Coach Ben Howland on the upcoming season

Coach Ben Howland on the upcoming season

from Inside Gold, LA Daily News, Oct 12 2011

Thoughts from UCLA hoops media day and more

Thoughts from UCLA hoops media day and more

By Jon Gold
Inside UCLA
LA Daily News
October 12, 2011 8:31 PM



* Ben Howland would not name a starting lineup, but Tyler Lamb did indeed confirm he'll start at the two, and Howland and David Wear both said he'd be playing a lot of three.

* The players really glowed about the arrival of De'End Parker, who strained his patella tendon in the weight room and will miss some practice. The Bruins raved about his athleticism and burst, and that's something UCLA has missed the last two years.

* Joshua Smith said he's 10 pounds lighter than he was at the end of last year, so that's around 315. He should get down to about 305 by the time the season starts, and that's a good number for him right now. The key will be for him to keep it off during the season. He said his goal is to play 30 minutes a game, and seemed more concerned about his penchant for fouls than his conditioning limiting his minutes.

* Anthony Stover told me he really worked extensively on his offense this summer, spending some time with trainers in Las Vegas to work on his moves. If he can add any offense to compliment his sound defense, that's an important piece behind Smith.

* Lazeric Jones' play is going to be crucial this year, and he knows it. He admitted to never feeling right after injuring his wrist in February, but he's been 100 percent for a while now and has had a good summer, many players said. If he can play 25-percent better, he'll be among the better point guards in the conference.

* Reeves Nelson got more tattoos. So did Tyler Lamb (Photo courtesy of UCLA Men's Basketball).

* Speaking of Lamb, Howland said he worked on eliminating some of the side spin from his shot this summer. Lamb sounds very excited to take on the role of defensive stopper from Malcolm Lee.

* I'll have videos from a half-dozen basketball players tomorrow throughout the day, as well as some football videos for the next two days (including a great one with Tyler Gonzalez), and I'll be off until Monday. Vinny Bonsignore is covering practice tomorrow, then the team is off for two days, then Jill Painter is covering Sunday. Please show them respect.

* Started a new feature on Two Fat Guys Talkin' Football with reader questions, so send them to either Jonah Hill (Me) or Chaz Bono (Sam Strong). We'll take a few of the best ones. Fun stuff. Be crazy.

Fine-tuned Bruins ready for road show

Fine-tuned Bruins ready for road show

By Jon Gold
Inside UCLA
LA Daily News
October 12, 2011 8:04 PM


While Ducks practiced against Ducks and Sun Devils squared off against Sun Devils and the Cardinal tried to clip the Cardinal, the UCLA basketball team spent the offseason training against Knicks and Lakers and Celtics.

Heading into what is sure to be a difficult season with Pauley Pavilion under renovation, the Bruins feel a bit better having fine-tuned against Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and a host of other NBA players in Los Angeles during a lockout that drags on.

"When you work out with those guys, you see how serious they are about it," junior forward Reeves Nelson said at the team's media day on Wednesday. "Once they come in this gym, that's all they cared about. They mentally helped us a lot because they tell us how to do a certain thing that you wouldn't get from a guy who's just a D-1 athlete. You get it from someone who has been in the league 12, 13 years."

With sky-high expectations, UCLA hopes that second-hand knowledge will sink in.
Though they lost two key perimeter players in shooting guard Malcolm Lee and small forward Tyler Honeycutt, the Bruins are thinking big because, well, they are big.

UCLA returns leading scorer and rebounder in Nelson (13.9 ppg, 9.1 rpg) as well as mammoth center Joshua Smith (10.9 ppg, 6.3 rpg), plus valuable reserves Anthony Stover and Brendan Lane and North Carolina transfers David and Travis Wear.

That 489 inches has UCLA looking all the way to the top.

"I feel like if we don't win (conference), it's a let-down," Smith said. "Last year, we had our expectations about winning, people didn't think we could. We saw the magazines that had us fourth, third, fifth ... we finished second, basically a game from winning it. ... We feel this year if we don't win it, it's a let-down."

In a league that is always filled with quick, diminutive point guards and typically up-tempo play, the Bruins are hoping to force their will on the opposition, not the other way around.

Senior point guard Lazeric Jones returns to lead the charge, bolstered by the return of the function of his left wrist, which severely hampered him after he suffered a sprain in early-February. Jones is joined in the UCLA backcourt by senior point guard Jerime Anderson, who is suspended for two games (one exhibition) after being arrested on charges of theft, sophomore shooting guard Tyler Lamb and newcomers De'End Parker and Norman Powell.

