UCLA Men's Basketball Participates in Annual Pac-12 Media Day
SAN FRANCISCO – Head coach Steve Alford and senior guard Norman Powell represented the UCLA men’s basketball program at Pac-12 Media Day on Thursday, hosted at the Pac-12’s office and network studios.
Alford, entering his second season as UCLA’s head coach, and Powell participated in a variety of interviews and with members of broadcast and print media, in addition to taping spots for promotional videos to be used by Pac-12 Networks and the Pac-12 Tournament in Last Vegas.
“We are excited to get the season going,” said Alford, who is set to begin his 24th season as a college basketball head coach. “We’ve had about 12, 13 practices. It is a young team, somewhat inexperienced to some sorts. But, it’s a team that, if we can improve as the year goes on as much as we have improved the last two weeks, we are pretty excited about where our season could go.”
UCLA went 28-9 last season, finishing second overall with a 12-6 mark in the Pac-12 regular-season standings. The Bruins defeated Arizona, 75-71, in the conference tournament title game to secure an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
Earlier Thursday, UCLA was selected fourth in the Pac-12 preseason media poll. Arizona was picked to finish first, followed by Utah and Colorado, respectively. Stanford was chosen fifth and Washington sixth. Rounding out the conference’s remaining six teams, in order, were California, Oregon, Arizona State, USC, Washington State and Oregon State.
The men’s basketball team will participate in the seventh annual Dribble for the Cure on Sunday, Oct. 26, beginning with registration at 8:30 a.m. Dribble for the Cure has become an annual event at UCLA, joining forces with basketball alumnus John Vallely, the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) and the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA Cancer Research Program and Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.
UCLA will host an exhibition game against Azusa Pacific on Friday, Oct. 31, in Pauley Pavilion. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
The Bruins are set to open their regular season against Montana State on Friday, Nov. 14, in Pauley Pavilion. Game time that evening is 9 p.m.
below is a transcript of the Q-and-A media session with UCLA during Pac-12 Media Day
head coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“We are excited to get the season going. We’ve had about 12, 13 practices. It is a young team, somewhat inexperienced to some sorts. But, it’s a team that, if we can improve as the year goes on as much as we have improved the last two weeks, we are pretty excited about where our season could go.”
on Bryce’s role and UCLA’s backcourt in 2014-15
“Obviously, not just Bryce, but all those guys. Norman will have a different role. Norman played last year in the same backcourt with Kyle [Anderson] and Jordan [Adams]. Now he's the vet in that backcourt, the go-to guy in the backcourt. That's not just scoring, that means defensively, how we handle the ball, all those things. Now guys like Bryce from a year ago coming off the bench playing one role, obviously has a chance to be a starter. Isaac Hamilton, that was a trio, Isaac, Zach and Bryce, the gold [scout] team. Isaac and Bryce have played a lot together, not in games, but they have a lot of experience playing with each other in practice. Hopefully that will help. Norman is getting two new backcourt mates to start the game. That's not always easy. But I think both those guys are talented. Bryce has the ability to lead, he has the ability to make people around him better. He understands ball control, understands what we want to do offensively and defensively. I think he's a guy that the team will look to for leadership, and that's going to be a key for us.”
on UCLA playing fast last season and what the Bruins’ style will be this year
“Well, I hope so. We want to be able to continue to do the things we've done, especially with the speed with which we want to play. We talk about it in our locker room all the time. We want to play fast. We want to play quick. In the words of Coach Wooden, you can't get in a hurry. There's a fine line. You can only run as hard as you can to where you're valuing the ball. Last year's team did a great job with that. We averaged 17-and-a-half assists and less than 11 turnovers last year. As far as efficiency goes, it was an efficient offense. To sustain that, our guys have to understand what level they can play at where they're not turning the ball over at a high rate. I'm hoping we can do that. We have a lot of athletes. Obviously we're led by Norman. Bryce wants to play fast. Isaac wants to play fast. Noah Allen now comes in that mix. He can play fast. Guys like Kevon Looney, György [G.G.] Goloman, Wanaah Bail, all big-time athletes that want to play up and down. Now, we have to make sure that guys like Tony Parker, Thomas Welsh, guys in the middle can keep up and do the things we want to do. I think we're a team this year that has the potential to make post feeds to big guys. Last year most of our post feeds were to guards. This year we have the ability to post feed to bigs. We need to find that fine balance of being able to play quick but also utilize the size we have up front.”
