In Reply to: If Dent is injured …. He should sit … cuz … posted by mikeo on November 25, 2025 at 23:06:38
really has to - for his sake, for the team's and for ours, for goodness sakes, because watching him out there is really, really painful.
BUT
That leaves us with two ready guards and one who had better get ready in a hurry because he's going to have to play. A significant amount. But without a 100% healthy, confident Dent, the whole approach to how we play is going to have to change or we aren't going to beat anyone who is decent at all.
The guys playing are Perry, Brown and the centers - at least they are trying.
Dailey has a very good shot but he and Bilodeau are where the ball does to stop if not completely to die. Williams is a fighter but - just but,
This team is in desperate need of a re-do. Start over. The coaches need to take an honest and realistic look at what they actually have to work with and put it back together. We leave the perimeter undefended and we still have to worry about protecting the paint. And rebounding.
When we moved the ball around - the first five minutes of the game - we made things happen for us. When we began letting the ball slow down so individual guys might make something happen, we made things happen TO us.
Clark is off and Perry's defense is hit and often miss and Freeny likely isn't ready to fit in to a high paced, Dentless offense to do guard things. I've always liked his potential but he's a banger and hopefully a defender. His time may not be now but the curtains gone up and the spotlight is on him now as our one sub on the perimeter.
Bilodeau is a liability on defense, hard as he plays and much as he tries - he can bang but he's just not athletic enough. And up to now anyway has looked better in a slower game.
You're certainly right, mikeo, Dent needs to rest and recover. But I think Mick needs to take a hard look at things, quit trying to try to tough his way through this - more of the same only hard, 'they got to play harder' - admit to himself what he thought would work doesn't work, not with these players, and start over.
Yes, it's going to hurt. You don't pretend it's November 3rd again at Thanksgiving time without paying a price. But the alternative is to keep on pounding square pegs into round holes and watch it all just get worse and worse and worse.
It's like the football program has infected men's basketball out there.
The state of those two program aren't UCLA, they're UC LA State.