"Rather than looking at it as we're going to have to guard smaller people that are quicker," Nelson said, "they're going to have to guard big people who can do just as much as the small people can do."

Coming off a big turnaround season - the Bruins advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament a year after finishing 14-18 - UCLA just hopes it is able to withstand the grind of playing the entire schedule on the road.

"It's something that is actually going to feed this team," Stover said. "Not having a home court, always having to be the away team - the road show is what we're named now - it's really feeding our team. It's given us a little hunger, a little more strength, because we're going to have to fight every game."

UCLA men’s basketball season tips off

UCLA men’s basketball season tips off

By RYAN MENEZES
The Daily Bruin
Published October 13, 2011, 1:34 am in Men's Basketball, Sports



Members of the press had to saunter just a few paces down Bruin Walk to catch the UCLA men’s basketball team’s annual media day in its new location.

Fans who want to see the Bruins in action this season will have a much longer detour than that. Adjust routes accordingly.

Wednesday’s session marked the opening of the men’s basketball season. The location changed from the now-gutted Pauley Pavilion to the basketball courts on the top floor of the Student Activities Center, where the team will now practice.

John Wooden was the last UCLA coach who regularly held practice in the Student Activities Center, formerly known as the Men’s Gym, before Pauley opened in 1965.

Current coach Ben Howland had a glimmer in his eye and a faint grin on his face as he remembered the legendary coach – just two days before what would have been his 101st birthday – even pointing out a chalkboard in the gym that Wooden used to diagram plays.

While Pauley gets its facelift, UCLA is using three different homes-away-from-home for the games: the Los Angeles Sports Arena (14 games), Anaheim’s Honda Center (four) and Ontario’s Citizens Business Bank Arena (one exhibition contest).

Howland said that the logistics of a full season away from campus will be difficult to handle, but he had no qualms about changing the practice and game venues.

“For what awaits us at the end of the rainbow, which is essentially a brand-new Pauley, it is totally worth it,” Howland said. “All the heartache from not having Pauley will be made up for tenfold when we get back in there.”

The season is being billed by the athletic department as the “Bruin Road Show.” Howland added that he would “make a concerted effort to reach out to the students” and sell the idea of traveling to a home game. His players are behind him.

“Any time I can help I want to be able to go out and tell people that we need you guys to support us, need you to get on Rooter Buses and need you to get out so we still have home-court advantage at home games,” redshirt sophomore center Anthony Stover said.

It’s uncharted waters for a team to lack an on-campus stadium but unlike the UCLA football team – with home games always more than 25 miles away – the men’s basketball team is doing this on a temporary basis, with Pauley scheduled to be ready by next basketball season.

Said junior forward Reeves Nelson, “No offense, but it’s not like we had sold-out arenas every game in Pauley anyway. As long as there are some fans there we’ll be fine.”

But with the NBA lockout dragging on and the lack of the usual professional basketball presence in L.A., a UCLA team surrounded by optimism could fill that void for hoops fans.

“It’s fun for us,” Stover said. “We should take all the Laker gear down and put up UCLA gear. I don’t think anyone wants to see ’SC play so we definitely have (the spotlight of) L.A. basketball.”

Men’s basketball reaches for familiar heights

Men’s basketball reaches for familiar heights

By RYAN ESHOFF
The Daily Bruin
Published October 13, 2011, 1:21 am in Men's Basketball, Sports



Junior Reeves Nelson is seen at Pac-12 media day. With four players at 6-foot-10, the 6-8 Nelson may find himself playing point forward this season.

Ben Howland was pretty excited about a particular wall adornment.

“What’s really cool is that chalkboard,” the UCLA basketball coach said, gesturing to a wall off to his right.

“That’s the chalkboard that Coach (Wooden) used to line the team up at and write on. That’s that chalkboard.”

Wednesday was media day for men’s basketball, the crown jewel of the UCLA athletic department. The ongoing construction of Pauley Pavilion means that the session is held in the Student Activities Center – formerly known as the Men’s Gym and longtime practice home of John Wooden’s Bruin teams.

The afternoon as a whole had a very Wooden feel to it; after all, the legendary coach’s great-grandson Tyler Trapani is still in uniform as a walk-on. When the chatter with Howland inevitably shifts to the topic of the Los Angeles Sports Arena – the Bruins’ primary home facility this season – the coach is quick to note that Wooden’s teams played there before Pauley was built.

