Thank you Dimitri for your dedication to TMB. Our guys displayed great heart down the stretch. They do have grit. I agree , healthy p, they can be a factor. Important to win Friday.
Friday's game at Indiana is another tough road challenge for the Bruins, especially after the Hoosiers ended their 5-game losing streak with an upset victory at MSU. UCLA is now 0-4 on the road against B1G Conference teams located east of the Rockies, so hopefully they can get back to full strength and deliver a more consistent effort and finally win a game in a fully-packed, hostile arena. The SBTRs and pollsters apparently don't like UCLA and Coach Cronin, either.
My impressions largely from following the play by play on my computer (no tv or radio 3000 miles from home). Some of the top players clearly were still suffering from the virus. Most Big 10 (or Big 2157 if it keeps expanding) teams have problems winning games away. Perhaps home town referees explain much of this difference. Hopefully the top Bruin players will have more energy against Indiana -- enough to make a difference. It would be nice if the Big 10 network would run some of the games not otherwise available on tv. Why were there 25 better teams than UCLA this week according to the polls? Go Bruins!
Do not worry about the pollsters and their biases. The only poll that counts is the NCAA national tournament.
The games that are not carried on The Big 10 Network are carried on Peacock. After the free seven day trial that Peacock offers, it is only $7.99 per month plus tax which I understand may be a burden for some but less than a large cappuccino at Starbucks to watch the UCLA Men AND Ladies play. And BTW, I understand that TMB is basically two people as a second job but why not an article or a peep regarding the undefeated ladies team?
I can't wait until tomorrow's game vs suc. I love the Lady Bruins... They will need to be at their best as their best will be needed to paraphrase the greatest Coach of all time.
I like our chances against Indiana, but Hoosier fans will be roaring - I wish Pauley would give us that kind of consistent home advantage. Last night, the loud obnoxious crowd was a factor, but the SBTRs, and lack of defense and rebounding killed us. If Mara would have been 💯 and played big minutes, it would have been a win.
Nobody knows if Mara playing his normal minutes would have changed the game's outcome but unfortunately people get sick and sometimes, at the most inopportune times. Watching the first half hole we dug by missing open shots was very frustrating and that was not because of Mara missing his minutes. Coming back took a great deal of energy and it showed in the Bruin's lack of defense in the second half. I will go one further--UCLA should have won the game with or without Mara but they dug too big of a hole to climb out of--maybe because of the virus or the "jinx" of playing in the East or whatever?
I agree that the first half was awful offensively and the second half was awful defensively. I do believe a healthy Mara would have helped on both fronts, especially as a counter to the Ilini's 7 footer.
Really frustrating loss and we could have won as Iliinois is not that stellar of a team... but we made them look like it.
I do think Illinois is a good team talent-wise - they have a top-5 NBA draft player - and KenPom has them at 15th overall. It was a winnable game despite all of UCLA's mistakes and missing pieces, which I think bodes well going forward.
In Cronin's after game press conference, he said that Illinois was one of the pre season favorites in the Big 10 and that they have one of the most talented teams in the Big 10. Ivisic, their seven foot center often plays away from the basket, hits 3's, so I do not know if Mara would have been effective playing a person who can shoot from the three. Indiana has former Arizona's Ballo at center, a seven footer with bulk, so that will be a big "issue" on Friday for Mara and Tyler as neither have the bulk and muscle of Ballo.
Remember how the, "home town referees", STOLE a win from Wisconsin at UCLA, Alan Fisher? Welcome to the B1G. By the way, WISCONSIN is enjoying the view from ABOVE you in the B1G Standings, UCLA! Greg Gard is on the NATIONAL Coach of the Year watchlist. Go Badgers!
I'll be THE FIRST to let you know about it when LOWLY INDIANA beats you tonight, bruinballer! Welcome to the B1G, UCLA. It ain't like THE SOFT Pac-12 used to be.
Compile the combined road trips east W-L record of Pac12 entrants into the B1G v the combined road trips West W-L records of B1G teams to the former Pac12.
