report card--UCLA

General Impressions I elected to wait a day before grading to be sure the horrible grades were not a reflection of the disappointment. My general impression was and remains this team, and the last few ones, are utter disappointments. Yesterday was no exception. The shear lack of offensive movement from the opening tip was maddening. The constant mismatches on defense worse. A good coach plays to his strengths, away from his weaknesses while playing away from the opponent’s strength and to their weaknesses. We do none of that. Opponents do. Our “knockout” games for the since 2015 have all been to team ranked lower than us. This trend continues because we have a coach who won’t adjust, continues to run the same NON-motion offense, and allows teams to dictate all aspects of the game. And again, we have squandered any opportunity to develop depth in the OOC schedule. Is it any wonder why the list of transfers is so long? What would you give to have a Bryce Hopkins on this team?

Jacob Toppin D- Has there ever been a more disappointing player? I am sure there is but it takes a few minutes to come up with some names. Yesterday he was a nonfactor. In his 24 plus minutes he made a measly 2 baskets in 10 attempts, including 2 missed treys, and hit one of his two free throws. The 2:3 assist to turnover ratio didn’t help, nor did his team worse -16 +/- score. The only positive was 7 rebounds. Jacob was silent in the first half with no pts at all. For the season he is miserable 3-20 from long range (15%), this from one of our supposed better shooters.

Cason Wallace D Like Toppin, went an entire half without scoring. His was the second half as he managed 7 in the opening stanza then goose egged the second. In over 33 minutes he hit 1 of his 7 treys, 2 of 13 overall and 2 of 3 free throws. Was one of two players to hit over 50% from the charity stripe, which is a sad statement. He had no assists and 2 turnovers. Not sure what I based the D on, other than it was better than Toppin’s. I expect an off game from a freshman.

Oscar Tshiebwe C- Led the team in minutes with 39.27. Yes, he sat for 33 second in the entire game. His 8 pts matched his Bellermine output, but he did manage 16 rebounds. He made 4-12 shots and was a horrible 0-4 from the line. The poor shooting percentage is not a shock to me as UCLA simply played defense on the perimeter until Oscar got the ball then all 5 collapsed because they knew the ball was not coming back out. That is what good coaches do, look at the opponent’s weaknesses and play to it. UK’s weakness is the inability to kick the ball back out, preferring to just simply bull it to the basket.

Sahvir Wheeler D- SIX turnovers is all you need to see. 6 turnovers from your point guard in 36 minutes. He shot well (5-7 and 1-1 from long range) but did not get a FT. Defensively it was a nightmare. Granted, much falls at the feet of the coach for man to man switching defense. Again, good coaching on Cronnin’s part ran screens with the center to get Sav on their big and Oscar on their point. To Wheelers credit he repeated attempted to switch back but to no avail. His teammates failed to come to his aid. But so long as we continue to not play away from our weaknesses, this will happen again and again.

Antonio Reeves D He and Cason led the team in shot attempts, both taking 13, both led the team in missed shots with 11. Reeves two makes were treys, of the 8 he shot. Reeves manage no rebounds, an assist and 2 turnovers. Reeves is good at putting up numbers against IL ST level competition, but when it comes to schools you can find on a map, not so much.

Chris Livingston A- The sole bright spot in this game. This was the CL I watched in HS. It is an aggressive one who plays hard. He got 14 points in his 24 minutes by shooting 5-8 overall, 2-3 from long range and 2-3 from the line. Add 4 rebounds to that. His only negative was 3 turnovers and no assists.

CJ Fredrick D Zeroes across the board. In 6 minutes he took no shots, no rebounds, no turnovers, no assists. Of course he had no open shots so probably a good thing he took zero shots

Lance Ware B+ In almost 14 minutes he scored 2 points as he was 1-1 from the field. Also grabbed 5 rebounds, had 3 assists and no turnovers. Seeing him at the 4 was a nice choice. I’m not sure why Cal did it but so be it. He was the only player with a positive +/-. which was 8

Adou Thiero DNP

Ugonna Onyenso C His line matched CJ’s, except he did it in 33 seconds.

Daimion Collins DNP

Coaching F Fans are getting tired of this. So much talent and so many disappointments. As a poster noted, “we can’t hide Cal’s faults”. To be honest, the team has digressed since the summer. There is no movement at all offensively, and we repeatedly get torched defensively. The team deserves better, the players deserve better, the fans deserve better and the UK legacy deserves better.

Officials C Randy McCall, Bert Smith, Brian Dorsey were a competent crew. Had no effect on the game

Commentators C I won’t let my bias on Raftery result in a rant, other than I honestly believe he has Tourette’s syndrome. When he yells some unintelligent blathering, its annoying.

Other Our FT shooting was terrible at 38.5%. Our 3 point shooting is poor as well at 28.6%. We lost the rebounding battle by 1. We had zero fast break points. To me this is the most telling tale. For me, we need a tempo that is run, run, and run yet we don’t see anything close to it.