthusiasm.  OK, that's 14 of the 15.  With the removal of Drew Gordon from the team, they are probably doing a marginal job of Self-Control.  At least for this week.

The real question now is not whether this team is bad -- it is -- or whether Howland has lost this team -- he has -- but whether Howland can recover from the devastation this season's outcome will wreak.  The fact is, in his seventh season, the much-maligned Jim Harrick won a national championship.  In his seventh season, Steve Lavin had UCLA's worst season in 57 years and was shown the door -- despite an Elite Eight and four other Sweet Sixteens in his first six seasons.  Lavin finished his UCLA career with a record of 145-78 (a .650 winning percentage). 

At the rate he is going, Ben Howland wiill finish his seventh season with UCLA's worst season in 67 years (worse than Lavin's worst season) and a record of maybe 159-78 (a .670 winning percentage).  (I am assuming he can squeeze out five more wins this season.)  He has gone to three Final Fours but only three Sweet Sixteens in his seven seasons.  Since UCLA supposedly only hangs championship banners, I am not sure why Howland's Final Fours count for so much more than Lavin's more numerous Sweet Sixteens. 

But I digress.  I am not defending Lavin -- he was a disaster and a joke who needed to go.  The real issue is, absurd as it may have seemed to even contemplate this even a month ago, are we on a glidepath to the day where Howland also needs to go? 

Look at the facts.  We are going to be hard-pressed this season to even win the 10 measly games that Lavin won in the season that got him fired.  If we can do it, it will only be because the Pac-10 is as weak as it has been in over a quarter of a century.  And whether we win 5 games, 7 games, 9 games, 11 games -- it will be a disaster of historic proportions for UCLA basketball, a result which would have gotten any UCLA coach of the last 60 years fired -- but then, there are those three Pac-10 titles and Final Fours.  More about them later.

Contrary to the polite spin from clueless broadcasters like Steve Physioc, UCLA is not going to be right back in the national mix next season.  This mess will take years to dig out of.  In fact, in many ways, Rick Neuheisel's job in digging out of the mess Karl Dorrell left behind was much easier than Howland's task of digging out of his own mess.  That is because Neuheisel is able to offer a stark, charismatic alternative to Dorrell.  Howland only has himself to offer.  And if the past seven years are any indication, as good a coach as Howland may be, players run from him at the first opportunity.  He makes their lives unpleasant and provides them with no emotional support.  Basically, they hate him.  Have you ever heard one player praise Howland as a mentor, a teacher, a friend?  Rumors abound that more players will transfer after this season -- and not just the ones you would want to transfer, but ones that show potential.

Which leads to another point.  Watching the Mississippi State game, the wasted potential of many of the Bruin players seems obvious.  Tyler Honeycutt seems to have all sorts of ability, yet he is completely ineffective.  Isn't that Howland's fault?  Honeycutt strikes me as a player with physical tools rivalling, say, Tracy Murray.  Jim Harrick found a way to integrate Murray into the rotation as a freshman and he was remarkably effective.  Honeycutt seems to be flailing around randomly.   Is anyone teaching him anything?

For those who say Howland should hire different assistants, I disagree.  It's too easy to blame assistants when things go wrong.  While obviously Howland has had enough success to be given the benefit of the doubt if he wants to replace his assistants, it is ridiculous to assume that we, as public observers, have a superior ability than Howland to determine whether his assistants are doing a good enough job.  Howland is the head coach.  He needs to hire and fire who he sees fit, and be accountable for the results regardless.

So let' s say we finish 9-22 this season.  (I'm being optimistic.)  A few players, such as Bobo Morgan and Honeycutt, probably transfer.  We bring in a JC point guard, Josh Smith, and Tyler Lamb.  The likely roster is probably still not even in the top half of the Pac-10, let alone competing nationally.

Meanwhile, Howland has to recruit big-time talent, against the perception that he is extremely difficult to play for.  Can he do it?  I doubt it.  He can't change, and without success to sell, his program is likely to flounder.

Yes, those three Final Fours give Howland some leeway, and well they should. The problem is, at UCLA, only a national championship gives you tenure (unless you overstate a Monty's receipt by $50 -- oops!).  The way things look from here, Howland is going to have a bunch of bad seasons, and that, combined with his poor reputation as a "players' coach," is going to make it very difficult for him to dig out of this hole that is way larger than any of us realistically imagined even a month ago.

If Howland wants to keep his job at UCLA, or even be in the conversation for developing a geometric shape with his favored platitudes on it, he better win at least a Pac-10 title in the next three years.  But that's unlikely.  More likely, UCLA will be looking for a new head coach within the next three years.  You heard it here first.