Oh, and Friday would have been the former coach’s 101st birthday. Still, a coach has to have players, and Wooden’s two most prized proteges were Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton, a pair of towering behemoths who carried their respective teams on elevated shoulders.

It’s hard, then, not to envision this UCLA squad as a bit of a throwback, and not just because it’s practicing in SAC or playing at the Sports Arena. As the team gathered for its team picture, one thing certainly stood out: These guys are TALL.

Adding the Wear twins to the returning frontline of Joshua Smith, Reeves Nelson, Brendan Lane and Anthony Stover makes UCLA one of the biggest teams this side of the Monstars from “Space Jam.”

The 6-foot-8 Nelson has gone from seeing time at center as a freshman to, well, not ruling out playing at the other end of the spectrum.

I had the misfortune of being an opponent of Nelson’s in a high school game, when he would often bring the ball up and either pull up for a 3-pointer or drive down the lane for a dunk. Given the size on this year’s squad, could the junior potentially see some time at point forward?

“Me and Coach have talked about that a little bit,” Nelson said with a grin. “But hopefully it never comes down to where that’s a necessity. “

Admittedly, one of the common mantras come March Madness is “guards win championships.” Behind the play of Jordan Farmar, Arron Afflalo and Darren Collison, the Bruins NEARLY proved that to be true.

But this is still a program that has only won one championship since Wooden retired, and that came in 1995 when 6-foot-8 Ed O’Bannon was the team’s best player. The banners that UCLA have raised have come on the shoulders of big men such as Alcindor and Walton, even O’Bannon. Maybe a return to its roots is what UCLA needs. Deep-seated roots yield the tallest trees.

The two newest saplings are David and Travis Wear, who bring extensive skill sets, high basketball IQs and a year of exposure to the hoops hotbed that is the University of North Carolina. Eligible to play after sitting out last season because of transfer rules, the Wears give Howland a two-pack of 6-10 Swiss Army knives to use as he pleases.

“My brother and I are really versatile players. We can play different positions on the court,” Travis Wear said. “Our frontline will be a strength. With our depth, we’ll be really hard to match up with.”

By no means is this a conventional team. A pair of twins that transferred from UNC. A backcourt featuring two junior-college transfers in its five-man rotations.

It’s only October, which means five months until the Big Dance. It’s just media day, so everybody smiles and will say the right thing. Still, there was something Wooden in the air, and it should have the Bruins dreaming big.


If you happen to be a 6-foot-10-inch guy who isn’t on the basketball team, email Eshoff at reshoff@media.ucla.edu.

Men's Basketball Holds Annual Media Day

Men's Basketball Holds Annual Media Day

The Bruins begin practice on Oct. 13 in 'The Old Men's Gym' or the Student Activities Center while Pauley Pavilion is being renovated.

The Official UCLA Bruins Men's Basketball website
Oct. 12, 2011



LOS ANGELES - In the shadows of John Wooden's original chalk board in what was once known as `the Old Men's Gym,' Ben Howland's 2011-12 UCLA men's basketball team this afternoon held their annual Media Day in the now named Student Activities Center on the Bruin campus.

UCLA players, coaches and media mingled on the same floor where Coach Wooden's teams practiced from 1948-65 and was actually UCLA's full-time home floor arena from 1948-1955. Coach Howland opened the session talking about the Bruins' experienced returning front line.

"Our real strength is our front line," said Howland, beginning his ninth season as the Bruin head coach. "We have six players on the front line, with the addition of the Wears (David/Travis), we have Reeves (Nelson), Joshua (Smith), along with (Anthony) Stover and Brendan (Lane). That gives us a lot of size."

Howland highlighted how hard the Bruins have been working all summer, preparing for the coming season.

"A number of players had great off-seasons, notably Lazeric Jones," he said. "Lazeric was in here every morning at 6:45 a.m., shooting every day the entire summer. He really got a lot of confidence from all the hard work he put in. Not just shooting and lifting, but also playing against the NBA players who were around all summer.

"Reeves Nelson really worked his tail off this summer as well. He was doing yoga five days a week, along with lifting four days a week, along with shooting -- having the same kind of regiment like Lazeric. The Wears have been really great about their workouts. The yoga has been really good for our players, I've seen it really help them. They got involved in it in January and kept it up. Those guys, along with a number of other players, have really done a great job. They are four of our best players. It's nice to have your hardest workers be some of your best players."