Just curious. Not sure that it demonstrates anything.
I was curious as well--you should check my eyeballs in case I tallied the numbers wrong, but I came up with the following: the 4 former Pac-12 teams play 7 home and 7 away games against the original 14 B1G teams, while each of those B1G teams plays 2 home and 2 away games against the newcomers from the Pac12. As of this writing, the former Pac-12 teams have a combined home record of 11-9, and are only 5-13 when traveling east. The 14 B1G teams are a combined 13-5 at home against the former Pac-12 teams, and only 9-11 when traveling west.
Teams with zero losses so far are Michigan (perfect 2-0 home / 2-0 away), Purdue (1-0 / 2-0), followed by Indiana and Rutgers (both are 1-0 / 0-0). UCLA is 4-1 at home and 0-4 traveling east, so obviously they need to start performing better on the road in preparation for the conference tournament being hosted in Indianapolis.
Because money was all that mattered. I miss the Pac-12 more and more. The Thurs/ Sat, playing every school twice, the traditions... The BIG, while it gives us a BIG and Mighty stage for competition and widens the recruiting territories, is so disjointed and lacks the feel of a close-knit family of great schools in the West.
People wonder why I’m so negative towards Cori Close as a coach, but I think the 4th quarter of that game was a pretty good example. Both teams have similar talent, and UCLA had nothing scheme-wise to generate offense while Southern Cal has a coach who can scheme things.
Coach Close has also now lost the last 3 games against U$C. Painful to watch the Lady Bruins fall apart in that 4th quarter. Overall, just too much JuJu, horrible 3-point shooting, and lots of turnovers/blocked shots. At least the pressure on UCLA to remain unbeaten is gone, but hope they can win their remaining games and deliver payback at Pauley on March 1.
💯 Shooting was way off in 3 pt land. But those turnovers have baan a huge issue for our team, forever... they cost us the game. And why the turnover problem hasn't been resolved is beyond explanation.
Also, Lauren should not be getting blocked and needs to improve her footwork to mitigate those blocks. Also, who can defend JuJu effectively... Jones is not tall enough.
This has been a very tough week for our Bruins, both men and women. Hoping we can turn it around tonight vs the Hoosiers.
I would argue that UCLA has much better overall talent (although we didn't see it last night) than *$c, but JuJu is unfortunately just that good.
We missed 2 wide open 3s to start the 4th, missed I think 6 FTs in the 4th, and Betts just couldn't finish against the double teams. Our chances to make plays were there, so I don't think offense was the biggest problem.
The inability to contain JuJu was the big failure. The Bruins have no one player that can match up against her combo of size, outside shooting, and ability to get to the rim. Watkins carried her team yesterday on both ends and the Bruins had no reliable answer, regardless that our offense went freezing cold in the 4th. You knew what was coming and still couldn't stop it. That was the knock on the coaching to me and it was really frustrating to watch.
JuJu torched the Bruins starting from the beginning of the first quarter yet Close did not make any adjustment on defense to try to slow JuJu down. Many of JuJu's shots were uncontested. There are going to be games where the offense cannot make open shots but that is why Close needs to have effective defensive schemes. IMHO, we have the best overall basketball talent in the country and the proof is the long winning streak in spite of poor coaching. Hard to get rid of a winning coach but that is what it will take to become a national champion.
PS: It is odd that the only mention of the ladies game is at the tail end of a men's basketball thread that started several days ago. We all know that TMB is a second "job" for Dimitri and Joe but how much time does it take to start a basketball thread (without comment due to time restraints) if only for a place where people can post comments on non football, non men's basketball sports subjects? Couldn't TMB have started a ladies thread for the same time it took for Dimitri's post above? And BTW, this is not a complaint against TMB, just a suggestion to have an open thread or threads for other Bruin sports--particularly the high profile ones.
Thank you TMB for your consideration of this suggestion.
