UCLA Post Game Thread | Page 13 | The Boneyard

UCLA Post Game Thread

Won’t happen for 2 reasons, and shouldn’t. We’d be even better if Solo can find himself, and you can’t shatter the kid this late in the year with a move like that. The leash will be short, that works fine. Reason 2 is Ross is comfortable coming off the bench, bringing energy. Imagine starting him, gets 2 quick fouls and is sitting for more minutes than playing? Now you need Solo to man up, but he’s never done it coming off the bench this could turn into a tragedy.

No reason to change at all. Minutes are more important than who starts.
Perfectly said.

Move Ball to the bench and you're basically taking him out it mentally for the year. Only downside.

And it's not like Ross needs a confidence boost by starting.

Start Ball, keep him on a short leash. If he misses a few early, gets burned on defense, commits dumb fouls, put in Ross and give Ross starter's minutes in reserve.
 
Some people like to dog on him when he doesn’t play well, but we are truly lucky to have Karaban. He clearly wants his season to go on.

Aside from that almost everyone else had a good game past the first few minutes. Great seeing Smith return more to his early season form and Silas was indeed critical. Ross again was excellent, needs to keep himself on the court as long as possible.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't recall a more wide open Sweet 16 field. There are probably 12 teams that could legitimately win it all. During the season, I thought maybe 5 or 6 could. It's going to come down to match-ups to eliminate the pretenders. Pulling for UConn of course, but think Iowa State could win it. They're playing great.
 
Perfectly said.

Move Ball to the bench and you're basically taking him out it mentally for the year. Only downside.
This keeps being an argument but I’m not sure I buy it. I think you have to try something and maybe he responds well to coming off the bench. I’m sure his confidence is not sky high right now. Maybe a bench role takes some of the pressure off mentally.
 
This keeps being an argument but I’m not sure I buy it. I think you have to try something and maybe he responds well to coming off the bench. I’m sure his confidence is not sky high right now. Maybe a bench role takes some of the pressure off mentally.
I want Ball to focus more on his freaky atheticism and just stop shooting threes. Drive and dunk and focus on doing the little things to help the team. Stop the hero ball. We have better options.
 
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who else should have gotten a bid? The fourth place team, Seton Hall, beat nobody and every team behind them was .500 or worse on the season.

It was a bad year for the Big East. UConn and St. John's doesn't change that.
They beat NC State who had fewer wins and 13 losses didn't they? Who did NC state beat that makes them more worthy than the Hall? The ACC got 8 teams in and all but 1 are on the couch at home. And the one remaining was getting slapped around by Siena till the end. The committee is enthralled with the ACC for some reason.
 
That’s because they have a very overrated coach who rarely does well with the supreme talent he always has
So rarely that we're not even a year removed from them winning a title. Incredible.
 
I want Ball to focus more on his freaky atheticism and just stop shooting threes. Drive and dunk and focus on doing the little things to help the team. Stop the hero ball. We have better options.
He doesn't have functional athleticism driving into the lane, he's never been a guy who can get on the rim while in college. His best bet at finding a way to contribute is to get back to the 2-3 dribble middy that he was excellent at earlier in the season when his 3ball was still terrible, but he's pretty much abandoned it.
 
Solo's a mess right now. We all know that. But he can still help the team and we need him to return to form.

Solo grew from year one to two and had a great shooting year last year so I'd rather see us run a couple scripted plays for him to get a dunk or short jumper to try to make his mindset more positive.

Dan Hurley knows where Solo's head is and I trust he'll do and say the things that are needed to get him to relax and help the team. He can still turn it around and help the team reach its goal.
It is crunch time. Play your best five. Ross brings energy and has made plays on both ends of the floor that Solo hasn’t shown he can do and there is no more slack in the rope. Ross’s defense and not Solo’s slump is the reason why he should start. Ross brings us an adequate outside threat and he has been passing well. Solo coming in for Mullins makes more sense to me.

For the record, I doubt very much Hurley will make the change. I just felt after razzing posters for suggesting Ross or Stewart start that I should come out and admit I think they were right.
 
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That's how it works. You go to him if the opponent can't stop or slow him down. You make sure he passes out when the opponent makes it difficult by doubling with mid major players. He did great. It opened up the outside with some manageable shots.
That Furman game was an awesome setup for the rest of the tournament, IF we can shoot it somewhat decent. Tarris put such a target on his back that it will give the rest of the team more open looks, if we can capitalize on that, we will be in good shape.
 
