Rumors out there now that after a 1 game suspension from the team, UCLA forward Reeves Nelson missed the team plane to Hawaii for the Maui invitational.
Not just rumor. What a mess the Bruins are right now. They play Chaminade in the first round of the Maui Invitational tonight but it's just a brutal tournament. Unless something changes they'll be returning from Maui with a 1-4 record..yikesOriginally Posted by jgisland
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-...,5260024.story
Reeves Nelson and Jabari Brown (Oregon) should help remind people that recruiting is only partly about talent. It's a mix of raw talent, raw talent fit for the system, and character fit for the program. Too often, we focus on the raw talent while paying too little attention to the other things.
At CU, I'm a big believer for all our sports that our best approach is to keep continuity of systems, form the foundation of our programs with good athletes whose games fit our systems and have the type of athletic character we want as our culture, and then add a smaller number of "superstar" talents each recruiting cycle from among the small percentage of those prospects who fit the system/character requirements.
In basketball, that means our model for success is more like a Wisconsin, Marquette or Gonzaga. It's not the Baylor or Memphis model. The ups and downs of our program over the past decades was when we followed the latter model. We'd have a decent run for a year or two when the team gelled, but a sustainable culture was never created. (In football, Mac's sustainable culture showed there wasn't a ceiling and when Barnett brought it back he proved that the basement for that culture still delivered bowl games.)
Cal absolutely abused Georgia in KC tonight, 70-46. I'm feeling much better about our chances of beating UGA in Boulder, but we are definitely going to have our hands full with Cal. Golden Bears have a ton of veterans and it shows. Cal/Mizzou tomorrow night is going to be a great game.
Oregon State lost to #22 Vanderbilt 64-62 tonight. No shame in that - the 4-1 Beavs are continuing to show just how far they've come since last season
Last edited by CVilleBuff; 11-22-2011 at 03:48 AM.
We have a solid team, but most importantly we finally have some depth. Monty's a great coach who can take decent kids and make them solid PAC 12 players. Lots of scrappers on our team. We should do well this year but who knows? As far as UGA, you guys should be able to handle them in Boulder. They were overrated IMO. The announcers kept drooling over them the whole game but they got rocked in the second half. I think you guys will take them.
Your situation this year has some similarities with CU's last year in terms of having a cohesive team of veterans with some solid players coming off the bench. Cal has been the most impressive team in the conference to start the season. Don't see the Golden Bears finishing below 2nd in the conference as Arizona seems to be the only other legitimate candidate to win it. UCLA is a mess, Washington will be up there in the standings but they're too inconsistent, and losing Jabari Brown is a huge loss for Oregon. I notice that you guys only play Arizona and Washington once each, that sucks. Good luck against Mizzou tomorrow, the Pac is starved for some solid OOC wins. Win that in front of a hostile crowd in KC and Cal has cemented themselves as a legit top 15 team, should be an entertaining, high scored game.
It does appear that UGA was overhyped in the preseason. Hopefully the Buffs can get a much-needed win, although we've got to deal with a tricky game on the road at Air Force first. Glad we've still got over a month before league play begins, because the Buffs are gonna need all the time we can get.
Last edited by CVilleBuff; 11-22-2011 at 04:59 AM.
Yeah the situation is very similar from what I have heard. UCLA and USC always manage to split one with with us though. Arizona is Arizona and Washington always pulls something out by the end of the season. Many thanks for the kind prediction and wishes for luck against Mizzou. It looks like it will be a good season for us. You guys will surprise people I think. Don't worry about UGA-they are too young right now. Also looks like I will go through all my bear pix after all
Last edited by liverflukes; 11-22-2011 at 05:05 AM.
I'm shocked at what's happened at UCLA and Howland. You really have to not really care about basketball to miss a team flight to Hawaii. Not sure why he's playing.
Well Nelson is playing right now but Kansas is giving them an ass whipping. Not really shocked about Howland, alot of stuff coming out of there the last few years.
Cal getting beat down in the first half against Mizzu, USC down to Morgan State at half. Oregon State may be the best team in the conf right now, a W against Texas in OT and played Vanderbilt tough last night.
Freaking Mizzou is good. They have about 5 guys that can break you down off the dribble or get their own shot. They are really quick too. Jorge G. fouled out with ****ing 11 minutes left for Cal lol.
We got blown the f*ck up!!! Still, it might have been a different story in Berkeley with our refs and crowd.
Mizzou is really good though, regardless. They are fast and hit shots consistently. They were clearly the better team tonight.
They're really tough to play against. Also, they are so aggressive that they end up changing the way the refs call the game. If every hand check was called, the game would take 3 hours and every Mizzou player would be in foul trouble. You've got to match that when you're not used to it and then you have to be able to make them pay for their over-aggressiveness by finishing on them. It's Nolan Richardson's "40 minutes of hell" style of basketball. It's hard to handle that kind of intensity. Burks had to have an absolutely monster game for us to beat them at home last season. However, better refs and tighter officiating that favors finesse basketball in the NCAA tourney usually causes them to underperform at the end of the year.
Wow, did not see a 40 point loss for Cal coming tonight. Wtf? It was obviously a hostile environment in KC, but I really thought it would be a competitive game after watching Cal handle Georgia last night. I still think Cal is probably the second best team in the Pac-12 at this point. This has been one miserable start to the basketball season for the Pac-12, bad losses left and right. As bad as this loss is for the PAC's image, Cal is still in pretty good shape as their difficult OOC games are essentially over with. They'll cruise to 11-1 before a tough test @ UNLV in their final OOC game.
As expected, UCLA folded like a cheap tent against KU tonight to fall to 1-3. They face a very strong Michigan squad tomorrow and will likely fall to 1-4. The Bruins faced some brutal competition in Maui, but with the losses piling up it's looking less and less likely that this team is going to overcome their internal issues. The good news for them is their OOC schedule lightens up after Maui
Last edited by CVilleBuff; 11-23-2011 at 05:40 AM.
Woof. They played like ass. This may be the most abysmal showing from a "power" conference in modern history.
Standing on the wall for Colorado Basketball since 2002.
No man wastes that many "f---s" over something he doesn't love.
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