THE DREW GORDON TRANSFER
The Beginning Of The End; Or A New Beginning?
By Captain Haggerty
Staff Writer

There is a movie called "Memento" that you should see if you haven't already seen it.  If you haven't seen it, the end of this paragraph will be a spoiler.  The movie is about a man who has lost his long-term memory -- his memories last maybe ten minutes or so at most -- but he has dedicated his life to chasing his wife's killer.  He tries to keep track of his clues by making notes to himself and tattooing the critical facts on his body.  But at the end of ther movie (spoiler alert), we find out that he caught his wife's killer a long time ago.  And at some level, he knows this (if only for a few minutes).  But he loves the thrill of the chase, so he keeps creating new puzzles for himself to solve, new prey to pursue, because the chase gives his life purpose.

Ben Howland reminds me of that guy right now.  I am not suggesting that Howland intentionalyl set out to tank the Bruin basketball program.  But now that it has tanked -- and it most definitely has, to lows rarely seen in the last 60 years -- the perverse truth is that Howland is finally in his element.  The dismissal of Drew Gordon -- and though I have no inside information, I would venture that Howland kicked him off the team, though Gordon may have been baiting him to do so for weeks if not more -- is being characterized elsewhere as another sign of the imploion of UCLA's basketball prograom, but I think it is a sign that Howland recognizes that this season is toast, that this team's chemistry issues threaten to shipwreck this program for years to come if not immediately addressed, and that he needs to take the kind of action that he took when he started at Northern Arizona, Pitt, and UCLA.  Weed out the bad apples and fill the roster with player swho want to play Howland ball.

Look out, Bobo Morgan, Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson.  You got next.  (In fact, if Morgan's alleged Facebook posts are any indication, he will be gone sooner rather than later.)

Howland has the premier resume in the nation if you need someone to take over a program in shambles and ressurrect it.  Remarkably, he has done so three times, as a low-major (lowly Northern Arizona), then at a low-level high major (Pittsburgh), then at an ultra-high major (UCLA).  Unfortunately, he may also now be mentioned in the same breath as Matt Doherty and Steve Lafvin as the only coaches who have taken historically elite college basketball programs to not just .500 records, but humiliating, sub-Saharan depths.  Yet having done so, or at leatd being on the verge of doing so, he has certainly made himself valuable again.  BNecause if your program is in deep, deep trouble, as UCLA's clearly is, the first guy anyone would call is... well, Ben Howland!

In a way, the team's outrageously embarrassing and pathetic performance so far this season has given Howland free reign to run things with an even heavier iron fist.  And he should.  This season is toast.  The Bruins almost certainly won't make the NCAA tournament, and even if they did, who cares?  Frankly, they won't even make the NIT because they will finish with a losing record.  You can write that in stone.  The real issue is the future, and for the future, Howland needs to cast off the players who are a cancer to the completely new and fresh program he now needs to create.  He needs to run players off the way he did at Northern Arizona and Pitt.  Gordon is the first.  I suspect Lee, Anderson, and Morgan will be next, though perhaps not until the end of the season.  Or perhaps earlier. 


LONG BEACH STATE 79, UCLA 68
Another Day, Another Pasting; What Can Be Done?
By Captain Haggerty
Staff Writer

With the Bruins' third consecutive loss and fourth to a mid-major in six games this season -- including two in positively humiliating fashion -- it is clear that nothing can be done to prevent this from being UCLA's worst season since Steve Lavin's 10-19 season in 2002-03.  Indeed, the way this team is playing, you might have to go back to the 1941-42 season, when the Bruins finished 5-18, to find a record that will match this season's.  Because to get to 10 wins, the Bruins will have to win 8 of their remaining 25 games.  And frankly, the way this team is performing, there aren't 8 winnable games left on the schedule.

How did this happen?  I don't know.  What can be done about it?  I'm not sure of that either, but what I do know is that nothing can be done to fix this season.  It's over.  The problems this team has are not fixable by getting Tyler Honeycutt back or putting Malcolm Lee at point guard or playing Brendan Lane more minutes.  This season will be a disaster no matter what anyone does.  Perhaps the disaster could have been averted if anyone had seen it coming, say, a year or so ago, but no one did, and now all we can do is watch the nightmare unfold.

The more interesting question is whether the problem can be salvaged over the near-term (the next few seasons) and the long term (Ben Howland's career at UCLA, if he even survives this -- a concept that would have been unthinkable to even pose a few weeks ago, but that seems all too real now).  As I see it, the program has a number of significant problems right now, all of which require somewhat drastic measures to solve over the next few seasons:

-- For whatever reason, Howland's philsophies, which seemed so effective for so many years at Northern Arizona, Pitt, and his first few seasons at UCLA, started to look a little retro two years ago -- indeed, you could argue that Howland underachieved with his third Final Four team led by Kevin Love, a team that never really clicked or cohered on the court but got to the Final Four based on its ridiculous level of talent.  Now, teams that have far less "talent" than UCLA's from a recruiting-ranking perspective seem to be mopping the floor with the Bruins on a regular basis.  Even Howland's quirky timeout-after-a-made-basket affectation ("to set his defense") seems to have lost its effectiveness -- it seems like every time Howland wastes a timeout in such situation the last couple of years, the other team scores anyway.

