Just a month ago, Reeves Nelson was on just about everybody’s preseason All-Pac-12 team. As of today, according to a CBS Sports report, he’s no longer on the UCLA basketball team. “After much thought and deliberation, I have made the decision to dismiss Reeves Nelson from the UCLA men’s basketball team effective immediately,” said head coach Ben Howland in a statement released Friday morning after the coach met with Nelson following his final exams.
Reeves Nelson's Career In Westwood Was Officially Ended Friday With His Dismissal From The UCLA Basketball Program (credit: Stephen Dunn, Getty Images)
The fall from grace was swift and unexpected, but there were warning signs prior to this season. In previous years he had been known to openly yell at teammates for mistakes on the court, he famously threw a ball at Brendan Lane’s chest in disgust and just generally showed a lot of emotional immaturity. Even in high school he was repeatedly suspended for behavioral issues. This season things got worse, and fast. In the Bruins’ season-opening loss to Loyola Marymount, Nelson grew visibly frustrated as the game went on, and he failed to participate in a couple of huddles, earning his first “indefinite” suspension of the year. After sitting out the Bruins’ next game (another loss, this one to Middle Tennessee State), he was reinstated in time for the trip to the Maui Invitational, then he showed up late for the team flight. Howland somehow allowed Nelson to catch a later flight, and then benched him for a half in the tournament opener against Chaminade. Last weekend, Nelson blew a defensive assignment just before the end of the first half in a loss to Texas, got into a verbal altercation with Howland in the locker room, was benched for the second half there (during which he drew criticism for his behavior on the bench) and then subsequently suspended indefinitely again. Then today, the divorce became official.
It’s a new week and a new day for the Pac-12. Nothing but sunshine from now on, right? There hasn’t been a whole lot of good news to report around the conference, so we’ll take the occasion of four wins and zero losses in a single night to be grateful for. Sure, most of the wins came against teams that major conference teams should have no reason to fear, but one of the newest Pac-12 teams posted the most impressive victory of the night as Colorado came out of the halftime locker room with a 28-14 run over the first 17 minutes of the second half against Georgia. The Buffs held on to seal a 70-68 victory that was nowhere near as close as the final score. Buffalo freshman guard Spencer Dinwiddie led all scorers with 16 points and fellow freshman Askia Booker added 14, while Andre Roberson had 15/15 in his fourth double-double of the year.
Meanwhile down south, UCLA earned its first win of the season over a Division I opponent with a 62-39 victory over Pepperdine in a game whose score looks a lot more impressive than the actual play on the court. Sure, the Waves were never in this game at all, getting outscored 28-11 in the first half, but still, for UCLA, the two guys who were supposed to be the heart and soul of this team – Reeves Nelson and Joshua Smith – combined for six points and eight rebounds in 22 total minutes. Nevertheless, there were good signs for the Bruins, namely Travis Wear, who took some time off from exploring coral reefs to grab ten first-half rebounds (including five on the offensive end) and freshman guard Norman Powell, who earned 22 minutes and rewarded the coaching staff with ten points, a couple of threes and a ton of defensive energy. There’s still a long way to go, and Pepperdine is certainly no Loyola Marymount, but it is baby steps for the Bruins at this point.
Down the street from the Bruins’ temporary home, their cross-town rival, USC, got some good news Monday as their sophomore point guard Maurice Jones was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week, mostly on the strength of his 28-point outburst against South Carolina in the consolation game of the Las Vegas Invitational this weekend. Jones hit all seven of his three-point attempts in that game, getting his three-point percentage for the season back in the respectable range (he started the year 8-32 from deep) and more importantly, getting his team back within one game of .500.
Sticking around Troy for a bit, Rick Majerus was back in the Southland this weekend, taking his Saint Louis team to the 76 Classic in Anaheim, and while there he was asked to talk about his reasons for backing out of the USC job just four days after he had accepted it in 2004. Long story short, despite his claims at the time that it was his own health that caused him to back out, in fact Majerus’ mother was fighting cancer at the time and she asked him to not accept the job so that he could remain closer to her. Perhaps just as interesting was Majerus’ claim that he thought he could have won a national championship at USC. After seeing what Majerus did with Ball State, Utah and now Saint Louis, I’m inclined to trust him.