That would certainly go towards a more rounded site. If I recall properly, weren't Dimitri and Joe major contributors to BN until it basically went away? It is a shame that TMB can't increase PAID subscriptions to bring on one or two more part time commentators. When TMB started, it used to have at least one or two pre football/basketball game analysis articles over two days and then the comments thread. Now, that is usually combined into one short analysis/comment thread a few hours before a basketball or football thread. I am concerned that as the articles decrease in both length and number, so will the paid subscriptions until TMB goes the way of BN. Not a criticism can't increase subscription to pay for a more robust site. I do not know how many paid subscribers there are but judging from those who pay and comment, it is not enough even with a modest increase in the subscription price?
For the women’s basketball stuff, a lot of it does come down to time and our own standards. Like, take the H2W from the Illinois game - that thing took a few hours to write as I did research to give the best info possible. Same with the postgames, we’re trying to do quality work rather than push out a bunch of articles. If people want just some basic stuff for things like women’s basketball, I’m happy to oblige, but a lot of it just comes down to the quality standard Joe and myself hold ourselves to.
When it comes to adding more commentators, we have put out feelers in the past and had a recruitment post as well. Problem is no one applied. It’s not us trying to hold the subscription money to ourselves or anything (which, full disclosure, is much more than we were getting at SBN but because we’re now the ones in charge we just forgot to distribute it to ourselves whoops). I’d love for more help, because there are times when we have to make trades to deal with life stuff (like I took all of Illinois on Tuesday because Joe is now an elected official, and Joe is doing all of Indiana today because I have a dance competition).
Third, I personally don’t want to increase the subscription cost. Mostly because we release everything for free already and the subscription is mostly a tip jar of sorts.
We actually have a ton of readers (way more than I ever expected) but only a small number of subscribers. Which is fine! But I figured I’d be transparent about things.
Yes, I would agree that if we contained JuJu, we would have won as she was the suc team. Suc also got 21 points off of our turnovers - it's ridiculous that we can't hang onto the ball and we also had shot clock violations - no excuse for that!
I don't understand why CC didn't prepare for defending JuJu. CC needs to figure it out now, because we must beat suc in the final game of the regular season. And we will likely meet suc again in the BIG Tourney.
Bottom line: We could lose the No. 1 seed and a seat in the West if we don't beat suc... which would put us at a big disadvantage.
If we don't win the Nattie this year with the talent we have, then when...
Yes, is mind boggling that Close did not have some special defense for JuJu--everyone in the country knows her capabilities (except Close?). USC obviously had heard of Betts and devised a double team defense to slow her down (sarcasm!) and unfortunately, the rest of the team could not make their shots.
Unfortunately, a highly-motivated JuJu came out of her recent "slump" and delivered a great performance in front of her home crowd, She is WNBA-ready and the Lady Bruins simply have nobody (like a Jaylen Clark, for example) who can even try to guard her 1-on-1. It seemed like a really futile, desperate move for Coach Close to resort to using puny Londynn Jones to try and disrupt JuJu. Yep, a better team effort on defense needs to be drawn up by the coaching staff, along with a better offensive plan to counter double-teams on Betts in the post.
The Lady Bruins' perfect record may be history, but the pressure is still on Coach Close to do something special in the postseason with the amount of talent on her team. I would think anything less than a Final Four this season would be a huge disappointment (and then I'll still be waiting forever for our next championship).
Thank you Dimitri for your dedication to TMB. Our guys displayed great heart down the stretch. They do have grit. I agree , healthy p, they can be a factor. Important to win Friday.
Friday's game at Indiana is another tough road challenge for the Bruins, especially after the Hoosiers ended their 5-game losing streak with an upset victory at MSU. UCLA is now 0-4 on the road against B1G Conference teams located east of the Rockies, so hopefully they can get back to full strength and deliver a more consistent effort and finally win a game in a fully-packed, hostile arena. The SBTRs and pollsters apparently don't like UCLA and Coach Cronin, either.
Go Bruins!