SOLUTION?  Howland needs to seriously consider updating his philosophy.  Even Coach Wooden, when faced with what he viewed as underperfomring teams in the late 1950s and early 1960s, took stock of his system, did a top-down evaluation of everything he was doing, and made changes.  Howland needs to do the same.  What worked in 1998 might not work in 2010.

-- While I think it is too easy to blame assistant coaches, and changing assistants rarely does anything but prolong a poor head coach's tenure, it is fair to say that for whatever reason, since Howland replaced Kerry Keating and Ernie Ziegler with Scott Duncan and Scott Garson, the players seem far less able to bring Howland's vision to the court.  We can debate all we want about whether Howland should play zone or whether hedging is as critical as he thinks it is, but if that is what he wants done, it is up to the assistants to teach it and drill it, and too many players the last few seasons do not seem to be getting it.  One wonders if those assistants really get it. 

SOLUTION?  I am in no position to question anyone's job status.  But clearly, this is another element of the program at which Howland needs to take a serious look.

-- UCLA's roster is filled with players whose attitude or ability just don't measure up.  That is obvious.  Frankly, I think it is much more important than any other factor.  Players like James Keefe, Nikola Dragovic, Mike Roll, and Jerime Anderson simply do not belong as starters or near-starters on any team that expects to be competitive nationally.  Drew Gordon has Pac-10 level talent but perhaps not a Pac-10 level demeanor -- his passion is entirely misdirected.  Against Long Beach State, you could see from the opening moments it was going to be a long day for Gordon just from his body language -- flailing his arms wildly every time a foul was called or when a teammate faltered.  Gordon needs to mature, and though he is trying to do so, the Long Beach State game was a big step back.  Malcolm Lee is a knucklehead, plain and simple.  I just don't think he has the basketball intelligence to ever be anything but a detriment to the program.  And Bobo Gordon was just as big a recruiting mistake as UCLA has ever made.  As for the freshmen, they all show signs of promise.  I don't think we can write any of them off yet, and all of them may turn out to be contributors.  Unfortunately, except for Reeves Nelson, none of them are good enough to do so this season.

SOLUTION?   I think Howland needs to clean house after this season.  It may be too late to do so for next season given that recruiting is largely over already -- either we are going to add Ray McCallum and/or Trey Ziegler or nobody to our recruiting class of Josh Smith and Tyler Lamb -- but Howland ought to be planning to scrub the roster of problems for 2011-12.  Extreme as it sounds, I think Howland needs to recruit over Anderson and Lee and encourage them to transfer.  In today's college game, guard play is crucial, and your guards don't just need to be athletic, but to be smart and have a feel for the game.  Lee and Anderson are not smart and have no feel.  What the Bruins need are four or five young, hungry, smart, tough backcourt players who can shoot.  If those players don't exist in California, then maybe Europe or (gasp!) the rest of the U.S. might be an option.  But our backcourt is a complete disaster right now and needs to be completely rebuilt.

As for the frontcourt, the situation seems more salvageable.  Assuming Josh Smith can come in and start right away -- although I am not sure why I assume this, since Bobo Morgan was just as highly ranked out of high school and Smith reportedly has weight and motivation issues -- I expect Gordon to either transfer, or be the starting four.  If he is gone, Nelson and Lane will share the four position and I expect them to be solid.  If he stays, one or both of Nelson/Lane will transfer.  Who knows what if anything Stover brings to the table and maybe we will never even see him play for the Bruins.  Moser looks promising and between him and Honeycutt, the small forward position seems like it could be OK, though it would be nicer if there was any evidence either of them could shoot from the outside, and a top 10 talent at this position to overtake eithe rof them would be welcome.  Bottom line, our frontcourt seems to have decent talent, and if Howland runs off Lee and Anderson as he should, plus assuming a transfer of two of the frontcourt guys, that leaves at least four scholarships to give for 2011-12 (six if we don't add anyone to the current Smith/Lamb class). 

Two years from now, then, you could have a roster that looks like this:

C   Josh Smith (SO), Anthony Stover (rsSO)
F   Drew Gordon (SR) AND/OR Brendan Lane (JR) OR Reeves Nelson (JR)
F   Tyler Honeycutt (JR) AND/OR Mike Moser (JR), RECRUIT
G   Tyler Lamb (SO), RECRUIT, RECRUIT
G   RECRUIT, RECRUIT

Of course, what is obviously missing from that roster is four or five guards.  Howland's abililty to fill those spots with players who can effectuate his vision will be the key to determining whether Howland can survive this completely unexpected debacle that is now upon us.