Finally, Jeff Borzello takes a closer look at the struggles that Arizona State has been going through this season and ties it back to its inability to take care of the ball. So far ASU is turning the ball over on 26.9% of its possessions, an abysmal figure good for 325th in the country. Part of the problem can be chalked up to the Sun Devils missing Jahii Carson, the heir apparent at point guard who has yet to be declared academically eligible. But Iowa State transfer Chris Colvin, who has handled most of the point guard duties so far and who the coaching staff spoke highly of in the offseason, has yet to display any comfort as the lead guard, turning the ball over 23 times thus far in 150 minutes of action. And every other starter for the Sun Devils has averaged at least two turnovers a game thus far. If Carson isn’t coming through that door, and if ASU continues to turn the ball over at this rate, this season is not going to get any better.
Over the weekend, three different Pac-12 teams played in eight-team tournaments. Arizona State, Utah and Washington State combined to go 1-8 in the Old Spice Classic, the Battle 4 Atlantis and the 76 Classic. Thankfully ASU was able to come across another BCS conference team that was worse than they were, handing Wake Forest a 28-point beatdown, but other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to be thankful for in the Thanksgiving tournaments this year. Other tournaments this week had mixed results, as Stanford advanced to the championship of the NIT Season Tip-Off and gave Syracuse just about all it could handle before succumbing in the final minutes, and USC also split its two games in Las Vegas, losing to UNLV on Friday in the semifinal, but knocking off South Carolina in the consolation game.
Arizona State did get some sort of good news this weekend, however, as an update on Jahii Carson finally came through. While Carson is still not eligible to play at this point, there is at least some movement here, as Doug Haller clarified in reporting that Carson was waiting on a late ACT score to post. When that score posts, if it is high enough, Carson can begin practicing (and playing) with the team immediately. If the score is not high enough, Carson will be ineligible this season. Stay tuned.
Down the road a piece in Arizona, Sean Miller is promising big changes for the Wildcats. “The same five that started against San Diego State (Jordin Mayes, Kyle Fogg, Solomon Hill, Jesse Perry and Kyryl Natyazhko) “will never start another game (together) at Arizona,” said Miller. Certainly Natyazhko is expected to be out of the starting lineup, although it remains to be seen whether Perry will move over to center or if freshman Angelo Chol will get a chance to start. But Mayes’ tenuous hold on the point guard position may be slipping as well, after he has struggled, handing out just three assists in his last five games. While freshman Josiah Turner has had his struggles adjusting to the new level of competition, his last few games have shown improvement and he may be ready to take over the reins. Likewise, the time could be now for Miller’s other freshman guard, Nick Johnson, who could slide in at the wing if Perry takes over in the middle. We’ll see what Miller has in mind on Tuesday night at New Mexico State.
Oregon State had a fun weekend, wrapping up their week-long east coast road trip with a 20-point win over Towson in front of President Obama, among others. Devon Collier continued his strong start to his sophomore season by scoring 15 points, grabbing five offensive rebounds, handing out three assists and snagging two steals, while sophomore guard Roberto Nelson had by far his best game of the year, scoring 12 points and handing out four assists while playing under control. There were high hopes for Nelson this season, and maybe Saturday was the first sign of promising things to come.
Finally, as if a 1-2 record in the Maui Invitational and a 1-4 start to the season weren’t enough for UCLA, sophomore forward Travis Wear cut his foot while snorkeling in Maui on Thursday and took five stitches. The Bruins’ second-leading scorer on this underwhelming season did not practice this weekend and will be reevaluated today to determine whether he will be able to play tonight when UCLA hosts Pepperdine at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.
Less than a week into a season where UCLA was picked by the media to win the conference, Bruin fans are beginning to have flashbacks to the 2009-10 disaster of a year. That season got off to an ignominious start with a double overtime home loss to a southern California afterthought, Cal State Fullerton, and proceeded downhill quickly, with an oh-fer 76 Classic close on its heels and sophomore big man Drew Gordon having some run-ins with head coach Ben Howland that ended in his eventual transfer out of the program. The season was “highlighted” by some awful guard play and an inability to stop anyone on the defensive end, and after a 2-6 start, ended in a 14-18 record.
Nelson and Smith Are Causing Chemistry Issues This Season
Although this vintage of the Bruins has only played one game, they’ve already got the loss to a southern California afterthought in the books, a game in which they displayed awful guard play and an inability to stop anyone, and with yesterday’s revelation that junior forward and preseason all-conference selection Reeves Nelson has been suspended indefinitely by Howland for poor conduct in the opening days of the season, they’ve got the attitude problems too. Aside from skipping Monday’s practice, Nelson’s immature behavior also reared its ugly head in the opener against LMU, where he failed to participate in a timeout huddle on more than one occasion, yelled at teammates, and made progressively more erratic shot selections. The length of the suspension will be determined in a face-to-face meeting between Nelson and Howland soon, but there have already been whispers that Nelson is considering moving on from UCLA. And with a trip to the Maui Invitational to face a stacked tournament field around the corner (luckily, the Bruins drew host Chaminade in the opening round), the Bruins are on the verge of a complete meltdown.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be previewing each of the Pac-12 teams as we head into the season.
