Hello Followers. Hope you're having a good weekend.

Well, today started off so darn good for yours truly. Little Sutra busted out 11 points in the second half of his morning tilt, including 6 of his teams final 8 points, as the little Wizards won their first game of the season. "This is going to be an AWESOME Saturday" I thought at the time.

And then our Cougars took the court in Pauley..

Want to know my takes on today's debacle of a loss to the Ruins? Then read on.

Followers, there's A LOT to be taken out of the game. But here's the first:

For the first time in the new era, Ken Bone was thoroughly outcoached today by Ben Howland. In fact, he was so outcoached, I was downright embarrassed for him. Mind you, that was only ONE of the problems today, but coaching was a clear factor in today's outcome.

1) Klay can't play in LA. Granted the kid is only a sophomore, and to be sure, it is a TON of pressure playing in front of one's home town faithful. But, he was terrible today. In fact, a good case can be made that currently, Klay is not only NOT the best player in the conference, he is not even the best player on his team. Moore is. Simply put, Klay needs to start putting in MUCH more work on the defensive end starting NOW, because he is getting KILLED there. He also needs to do much more to develop that midrange game. Ever since conference play started, he's become Dan Majerle: He either pops the three, or drives all the way to the hoop. Its the 10 foot game that will make him or break him both here AND at the next level. He has to find that game again. And soon.

2) The Line-Up You HATED was glaringly lacking today. Two points SCREAMED out today. The first: Anyone who wants to beat us, hit us with a zone. With Capers and Lodwick in with the first group, we've got two guys on the court who can shoot. Here's the second: You want to kill us on defense, bring Casto away from the basket, or back him down low. All day long UCLA ran a pick off the high post. When they did, the sucked Casto away from the basket. One back screen later, it was layup city. So, even when Casto recovered, guess who was helping him weakside? Answer: someone 6 foot five or under. Again, no weakside help on defense, and our little lineup gets CRUSHED.

3) No Four, They Score. To be sure, anyone who knows Casto knows he isn't right. My guess, the knee is hurting him. And to all you Charlie bashers out there, yes he isn't ready. But you know what? Guys who aren't ready get even more exposed when there is NO ONE ON THE COURT who provides any semblance of help. Again, you play a 5 who isn't a five alongside of a four who really is a three, and the result is catastrophic. I know you all don't like it, but when the offense isn't firing on all cylinders, having BOTH post players out of position is brutal. Simply put: WE HAVE TO FIND WAYS TO HAVE A WEAKSIDE POST PRESENCE ON DEFENSE DURING SEVERAL STRETCHES OF THE GAME. Today, Howland provided the blue print for how to crush our four guard line up (see caveat at end of post).

4) Poor coaching. Everyone and their brother knew that UCLA was going to hit us with a zone today. Our response, CONTINUALLY commit every single no-no that any player is taught playing against a zone. The no-no's on display today? (a). Dribbling against a zone; (b) Having the 2's and 3's stand inside of the crease so that the wings could quickly collapse on the first pass (c) Not facing the basket upon receiving an entry pass to the high post. In essence, the step in happens AFTER the receipt of the pass. As in: "catch, step in, then shoot." Today, it was "catch, you can't step in because you're to deep in the crease, so we're swarmed, we allow the defense to cover, and then we space ourselves such that there is NO WAY to reverse the ball." The fact that the team made NO ADJUSTMENT at halftime was deplorable. Again, tip your hat to Ben Howland. But, what an awful job of coaching. (there were FOUR times in the first ten minutes of the 2nd half where we had four guys on one side of the court against a zone.  THAT was our second half adjustment????)

5) Abe, where out thou? Its bad enough to have Capers sitting outside on the zone without ANY intention of doing something with the rock. But with Abe, if he's not adding anything offensively, then he's totally worthless. Mind you, there were many of us, myself included, who were ready to throw Nik off the side of the nearest mountain last year. So, my sense is that there is a progression that we all need to be patient with. Yet, at this point, there has to be something done here to either make Abe a threat, or throw his minutes to the wind. Again, the coaches have to do something here to get something out of that starting spot so that Casto gets a little bit of help.

All in all, a HORRIBLE performance given what was at stake today. Now, we must face what will be a desperate and angry Washington team (no matter the outcome tonight) in order to find a much, much needed 5-4 first half.

To be sure, there's a lot of promise with the key nucleus of this group. But, as we saw today, there's a lot of growing pains left for players, coaches, and fans alike.

Go Cougs!

(Caveat: One way that the team couldn't recovered from the high post screen, was to let their 5, Reeves, just go up there by himself and not have the 5 jump out on the one off the high ball screen.  The problem is that letting the five go doesn't solve what happens when they back us down and there's NO ONE to provide any help on the weakside.  Simply put, Bone has GOT to find ways to get Watson more minutes.  He has to.  Hopefully, he'll find a way to get that done.  And soon.)

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