Howland noted the significance of UCLA using the same practice facility that Coach Wooden's Bruin teams also used for their workouts.

"That chalk board over there is the actual chalk board that Coach used to write on," he said. "It's the actual board itself, it's pretty cool. His 101st birthday is Friday, always right at the start of the college basketball season. Coach Wooden's teams practiced in here until Pauley was built (1965)."

The Bruins will begin practice tomorrow (Oct. 13) for what is being billed as the `2011-12 UCLA Men's Basketball Road Show.' With the ongoing renovation of Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins this season will use the Student Activities Center as a practice facility and play their home games at three different sites. UCLA will open the season with an exhibition game on Nov. 6 vs. CS San Bernardino at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, with the remaining home games played at the Los Angeles Sports Arena (14 games) and the Honda Center in Anaheim (four games). UCLA will also have a closed scrimmage against Cal State Fullerton in the Sports Arena on Oct. 27.

"With all of the games being played off campus, we're going to have to be more mentally tough," Howland said. "It's going to be a mental toughness issue, to deal with the travel and the logistics. But what awaits us at the end of the rainbow is a brand new Pauley Pavilion. So it is totally worth it. All the heartache of not having Pauley this year will be made up tenfold when we get back in there in 2012.

"I'm going to make a concerted effort to get out to the students, to the fraternities, to the sororities, to really reach out to our fans. To me it's so important. We have a chance to be a really good team this year and we need our fans, we need the support to be there for our team, these kids deserve that. They've worked really, really hard in the off season. So I'll really be encouraging our fans to come out and support the Bruins."


Photo Gallery (link)

Media Day 2011 [Orange County Register gallery]

Orange County Register: Media Day October 12 2011

ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The UCLA Bruins basketball team gets together for a team photo at basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA. The players are: Reeves Neslson, from left, David Wear, Anthony Stover, Joshua Smith, and Travis Wear. Coach Ben Howland is in the middle row, third from left.

UCLA Bruins head basketball coach Ben Howland talks with reporters during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins forward David Wear, formerly of Mater Dei, dribbles for a video segment during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins center Anthony Stover, of Pasadena, dunks the basketball while being filmed during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Freshman guard Khalid McCaskill (30), sophomore guard Tyler Lamb (1), and freshman guard Norman Powell (4) enjoy watching teammates go to the basket during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins sophomore center Joshua Smith signs basketballs during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

UCLA junior forward Reeves Nelson dribbles while being filmed and photographed by members of the media during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins sophomore center Anthony Stover, of Pasadena, hangs out at basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins freshman guard Norman Powell, of San Diego's Lincoln High School, hangs out at basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins junior guard De'End Parker, from City College of San Francisco, dribbles while being filmed at basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Clowning around during basketball media day at UCLA on Wednesday are Bruins players Khalid McCaskill (30), Reeves Nelson (22), Anthony Stover (0), and De'End Parker (21).

Bruins senior guard Jerime Anderson, of Anaheim's Canyon High School, is interviewed by reporters during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins players Anthony Stover (0) and Joshua Smith (34) strike a pose for the cameras during basketball media day at UCLA on Wednesday.

Bruins sophomore guard Tyler Lamb signs basketballs during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

UCLA junior forward Reeves Nelson makes a pass for cameras during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins junior forward Brendan Lane poses for a photo during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Former Mater Dei players now playing for UCLA - (from left) Travis Wear, David Brown, Tyler Lamb and David Wear - pose for a photo during the school's basketball media day on Wednesday at UCLA.

Bruins players Lazeric Jones (11), Kenny Jones (2), and Tyler Trapani (44) hangout during basketball media day at UCLA on Wednesday.

Bruins players Khalid McCaskill (30), Norman Powell (4), De'End Parker (21), and Nick Kazemi (3) have fun while being filmed during basketball media day at UCLA on Wednesday.

North Carolina transfer Larry Drew II (10) speaks with well-known television newscaster Jim Hill during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins players sign basketballs during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA. From left are David Wear, Travis Wear, and Matt DeMarcus.

Bruins junior forward Brendan Lane dunks the basketball during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins sophomore center Anthony Stover, of Pasadena, dribbles while being filmed during basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.

Bruins players Tyler Lamb, left, and Lazeric Jones signs basketballs at basketball media day, Wednesday, at UCLA.