UCLA Bruins
Strengths. The Bruins’ biggest strength is in their frontcourt, a big and deep group of talented athletes led by 6’8” junior forward Reeves Nelson and 6’10” sophomore center Josh Smith. The two make a rugged duo that can cause matchup problems for most all of their opponents. North Carolina transfers David and Travis Wear (each listed at 6’10”) join 6’9” junior forward Brendan Lane and 6’10” sophomore center Anthony Stover to provide depth. David Wear will spend a lot of time playing out of position at the three, giving the Bruins an imposing frontline that will cause almost all of their opponents fits on the glass. If Wear can handle guarding smaller, quicker wings, the UCLA front line will be a serious strength.
Reeves Nelson And Joshua Smith Make Up A Formidable Frontcourt Duo
Weaknesses. If head coach Ben Howland’s goal is to get his best players on the court, he’ll have to play a guy like David Wear out of position. With so much depth at the four and five spots, there is no way all of those guys could get playing time if some of them didn’t slide over at times. This could open the Bruins up to being exploited by talented, athletic wings. Additionally, UCLA lacks a deadly three-point shooter. Ideally sophomore off-guard Tyler Lamb could grow into that role, but his jumper is not ready for prime time in that area either. If opposing defenses sag in to either deny the ball to the bigs or pester them once they have the ball, the Bruins lack a perimeter threat to serve as a deterrent. Oh, one last thing: the point guard play of Lazeric Jones and Jerime Anderson tends toward the erratic. Those are probably more significant weaknesses than a major conference contender should have. Read the rest of this entry »
Question: Which Transfers Will Have the Biggest Impact This Season?
Every year, college basketball fans draw up their preseason predictions of conference champions and NCAA Tournament fields based on returning players and incoming recruits. But each year, a handful of key transfers play a pivotal role in leading their teams to a conference championship or NCAA Tournament bid. Which transfers are most likely to play that role this year?
Pierre Jackson and Gary Franklin, Baylor — With the return of Perry Jones and the addition of blue-chip recruits Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello (coming soon to an All-Name Team near you), expectations for the upcoming season in Waco are high. The Bears have more raw talent than almost anyone in the Big 12 and have a realistic shot at a conference crown. But Baylor also had quality talent and relatively high expectations last year, only to find their season upended by mediocrity at the most important spot on the floor — the point guard position. AJ Walton was thrust into the role of replacing Tweety Carter and responded by posting an obscene 32.1% turnover rate. In a not-unrelated phenomenon, the Bears finished the season ranked 322nd in Division I in team turnover percentage.
The Development of Franklin and/or Jackson Could Be the Difference-Maker for Baylor This Season
If Scott Drew can’t find someone to settle things down at the point this year, the Bears may disappoint again. And that’s where Jackson and Franklin come in. Jackson is a well-regarded JUCO transfer and Franklin a formerly touted recruit who transferred from Cal after just a semester. Franklin will not be eligible until the spring semester, but both will have a chance to pin down the starting point guard job. If either proves to be a stable floor general, the Bears could have their first conference championship in more than 60 years.
Iowa State’s Starting Lineup — Okay, so maybe the entire starting lineup won’t consist of transfers, but it might come close. Fred Hoiberg is trying to resuscitate the Iowa State program by resuscitating the careers of several D-I talents, including Chris Allen (Michigan State), Royce White (Minnesota), Anthony Booker (Southern Illinois), and Chris Babb (Penn State). They make this list as a group because collectively, they will have the single biggest transfer impact on any BCS program this year.
David and Travis Wear will be eligible for their first season at UCLA after transferring from North Carolina after the 2009-10 season. This Ben Bolch article focuses on the Wear twins and the roles they will take on with the Bruins this year. David is expected to make the immediate impact early on at small forward because of his jump shooting ability. With David, Reeves Nelson, and Joshua Smith all down low, the Bruins will have the best frontcourt in the Pac-12, if not the nation. Travis and Anthony Stover will spell Smith at the center position. When the Bruins need points they will turn to Travis, while Stover is the defensive/shot-blocking specialist.