Illinois boat raced Indiana. They barely beat UCLA. I like our chances at Indiana.
in fairness though, Cronin should probably be fired for losing a winnable road game.
LOL.
My impressions largely from following the play by play on my computer (no tv or radio 3000 miles from home). Some of the top players clearly were still suffering from the virus. Most Big 10 (or Big 2157 if it keeps expanding) teams have problems winning games away. Perhaps home town referees explain much of this difference. Hopefully the top Bruin players will have more energy against Indiana -- enough to make a difference. It would be nice if the Big 10 network would run some of the games not otherwise available on tv. Why were there 25 better teams than UCLA this week according to the polls? Go Bruins!
Because the pollsters are biased. Now they're going to use UCLA's close loss at Illinois as a reason to snub them again, even if they beat Indiana.
Do not worry about the pollsters and their biases. The only poll that counts is the NCAA national tournament.
The games that are not carried on The Big 10 Network are carried on Peacock. After the free seven day trial that Peacock offers, it is only $7.99 per month plus tax which I understand may be a burden for some but less than a large cappuccino at Starbucks to watch the UCLA Men AND Ladies play. And BTW, I understand that TMB is basically two people as a second job but why not an article or a peep regarding the undefeated ladies team?
I can't wait until tomorrow's game vs suc. I love the Lady Bruins... They will need to be at their best as their best will be needed to paraphrase the greatest Coach of all time.
I like our chances against Indiana, but Hoosier fans will be roaring - I wish Pauley would give us that kind of consistent home advantage. Last night, the loud obnoxious crowd was a factor, but the SBTRs, and lack of defense and rebounding killed us. If Mara would have been 💯 and played big minutes, it would have been a win.
Nobody knows if Mara playing his normal minutes would have changed the game's outcome but unfortunately people get sick and sometimes, at the most inopportune times. Watching the first half hole we dug by missing open shots was very frustrating and that was not because of Mara missing his minutes. Coming back took a great deal of energy and it showed in the Bruin's lack of defense in the second half. I will go one further--UCLA should have won the game with or without Mara but they dug too big of a hole to climb out of--maybe because of the virus or the "jinx" of playing in the East or whatever?
I agree that the first half was awful offensively and the second half was awful defensively. I do believe a healthy Mara would have helped on both fronts, especially as a counter to the Ilini's 7 footer.
Really frustrating loss and we could have won as Iliinois is not that stellar of a team... but we made them look like it.
I do think Illinois is a good team talent-wise - they have a top-5 NBA draft player - and KenPom has them at 15th overall. It was a winnable game despite all of UCLA's mistakes and missing pieces, which I think bodes well going forward.
In Cronin's after game press conference, he said that Illinois was one of the pre season favorites in the Big 10 and that they have one of the most talented teams in the Big 10. Ivisic, their seven foot center often plays away from the basket, hits 3's, so I do not know if Mara would have been effective playing a person who can shoot from the three. Indiana has former Arizona's Ballo at center, a seven footer with bulk, so that will be a big "issue" on Friday for Mara and Tyler as neither have the bulk and muscle of Ballo.
Remember how the, "home town referees", STOLE a win from Wisconsin at UCLA, Alan Fisher? Welcome to the B1G. By the way, WISCONSIN is enjoying the view from ABOVE you in the B1G Standings, UCLA! Greg Gard is on the NATIONAL Coach of the Year watchlist. Go Badgers!
LOLOL atta way to introduce yourself, John... enjoy the view while it lasts!
I'll be THE FIRST to let you know about it when LOWLY INDIANA beats you tonight, bruinballer! Welcome to the B1G, UCLA. It ain't like THE SOFT Pac-12 used to be.
Data challenge:
Compile the combined road trips east W-L record of Pac12 entrants into the B1G v the combined road trips West W-L records of B1G teams to the former Pac12.
Just curious. Not sure that it demonstrates anything.
