From: crs@stein.u.washington.edu (Cliff Slaughterbeck)
Subject: Re: UCLA wins/loses/wins
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:26:08 GMT

rsmith@strobe.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Russ Smith) writes:
>
>Strengths: man to man defense was good, early it was great, but the starters
>clearly tired and the bench is not nearly as good defensively. This is clearly
>a less selfish team than they have been the last 3 years with Murray and
>MacLean (who FYI made a guest appearance on Baywatch this weekend) fighting 
>over the ball. There were very few bad shots taken in the game. Petruska is
>legit although he needs to learn to hold the ball up higher when he shoots
>inside, he is basically an outside shooter at heart, so he hold the ball
>right in front of his face when he shoots and got several blocked by the 
>small UTEP players. Tarver looks great, O'Bannon showed no effects from the
>knee, ~20 points and 10 boards and 3-4 nice blocks. Edney played well at the
>end.

Russ, I don't know what game you were watching, but thw one that ESPN was
showing didn't resemble these observations at all.  Petruska was not 
"legit" in the least.  He makes Brian Williams look more fluid than water.
He had a number of fouls that he picked up because he was slow on defense.
His inside shots were drawing more iron than your average mine.  He was
consistently outrebounded on the defensive boards by thin guys who were at
least three to four inches shorter than he was.  Tarver, Edney and O'Bannon
can all finish on the break, but the half court offense was absolutely
pathetic.  Rebounding, we don't need no stinkin' rebounding!  Petruska
is no better than the fourth best center in the Pac Ten, with OSU's Haskins,
UW's Manning, and UA's Stokes all much better than he is.  The Bruins almost
got beat at home by a team that had nobody taller than 6'8" on the floor.
The Bruins have talent on the floor, but unless Harrick figures out how
to coach, this team is headed for no better than fourth or fifth in the 
Pac Ten.  My pick is Seton Hall by 20+.

>Weaknesses: Bench and outside shooting were a given, Zidek did ok, and even
>Zimmerman contributed in the 2nd half when he played center, but Burns did
>nothing, and Dempsey and Nwankwo never took their sweats off. Boyle played
>a bit and did nothing good or bad.Butler made the only real outside shot of
>the entire game for UCLA. Defensive rebounding was atrocious, they got 2-3 
>cracks at scoring every time in the 2nd half, both Petruska and O'Bannon 
>need to learn to block out instead of just trying to outjump everyone.
>Hustle was great at the end , but most of the game they got outhustled.
>At least 3 times a UCLA man blocked a shot and then stood and watched the 
>UTEP player retrieve the ball and score. Free throw shooting was terrible
>and will cost them several games this year if it stays this bad.

****************************************************************************
Cliff Slaughterbeck           * 
Dept. of Physics, FM-15       *   Hey Matt!  The diffusion pump is full of
University of Washington      *   water again!
Seattle, WA 98195             *
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