If there was a theme for Pac-12 frontcourts in 2011-12, it would be “big.” There are 40 players at 6’9″ or bigger on Pac-12 rosters this season, including 7’3″ Utah center David Foster and 7’2″ Arizona State center Jordan Bachynski. Percy Allen breaks down the bigs of the conference and points out who is excelling and struggling so far this season.
Exhibition basketball continued last night with two games, Humboldt State vs. Arizona and UC San Diego vs. California. We begin in Tucson, where the Wildcats bounced back from their loss against Seattle Pacific last Thursday to defeat the Lumberjacks, 60-51. Arizona still has a lot of kinks to work out, mainly on offense as they shot just 20% from behind the arc. Humboldt State didn’t do anything to help its cause, though, by putting Arizona on the line for 38 free throws. UA only made 22 of those, but that was still the difference in the game. Next up for Arizona is their regular season opener against Valparaiso on Monday night in the Coaches vs. Cancer.
Up in Berkeley, the Golden Bears blew by the UC San Diego Tritons with ease. After a slow ten minutes in which Cal could not find its touch from around the rim, Mike Montgomery’s team quickly pulled away from the overmatched opponent. The lead was only nine at halftime but a 22-4 burst by the Bears to start the second half put away any thoughts of a preseason upset. Minnesota transfer Justin Cobbs was the star of the game, leading the Bears with 17 points and four assists off the bench. This was Cal’s first and only exhibition game, and they will begin regular season play against UC Irvine on Nov. 11.
Arizona shooting guard Nick Johnson has drawn rave reviews so far and needs to be on the court more according to his head coach, Sean Miller. Miller has already tried moving senior shooting guard Kyle Fogg to small forward in order to create extra minutes for Johnson, and he is also considering playing Johnson at the point in order to get he and Fogg on the floor together. “We have to look at Nick playing another position if he continues to progress,” Miller said. “But it’s hard to play two positions as a freshman. For the most part, with freshmen, we keep them at one spot.” In last night”s game against Humboldt State, Fogg and Josiah Turner, Arizona’s other fabulous freshman, got the start at guard. However, they all played close to equal amounts of time (Fogg-24, Turner-22, Johnson-21). Johnson and Turner led the group with eight points each.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences as well as a Pac-12 microsite staffer. You can find him on Twitter @AMurawa.
Reader’s Take I
With only two of the ten players named to last year’s All-Pac-10 team returning, the race for the conference player of the year is wide open.
Top Storylines
Twelve Is The New Ten: After 33 seasons, college basketball fans on the west coast are getting used to calling their conference the Pac-12. With Colorado and Utah along for the ride (and currently taking their lumps in football), gone are the days of the home-and-away round-robin schedule on the basketball side of things. But lest the traditionalists complain too much, it could have been much different, as schools from Oklahoma and Texas (obviously the very definition of “Pacific” states) flirted with changing their allegiance for the second consecutive year before heading back to the Big 12.
Fresh Blood: As mentioned above in our poll question, the conference loses eight of the ten players on last year’s all-Pac-10 team, with just Jorge Gutierrez of Cal and UCLA’s ReevesNelson returning. In other words, it is time for a new set of players to step up and take the reins of the league. The most likely candidates are a talented group of freshman guards – names like Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson at Arizona, Tony Wroten, Jr. at Washington, JabariBrown at Oregon, NormanPowell at UCLA and ChassonRandle at Stanford.
Jorge Gutierrez Is A Lightning Rod Of A Guard For Mike Montgomery's Golden Bears, And Big Things Are Expected.
The Carson Show On Hold. A seventh highly-touted freshman guard, however, is stuck in limbo. Arizona State’s JahiiCarsonhas yet to be cleared for practice while an investigation continues into an online course the 5’10” point guard took this summer at Adams State in Colorado. That school has yet to release his course transcript, and until that happens, Carson is unable to practice with the Sun Devils, making an already difficult situation (being regarded as a savior for a team coming off a 12-19 campaign) even worse.
Hard Times for Kevin Parrom: Sometimes, just when everything is going well, life conspires to deal you a set of circumstances that just suck. It’s not bad enough that Parrom took a couple of bullets on September 24 during a home invasion, while in the Bronx visiting his sick mother. But on October 16, Parrom’s mom then passed away after a long battle with cancer. While both incidents will have lasting effects on Parrom, the bullet wounds are the biggest obstacle to him getting back on the court, with bullet fragments lodged in his right leg, a boot on his right foot, nerve damage and his left hand currently wrapped up to protect lacerations sustained in the attack. Parrom is rehabilitating his injuries and as of this writing, no hard timetable is set for his return. But if anybody is due for a good break or two, Parrom’s the guy. Get well soon, Kevin.
