Men’s basketball to test lineup transition in Monmouth season opener

Heading into a season, a popular question to ask a team is, “What’s your identity?”

UCLA men’s basketball coach Steve Alford has already heard that question a few times this year, and still doesn’t have a concrete answer.

“We don’t know our identity yet,” Alford said on Tuesday. “That’s what makes (season) openers a lot of fun and exciting. But also from a coaching standpoint there’s a lot of anxiousness too, because you just don’t know.”

The Bruins enter Friday’s season opener unranked in the Associated Press preseason poll for the second straight year. They have three starters returning – two in the backcourt and one in the frontcourt – but they also lost two key players who helped form UCLA’s identity last year. Those players – guard Norman Powell and forward Kevon Looney – helped establish UCLA as a relatively up-tempo team.

Powell was at his best on the fast break, gliding through defenders for highlight-reel dunks, and Looney ran the floor very well for a power forward. With those two in the lineup, UCLA averaged 69.4 possessions per game, ranking 68th out of 351 Division I teams.

This year, the outlook could be different for UCLA. Alford has talked about using his “big-big” lineup of senior forward/center Tony Parker and sophomore center Thomas Welsh more often. That would probably take away from UCLA’s tempo, but it would almost certainly help with rebounding. UCLA finished 67th in the nation in team rebound margin last year.

“Both of those guys (Parker and Welsh) are running really well, I’m not saying we’re slow,” Alford said. “But it’s different than in years past when maybe Kyle (Anderson) or Travis (Wear) or Kevon have been our fours all the time. … When we go big-big, I think we gotta make sure we have a lot of speed on the court in the backcourt to kind of complement what we’re trying to do playing big-big.”

Thus far, that complementary speed has come from freshman Aaron Holiday. The 6-foot-1 guard has provided a spark in the UCLA backcourt already, leaving a strong impression on San Diego State coach Steve Fisher during the UCLA-SDSU closed scrimmage last week.

“Holiday was sensational,” Fisher told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “He was by far the best player on the floor.”

He’s also an “energy bar,” according to Parker.

“Aaron Holiday … he’s a nonstop runner,” Parker said. “So I just run with him. Wherever he goes I go, and that’s how it is. I try to keep up with him – which I don’t – but I try and it’s good for me.”

Still, as fast as Holiday goes, Welsh said that the Bruins need to work on keeping up in transition. The sophomore said UCLA did a good job rebounding against San Diego State, but struggled in fast-break opportunities.

“I think our transition game is one thing that stood out that we need to get better at from the San Diego State scrimmage,” Welsh said.

UCLA will have a good chance to practice its transition defense on Friday, facing a Monmouth team that uses a four-guard lineup at times with a fast-paced approach.

Monmouth preview

Alford said that Friday’s game between UCLA and Monmouth will come down to which team asserts its style of play more effectively. The Bruins have the advantage in size, and may try to use their big-big lineup of Parker and Welsh to overpower the Hawks.

“They play very fast. They want to play extremely up-tempo. … I think you’re gonna have the dynamic of a couple different styles in that we can play big-big and they like playing smaller than that,” Alford said. “So it will be interesting to see the dynamics of that. I think that’s probably gonna be a key to the game: who’s going to win out the style game.”

Monmouth returns just two of its top-five scorers from last year’s squad, including guard Justin Robinson, the team’s leading scorer.