I was curious as well--you should check my eyeballs in case I tallied the numbers wrong, but I came up with the following: the 4 former Pac-12 teams play 7 home and 7 away games against the original 14 B1G teams, while each of those B1G teams plays 2 home and 2 away games against the newcomers from the Pac12. As of this writing, the former Pac-12 teams have a combined home record of 11-9, and are only 5-13 when traveling east. The 14 B1G teams are a combined 13-5 at home against the former Pac-12 teams, and only 9-11 when traveling west.
Teams with zero losses so far are Michigan (perfect 2-0 home / 2-0 away), Purdue (1-0 / 2-0), followed by Indiana and Rutgers (both are 1-0 / 0-0). UCLA is 4-1 at home and 0-4 traveling east, so obviously they need to start performing better on the road in preparation for the conference tournament being hosted in Indianapolis.
Thanks for the deep dive. It's imperative to protect the home court.
Crnin had a post game presser addressing the grind of travel. Why was that so underestimated by the Admins with the move to the Big 10?
Because money was all that mattered. I miss the Pac-12 more and more. The Thurs/ Sat, playing every school twice, the traditions... The BIG, while it gives us a BIG and Mighty stage for competition and widens the recruiting territories, is so disjointed and lacks the feel of a close-knit family of great schools in the West.
If money weren't an issue, I'd rather the new reconsituted PacXX or the Big 12.
The geezer has spoken.
People wonder why I’m so negative towards Cori Close as a coach, but I think the 4th quarter of that game was a pretty good example. Both teams have similar talent, and UCLA had nothing scheme-wise to generate offense while Southern Cal has a coach who can scheme things.
Coach Close has also now lost the last 3 games against U$C. Painful to watch the Lady Bruins fall apart in that 4th quarter. Overall, just too much JuJu, horrible 3-point shooting, and lots of turnovers/blocked shots. At least the pressure on UCLA to remain unbeaten is gone, but hope they can win their remaining games and deliver payback at Pauley on March 1.
Go Lady Bruins!
💯 Shooting was way off in 3 pt land. But those turnovers have baan a huge issue for our team, forever... they cost us the game. And why the turnover problem hasn't been resolved is beyond explanation.
Also, Lauren should not be getting blocked and needs to improve her footwork to mitigate those blocks. Also, who can defend JuJu effectively... Jones is not tall enough.
This has been a very tough week for our Bruins, both men and women. Hoping we can turn it around tonight vs the Hoosiers.
I would argue that UCLA has much better overall talent (although we didn't see it last night) than *$c, but JuJu is unfortunately just that good.
We missed 2 wide open 3s to start the 4th, missed I think 6 FTs in the 4th, and Betts just couldn't finish against the double teams. Our chances to make plays were there, so I don't think offense was the biggest problem.
The inability to contain JuJu was the big failure. The Bruins have no one player that can match up against her combo of size, outside shooting, and ability to get to the rim. Watkins carried her team yesterday on both ends and the Bruins had no reliable answer, regardless that our offense went freezing cold in the 4th. You knew what was coming and still couldn't stop it. That was the knock on the coaching to me and it was really frustrating to watch.
JuJu torched the Bruins starting from the beginning of the first quarter yet Close did not make any adjustment on defense to try to slow JuJu down. Many of JuJu's shots were uncontested. There are going to be games where the offense cannot make open shots but that is why Close needs to have effective defensive schemes. IMHO, we have the best overall basketball talent in the country and the proof is the long winning streak in spite of poor coaching. Hard to get rid of a winning coach but that is what it will take to become a national champion.
PS: It is odd that the only mention of the ladies game is at the tail end of a men's basketball thread that started several days ago. We all know that TMB is a second "job" for Dimitri and Joe but how much time does it take to start a basketball thread (without comment due to time restraints) if only for a place where people can post comments on non football, non men's basketball sports subjects? Couldn't TMB have started a ladies thread for the same time it took for Dimitri's post above? And BTW, this is not a complaint against TMB, just a suggestion to have an open thread or threads for other Bruin sports--particularly the high profile ones.