A couple of weeks ago, though by now it seems much longer, the ACC made waves with one of the biggest coups in conference realignment: stealing Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the apparently less than watchful auspices of the Big East. While this move would seem to bring even more talent into the already loaded Atlantic Coast Conference, the conference might have trouble retaining the talent.
Now, considering there are only five players coming in and eleven players leaving, this issue might seem insignificant. It might be insignificant. This season could be an aberration, and this player movement maybe means nothing. However, outside of a few marquee transfers (notably the Wear twins leaving North Carolina to play at UCLA and Miami stealing Kenny Kadji from in-state rival Florida), the trend seems to reflect very talented players who are content to move down a level for more playing time and a chance to star. When talented role players feel like the stage is already too crowded and seek greener pastures, does this constitute a real problem? Is there such a thing as an oversaturation of talent and do ACC fans need to worry about it? The addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh seems to speak to a prevalent mentality that the league can never have enough talent, but the movement of the players themselves suggests otherwise.
Happy Memorial Day to everyone around the country, whether you’re honoring our fallen soldiers and/or the family members who are no longer with us. It’s a day worthy of reflection and memory, and we hope that your day will be spent in equal parts pouring out an ounce of liquor and cooking up some tasty barbecue. After all, life is here to be lived, even while we’re remembering those who are gone.
As if five full days of the hoops extravaganza known affectionately as the Big East Tournament wasn’t already enough, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said late last week that he wants to see the tournament expand to 17 teams (or further upon additional expansion) when TCU formally enters the league in 2012-13. His justifications — that teams (such as UConn last year) can win five games, and that every player in the conference deserves a chance to play in the Garden at the league’s marquee event — sound reasonable enough to us. Although the idea of a #16 vs. #17 play-in game between DePaul and TCU on Monday night seems about as enticing as talking derivative markets over at the Harvard Club. The setup Boeheim suggests, though, would be more workable if the league ultimately expands to 20 teams and could have a “First Four” of its own then.
Speaking of Big East expansion, maybe someday soon the University of Memphis will get a long-desired invitation to the league, but in the meantime we’ll have to settle for a home-and-home series between the Tigers and longtime rival and nemesis Louisville scheduled to begin next season at the KFC Yum! Center. The two schools who battled for decades in the old Metro Conference and later in Conference USA (when it was still relevant) have not played in six years since Louisville left CUSA (the infamous Darius Washington game) but, needless to say, the two are still not friendly. This will be a great series, and we hope that even if Memphis doesn’t join the Big East in the coming few years, that the two will continue this series indefinitely.
Say what you want about Dick Vitale as an announcer past his prime or a shameless homer for certain east coast schools where he’s friendly with the head coaches… but never question the man’s commitment to improving the lives of the people around him through his relentless advocacy to fight cancer in his role as a spokesman for the Jimmy V Foundation. As Andy Staples writes in this piece on Friday, Vitale has leveraged his name within the sporting community to raise over $100M at his gala in just the last six years, a ridiculous number in philanthropic contributions when you think about it. Someday, when this very site or its replacement is writing the obit for one Richard Vitale, the first sentence shouldn’t mention the word ESPN, or Duke, or even basketball — it should focus on the consuming passion that he has given into the fight against cancer and how his tireless efforts in the “fourth quarter” of his life helped make the world a better place.
The LA Times published a piece over the weekend examining the odd situation of three southern California kids all returning back home to play for UCLA after spending at least one season all the way across the country at UNC. Larry Drew II, Travis Wear and David Wear each returned to LA after finding Chapel Hill not to their liking for one reason or another, and are looking to regain some of the form that made each of them elite recruits coming out of high school. Considering that very few players leave Roy Williams’ teams to transfer elsewhere (only seven in over 20 years of head coaching), it’s a weird coincidence that four of those players came from the sunny skies and endless avenues of Los Angeles (Alex Stepheson was the other). Good news for Tar Heel fans: none of the players on the 2011-12 UNC roster is from SoCal.
It continues to amaze us that South Park is still on the air, but it is, and it continue to push the envelope with its politically incorrect jabs at just about everything anyone considers holy and sacred. It’s been a long time since anyone considered the NCAA sacrosanct, but SP’s recent episode, “Crack Baby Athletic Association” skewers the governing organization in a parody that likens modern student-athletes to slaves in a for-profit scheme run by a select few. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s alma mater, the University of Colorado, comes off as particularly complicit in this show as the school the boys visit in an attempt to ply their exploitative trade. We could go on, but don’t take our word for it — the entire unedited episode is here.