Have we ever seen a quieter 17 points from a player than Braylon Mullins tonight? He was essential in the win but oh those 5 turnovers. He does so many things well but his loose handle needs major work. I hope tonight gives him a confidence boost. One question, why doesn’t he drive inside the 3 line and pull up? He doesn’t miss from there.
Glad to see him have some shots go down of course, but he felt like a liability out there at times. Hopefully he can clean that up while maintaining the scoring. Does anyone know what his +/- was that game?
 
Hurley won’t change his underwear during the tournament because of the mojo. 0% chance he will change the starting lineup starting in the sweet 16

Quick hooks and situational rotations is the gameplan. If Solo comes out missing everything and playing bad defense, Ross comes in immediately. If Solo is hitting shots and playing good defense, he stays
 
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@RuffRuff Two of your takes are aging like spoiled cheese. Your criticisms of our bench and your take on Alex? boy I am very happy to call you out on both of those takes! I am sure you are as well!
 
Not looking forward to playing him because he's a cheap shot player, in the sense I hope he doesn't make one that injures a player.
I wish we had a bruizer deep on the bench we could put out there early and send him a message
 
THAT'S why we have Alex Karaban! He was on a mission from God.

"Ross the Boss" - Huge 3's, a slam, a steal at the end, a wicked dish to Reed, defense and also getting fouled (and draining those 3FTs). Did it all. Huge difference maker.

Malachi super solid game again. Way to step up kid. You did what we asked of you.

Nice to see Mullins get back going. Love it, but please please don't step out of bounds anymore.

Lotta lotta travelling calls on UConn. One of em was even real.

Fear of the Bear left our shooters open.

Glad Danny put Solo back in at the end

Oh and one more thing - shout out to Mick Cronin for the technical and the free points.
Feel like Braylon has been called for stepping on the line almost every game…. Are the courts just bigger in Indiana?

Also, how many travel calls last night on UConn? Seemed odd.
 
@RuffRuff Two of your takes are aging like spoiled cheese. Your criticisms of our bench and your take on Alex? boy I am very happy to call you out on both of those takes! I am sure you are as well!
For what it's worth, I made the call Alex would and needed to step up and be the guy last night against a pretty meh UCLA team. It was nice timing for Alex to have the best game of his career, no doubt. I'm happy for him. We could not rely on Solo/Mullins & knew they'd be keying in on Tarris.

As for the bench - Malachi did his part, Ross played amazing.
 
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I had to get up at 5:00 am for work and made the tough decision to go to bed very early in the game. We were down three early in the first half when I went to bed. A woke up at least 6 times dreaming about different scenarios where I tried to find out if UConn won such as being at work, school etc. In all of them UConn won. I was thrilled to get up this morning and find out they won.

A couple things from the game stats, Hurley realizing SB didn't have it (0 for 5 shooting). The other is MS playing 32 minutes and scoring only 2 pts. That's a strange stat line. Getting 4 total points from the point between him and SD and still winning by 16 is crazy.
I woke up at 58-54 at exactly 4 am my time on the dot, I think 7:11 left or so. Stuck with them until it was clear they were winning, 69-57 around 1:40 left and went back to sleep but glad they won 11-3 portion of the game that I was up for.
 
We got an extremely favorable draw with the Bilodeau injury, but we survive and advance.

We need to get healthy and make a few strategic adjustments this week (more Ross, run the offense thru the post, less Ball/Mullins 3s).

I really hope Danny doesn’t think that we can keep doing what we’re doing and hope that the 3s start dropping. That won’t get us by a real team.
If Mullins continues to shoot the midrange I’m fine with that.
 
Usually losing brings out the most negative characters, but some posters manage it after enormous wins. You have to admire their tenacity.
It's great to get to the second weekend - season of stamped success isn't complete. We need to collect one more win, and get to that game for a chance to get to the Final 4. Let's play up to our seed, and have that chance, and at least play well if not win.
 
Hero ball is unfair. He’s generally been taking good shots, he’s just not making them.
“Hero Ball” has become a fallback criticism for anyone missing a shot. Player takes an off balance shot at the end of the shot clock, and half of the chat room says it’s “hero ball”. Guy gets past his defender and doesn’t finish — “hero ball”. Player misses open jump shot — “hero ball”.

It’s become one of the phrases that indicates that a poster should be ignored.
 
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