UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon previews the UCLA basketball team. Despite the loss of guards Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday, O’Bannon expects big things from the Bruins and coach Ben Howland.
It’s always a worry how you’re going to reload with players when you lose players like Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday. With Collison you’re losing a player who played in the Final Four three years straight. It’s hard to replace that experience like he had. Then, Jrue Holiday was an awesome college player. Although his numbers didn’t always show it, a true basketball mind could tell how great he really was.
I really hoped Jrue would stay. I would’ve loved to see him dominate at the college level and take this team on his shoulders. He showed flashes of his skills when Collison went down that made everyone excited that he would be the next great UCLA player. He could turn a game around, and I thought he would be able to sustain that over a full season.
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It was unfortunate that he left, but he’s a tremendous talent, and he’ll have a great NBA career as well as Collison. If Holiday would’ve been on this team, the expectations would’ve been through the roof.
But regardless, the expectations are always high at UCLA – it doesn’t matter who’s on the team.
I’m not too worried with a freshmen and sophomore-laden team because that’s really what NCAA basketball has come down to. You don’t have a lot of seniors nowadays. Players now are being recruited as immediate impact players, and they’ll be expected to do that here.
Plus, Ben Howland is a perfect coach for a situation like this. He’s a fundamentals coach at heart and pays great attention to detail. You’re getting younger players who don’t have the knowledge or fundamentals down, and that’s Howland’s thing. To figure out how the game inside the game is run.
Either way, it’s going to be an exciting season.
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The 1995 John R. Wooden Award winner, Ed O’Bannon currently lives outside Las Vegas and is a car salesman for Findlay Toyota
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
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