Puzzled at his frontcourt players’ inability to set
screens last Sunday at USC, UCLA men’s basketball coach Ben
Howland sent assistant coach Kerry Keating across the hall to Bruin
football coach Karl Dorrell’s office armed with a
question.
Howland wanted to know what is generally considered a successful
block rate in football, analogizing that to setting a screen in
basketball.
Dorrell responded by saying somewhere around 88 percent.
After liberally estimating that senior center Ryan Hollins
connected on 9 of 34 screens last Sunday, Howland concluded that
the resulting 26.5 percent success rate was nowhere close to
Dorrell’s estimate, and nowhere close to being effective.
The 5-point and 9-rebound output of UCLA’s quartet of big
men (Hollins, Alfred Aboya, Ryan Wright and Michael Fey) in
Sunday’s 71-68 loss to USC was similarly ineffective.
“If we execute, then we’ll become more involved,
that’s without question,” Hollins said. “We just
have to execute.”
“We definitely have to get something out of our
bigs,” Howland said.
Apparently that can come about two ways, one of which the Bruin
coach can directly control by challenging them in practice, while
the other he can’t ““ getting them the ball.
To encourage competition among his big men, Howland said the
starting center position, occupied by Hollins for the last seven
games, would be up for grabs for Thursday’s game against
Oregon State at Pauley Pavilion.
Of Hollins, Aboya, Wright and Fey, whoever snared the most
rebounds, set the most effective screens, and did the best job
blocking out in practice will be rewarded with the start tonight.
Aboya, who was the starting center in practice Tuesday, suffered a
strained left hip flexor and is doubtful to see the court against
the Beavers.
Yet whether it’s Hollins’, Fey’s or
Wright’s name called in the starting lineup, the task of
getting them the ball primarily lies in the hands of Jordan Farmar,
Arron Afflalo and Cedric Bozeman.
“We definitely have to look to get in there more, so
I’ll take responsibility for that,” Farmar said.
“We’ve got to try to make plays for them,”
Bozeman said. “You can’t count on the perimeter to do
everything. If we draw some people, we know they’re open, so
we have to find them somehow someway.”
Finding them hasn’t happened all that often this season.
In the Bruins’ 26 games UCLA’s quartet of available big
men has only eclipsed the 10-point mark six times.
The last time the Bruins had a consistent productive inside
player was in Bozeman’s freshman year in 2001, when Dan
Gadzuric demanded the ball to be thrown inside.
Though none of UCLA’s big men on the current roster are as
vocal as Gadzuric, Bozeman still believes the Bruins need to
increase the frequency with which they throw the ball inside for
several reasons.
For one, it will increase the confidence of the post
players.
For another, generating offense in the post would take the
strain off the perimeter players trying to create their own
shots.
“It can help out a lot because it frees up a lot of the
things on the outside,” Bozeman said. “If you’ve
got both inside and outside (offense), it’s a tough team to
guard.”
Afflalo agrees.
“Maybe that will make life easier for ourselves,”
Afflalo said. “But we just can’t force feed. When they
get it, they need to take advantage of it.”