LA Daily News: Tyler Honeycutt Q & A

Brief Q&A with Tyler Honeycutt

By Jon Gold
Inside UCLA blog
The Los Angeles Daily News
December 7, 2009 10:58 AM

Freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt played his first game for UCLA last night in the team's 73-61 loss to top-ranked Kansas.

Honeycutt didn't exactly scorch up the stat sheet - 1-for-6 shooting, three points - but his six rebounds showed his athleticism and energy.

With Reeves Nelson moving into the starting lineup and Honeycutt recovered from a stress reaction in his shins and a sore back, the Bruins will be a scrappier group, a high-energy team that battles on the boards.

How do you feel?
"I feel good. My shins feel good. My back feels fine. Everything."

What can you bring to this struggling team?
"Playmaking - creating for my teammates, creating for myself, doing whatever it takes to win. A couple times I snuck in there and got some rebounds."

What do the freshmen (need to do at this point?)
"We have to show some leadership out there. There are only a few seniors out there. When we're out there, we have to not look like we're nervous. We need to know what to do."

(How has the team changed after the departure of Drew Gordon?)
"I feel like our team is a lot more united. Sometimes when things didn't go Drew's way, he'd have a fit. We'd try to help him, and he didn't want to hear it. Now that he left, we kind of feel like we need to start over. That was our first game, against the No. 1 team. We learned a lot from that game."
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After reading this, I felt that the situation with Drew and the team was more serious than just Drew disagreeing with Coach Ben. It looks like some of the players also felt that Drew was a distraction to the team as well.

If the issue was only between Coach B and Drew, I thought perhaps there might be a chance for Drew to return if he talked to Coach Ben, especially after seeing that video of Drew talking to Elie Seckbach regarding his departure from the team (to see the video, click here). In the video, Drew seemed both apologetic and having the desire to make things work.

But after reading Tyler's comments, I think it would be difficult for Drew to return since it appears that the other players had some issues with him as well.