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SI Exposes UCLA
- Thread starter buff4bcs1985
- Start date
jgisland
Club Member
I think this is a big to do about not much. Big surprises: Reeves Nelson is a bad guy, college kids drink and do drugs and star players are coddeled. No NCAA violations in the report. Personally I think Howland was on his last leg before this, he may make it 1 more season, same with the AD Guerrero.
Agreed, whole lot of nothing in that article. If anyone one got exposed it is Howland for not being the caliber of coach people thought he was for years. Managing the ego's of the top players in college ball is incredibly tough, apparently too tough for Howland.
eep. Methinks UCLA alumni made this happen. They are not happy with mr. howland. Hit piece for sure, but definitely fascinating stuff.
jgisland
Club Member
That may be true, but it seems like the author George Dohrmann has been trying to nail UCLA for years. He was working for the LA Times when he exposed that Baron Davis while in HS was driving a suspicious vehicle that led to a lot of nothing.
A journalist with a hard on to ruin a school? We really do fit in to the Pac12!!
JimmyBuff
Well-Known Member
Uh, no
Article summary:
Howland recruited talent, and gave them no direction. The 18 year olds ran amuke, and the team became divided. Those who could, left the program and are now the top players in the mountain west, those who stayed were allowed to be bullied by the one guy left who produced during games. Howland's coaching style doesn't really fit without some sort of senior team leadership that keeps the younger players in check. Howland will most likely be out of a job come April.
Howland recruited talent, and gave them no direction. The 18 year olds ran amuke, and the team became divided. Those who could, left the program and are now the top players in the mountain west, those who stayed were allowed to be bullied by the one guy left who produced during games. Howland's coaching style doesn't really fit without some sort of senior team leadership that keeps the younger players in check. Howland will most likely be out of a job come April.
CanadianDuck
Well-Known Member
I think every school in the Pac-12 has at least 1 local nut job reporter trying to ruin the school and turning everything into a big story.
We're not talking about a nutjob reporter in this case. Dohrmann's a good journalist.
who was delivered ridiculous amounts of damaging information by many players extremely loyal to the program. UCLA alumni hit job.
JimmyBuff
Well-Known Member
Based on what? Cause he writes for SI? Exactly what is newsworthy that college players are moody, do drugs, party and are selfish? If UCLA was winning this article wouldn't have been published. Oh but since they are down and Howland likes his bottled water cold and needs the room temperature to be 76, we have a "scandal expose" STORY.
Last sportswriter to win a Pulitzer Prize (2000) for when he exposed the academic fraud that went on at Minnesota basketball.
He's won the AP's investigative honors award several times. His recent book, "Play Their Hearts Out", on the abuses in youth basketball (as young as 8 year olds) won PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting.
This is not a hack and he isn't focused on UCLA. He does write a lot about amateur basketball and exposes abuses, but this wasn't a case of just being out to get the Bruins or Howland.
Mattslapped!
jgisland
Club Member
All this is true, but this is his 4th "scathing" article about UCLA and nothing has come of any of them. Dohrmann is anything but a hack but if I am a ucla fan (which i'm not) this would be getting a little old. Dohrmann "uncovered" things that if you interviewed former players from all 345 DI schools you would have to figure over half would have similar stories. I really just fail to see anything enlightening or riveting in this article.
based on the thread title, I figured this would have something do to with dply.
dply
Doble hoja
BuffAlum2007
Well-Known Member
Howland comes across as a complete prick in that article...
JimmyBuff
Well-Known Member
Jimmy, you and Wilner are focusing on the wrong stuff.
Dohrmann went to great lengths throughout the piece to de-sensationalize those goings-on. That was background noise.
This was the story of how a program can go from 2 Final Fours and the top recruiting classes that follow to missing the tourney consecutive years. What I got out of it is a case study of what will happen when your coach isn't a hands-on leader for team culture, the upperclassmen from the previous regime graduate, and the talented recruits who are brought in aren't held accountable for fear of offending them or getting in their way if they're performing.
What you're left with is a divided team that has a host of issues from defections to laziness to excessive partying to in-fighting. And that results in severely underperforming as a program.
In short, I read it as the Dan Hawkins story retold on the bigger stage of UCLA basketball.
Dohrmann went to great lengths throughout the piece to de-sensationalize those goings-on. That was background noise.
This was the story of how a program can go from 2 Final Fours and the top recruiting classes that follow to missing the tourney consecutive years. What I got out of it is a case study of what will happen when your coach isn't a hands-on leader for team culture, the upperclassmen from the previous regime graduate, and the talented recruits who are brought in aren't held accountable for fear of offending them or getting in their way if they're performing.
What you're left with is a divided team that has a host of issues from defections to laziness to excessive partying to in-fighting. And that results in severely underperforming as a program.
In short, I read it as the Dan Hawkins story retold on the bigger stage of UCLA basketball.
J-R-K
Well-Known Member
We should take Reeves Nelson as a transfer and then charge money for fans to come watch practice, maybe even sell the rights to a reality TV show in which Reeves in the star. Kid could be a cash cow and he'd give us a double-digit points and rebounds every game although i'm not sure that Beau Webb and Sabintino Chen would make it through the year alive and Boyle may decide to leave for the Southwest Wyoming Tech A&M job.