on UCLA’s Dec. 20 matchup against Kentucky being a measuring stick
“Obviously there will be a lot made of that game. We have so much in front of us beforehand being an inexperienced group. We have four fairly difficult home games to start the season because three of those four teams have more NCAA experience than our guys do to some extent. A lot of guys back. Then we go to the Bahamas tournament, in a bracket with North Carolina, Butler, the topside of that Wisconsin, Florida, Georgetown, UAB. So we're getting incredible opponents there. We come back for a few weeks and we have Gonzaga. We have Gonzaga before we play Kentucky. Tough stretch for us. Gonzaga, Kentucky, Alabama, Utah and Colorado, a tough five-game stretch. We have to hope by the time we get to the Utah/Colorado series that we're a much different team. We're not going to put any more emphasis on one game, obviously although I understand that's hard to do for a team and everybody else. We talked about it as early as the retreat we just got back from. It's a process, it's a journey. It's a long season. Get better. Each month, if we can get better, are we ready to play the likes of Kentucky today? No. I hope we're a little bit better ready for that when we get to mid-December.”
on what Coach Alford likes about Norman Powell
“I've known Norm for a long time, him being from San Diego. One of his close mentors is Glen Worley who played for me at the University of Iowa. When I was at New Mexico, coming into San Diego to recruit, I couldn't convince him to come to New Mexico. He had his eyes set on UCLA at the time. I was able to watch him a lot, so I knew his game very well. I'm still in very good contact with Glen Worley. I know him as well as maybe anybody, though I've only coached him for a year and a half now. We know his pluses. We know what he's trying to work on. We've been able to develop that trust. That trust that's been built, now it's his job to help lead these other guys. That part of leadership is taking care of yourself, making sure yourself is in line. He's done a very good job of doing that, and now he has guys that will follow him. That's a very big key to leadership.”
on the image of Travis Wear’s sliding loose ball play in last season’s Pac-12 title game illustrating a strong level of commitment
"Well, I've said it [before]. I'm very blessed to have coached the team that I coached last year. I was their third collegiate basketball coach. That's not easy. They're fifth-year guys. A lot of them, made out of the three guys, caused hardship [NBA draft early entry] in Zach, Jordan and Kyle. Obviously very, very important to the success of what we did. But Dave and Travis were extremely big in their roles because they had such a great IQ, they were big men that could pass it and shoot it, they defended well. So we're going to miss them. Those five guys meant an awful lot to our success. But I'm very thankful that first-year team, obviously Norman a big part of it, they trusted us as coaches. We were new coaches coming in, new system. They bought in from day one back in May. We really started to work back in May. It's a great credit to the players because they're the ones that got it done. They could have easily wrote it off, especially being seniors. That's a great credit not just to who they are as players but who they are as people. Our staff really appreciated it. It was a blast. We had a lot of fun last year. Hopefully we can build on that fun this year.”
senior guard Norman Powell
on being one of the program’s faces of stability in recent years
“Just really staying with who we got, reinforcing it's about the team, the family. For the freshmen coming in, it's just believing in what coach wants from us. If they need anything, being open with them, being helpful, trying to guide them in the right footsteps of where coach wants us to be defensively and offensively, what he wants out of us for this program."
on practicing with UCLA’s newcomers
“It's been great. It's always nice to see guys who are willing to learn, want to compete, want to get better. We know this team is really young. They know a lot is going to be asked of them this season. It's about coming in with an open mind, trying to get better. I love the depth we have, actually having two big men, having versatility in Kevon and Isaac. It's really great. I'm really excited to get on the court and compete with these guys.”