Thank you TMB for your consideration of this suggestion.
I would also love to have WBB threads. there are tons of us fans... the same folks who fill up the MBB threads would be there!
I agree there doesn't need to be any analysis or comment, just a plain old thread to bring us together for the WBB games.
Thanks for considering 💙💛
Remember that side bar for such on BN?
That would certainly go towards a more rounded site. If I recall properly, weren't Dimitri and Joe major contributors to BN until it basically went away? It is a shame that TMB can't increase PAID subscriptions to bring on one or two more part time commentators. When TMB started, it used to have at least one or two pre football/basketball game analysis articles over two days and then the comments thread. Now, that is usually combined into one short analysis/comment thread a few hours before a basketball or football thread. I am concerned that as the articles decrease in both length and number, so will the paid subscriptions until TMB goes the way of BN. Not a criticism can't increase subscription to pay for a more robust site. I do not know how many paid subscribers there are but judging from those who pay and comment, it is not enough even with a modest increase in the subscription price?
The BN side bar was an open forum. I wonder if this site has the capability for such.
Hey guys, I’ll answer some stuff here that I can.
For the women’s basketball stuff, a lot of it does come down to time and our own standards. Like, take the H2W from the Illinois game - that thing took a few hours to write as I did research to give the best info possible. Same with the postgames, we’re trying to do quality work rather than push out a bunch of articles. If people want just some basic stuff for things like women’s basketball, I’m happy to oblige, but a lot of it just comes down to the quality standard Joe and myself hold ourselves to.
When it comes to adding more commentators, we have put out feelers in the past and had a recruitment post as well. Problem is no one applied. It’s not us trying to hold the subscription money to ourselves or anything (which, full disclosure, is much more than we were getting at SBN but because we’re now the ones in charge we just forgot to distribute it to ourselves whoops). I’d love for more help, because there are times when we have to make trades to deal with life stuff (like I took all of Illinois on Tuesday because Joe is now an elected official, and Joe is doing all of Indiana today because I have a dance competition).
Third, I personally don’t want to increase the subscription cost. Mostly because we release everything for free already and the subscription is mostly a tip jar of sorts.
We actually have a ton of readers (way more than I ever expected) but only a small number of subscribers. Which is fine! But I figured I’d be transparent about things.
If people are good with low-effort posts for some stuff, I’m more than happy doing it. I just want ti be as respectful as possible.
Yes, I would agree that if we contained JuJu, we would have won as she was the suc team. Suc also got 21 points off of our turnovers - it's ridiculous that we can't hang onto the ball and we also had shot clock violations - no excuse for that!
I don't understand why CC didn't prepare for defending JuJu. CC needs to figure it out now, because we must beat suc in the final game of the regular season. And we will likely meet suc again in the BIG Tourney.
Bottom line: We could lose the No. 1 seed and a seat in the West if we don't beat suc... which would put us at a big disadvantage.
If we don't win the Nattie this year with the talent we have, then when...
Yes, is mind boggling that Close did not have some special defense for JuJu--everyone in the country knows her capabilities (except Close?). USC obviously had heard of Betts and devised a double team defense to slow her down (sarcasm!) and unfortunately, the rest of the team could not make their shots.
Unfortunately, a highly-motivated JuJu came out of her recent "slump" and delivered a great performance in front of her home crowd, She is WNBA-ready and the Lady Bruins simply have nobody (like a Jaylen Clark, for example) who can even try to guard her 1-on-1. It seemed like a really futile, desperate move for Coach Close to resort to using puny Londynn Jones to try and disrupt JuJu. Yep, a better team effort on defense needs to be drawn up by the coaching staff, along with a better offensive plan to counter double-teams on Betts in the post.
The Lady Bruins' perfect record may be history, but the pressure is still on Coach Close to do something special in the postseason with the amount of talent on her team. I would think anything less than a Final Four this season would be a huge disappointment (and then I'll still be waiting forever for our next championship).