Steve Alford

Steve Alford Has Ucla Winning

... a better time to leave UCLA. Lonzo Ball, Bryce Alford, Isaac Hamilton and probably TJ Leaf are playing their final college games. Li Angelo Ball, the middle brother, is part of another heralded recruiting class, but what if he doesn’t have Lonzo’s impact, and isn’t used the way La Var Ball prefers. That could cause hypertension, as will the inevitable letdown. No possible 2018 Bruins team will be as lethal or captivating as this one. And that would remind the angry amnesiacs in UCLA’s base that Alford gave back a year of his contract last spring and apologized for a losing season. Somebody paid a pilot to fly over Westwood with a “Fire Alford” streamer. Alford could perform a double-pump payback by flying home, particularly if he has an NCAA title ring. But Dakich does not think Alford thinks that way. He says Alford actually got a perverse kick out of the enemy aircraft, because he thrives under incoming fire, as does ...

Will Steve Alford Take, Er, Leave His Balls And Go Home

... Ron Tom. The long run. Elisha Barno, the men's L. A. marathon winner this year. complained of "getting sick" and queasiness from his sports drink. Before 1969, endurance athletes were discouraged from drinking during races, including marathons. Then Gatorade appeared on the scene and the bottled water craze soon followed. Today overhydration and sudden death from hyponatremia and hypokalemia are serious problems, not dehydration. Gatorade and other sports drinks contain potassium, a gastric irritant. Barno almost succumbed to the over-commercialization of the marathon. Jerome P. Helman, M. D. I can’t help but find humor in the irony that an elite marathon runner can make it from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica in just over two hours on a Sunday morning; yet that same runner probably would take nearly an hour longer to drive the same route during Friday evening rush hour. Ron Yukelson. San Luis Obispo. Bill being Bill. Bill Walton is the Howard Cosell of West Coast basketball. You either love his antics and hyperbole or you love to hate him and tune in anyway to see ...

No. 3 Hasn't Been A Charm For Ucla Coach Steve Alford In Ncaa Tournaments

... NCAA tournament. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times). Ben Bolch Contact Reporter. History has repeated itself in the cruelest way for Steve Alford as a heavy favorite in the NCAA tournament. The teams he’s coached have been awarded a No. 3 seeding on three previous occasions. They’ve lost in the first round twice. And that’s not even counting the time Alford played for Indiana and his third-seeded Hoosiers lost to Cleveland State, a flop chronicled in the book “A Season on the Brink.”. Could the early exits be an uh-oh omen for Alford’s third-seeded UCLA Bruins heading into their first-round game against Kent State on Friday at the Golden 1 Center? Not necessarily. “It’s different circumstances. It’s different teams,” Alford said. “I know what I’ve got in this team. We’ve got good experience; we’ve got a good blend. This is a high skill set team.”. All true, though those descriptions also applied to Iowa when Alford coached the ...

I See Earl Watson Replacing Steve Alford At Ucla

... UCLA. Watson, who is in the final stretch of his first full season as the Suns’ head coach, attended UCLA from 1997 to 2001. Having left the school having started the most consecutive games in the history of the program, he has never been bashful about his affinity for the school. But of course, Watson currently has a job — coaching the Suns — and as of now, UCLA still has a coach in Steve Alford. While there is no indication the former could change, chatter has emerged that the latter might. An Indiana alum, Alford was linked to that school’s vacancy pretty much from the moment Tom Crean was fired. The current UCLA coach, whose team advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, has essentially refused to comment  on the rumors, which has led to some speculation that he is indeed interested in the job. And if Alford leaves Westwood? The UCLA job is among the best in college basketball, with a rich tradition of success and a return to prominence over the last few years. “I see Steve Alford going to Indiana, and then I see Mr. Earl Watson, the head coach of the Phoenix Suns, coming back home to UCLA,” ESPN NCAA hoops analyst Jay ...

Ucla Faces Kentucky Amid Distraction And Dancing

... Shoot, look at the team. All the top 7 players except one are locals. The other is his son. As La Var says, his sons aren't playing in Indiana. Steve is not leaving UCLA unless. If UCLA wins it all, Indiana's doubts about Steve Alford the coach would be gone. It would be the ultimate homecoming for a favorite son. A national championship coach coming home to save Indiana. Shoot, players on a national championship team are always overrated in the draft. I would not be surprised if UCLA loses six of the top seven players to the pros or graduation in that case. Thomas Welsh will likely be the only one left. And that's all good. We will have won number 12. All is good. Thank you, Steve, Lonzo, TJ Leaf, etc. On the other side, if Steve Alford loses tonight, he is the new Steve 16. Steve Alford, in his long career, will still have never made it past the Sweet 16. Indiana will be smarter than UCLA's AD and say, “thanks but no thanks.” Alford has not done his job. He had ...

Lavar Ball 'glad' Alford Is Staying At Ucla

... season, averaging 14.6 points, 7.6 assists and 6.0 rebounds. According to several NBA general managers and scouts, the 6-foot-6 floor leader is a lock to be selected in the top three of June's NBA draft. Ball struggled for much of the game Friday night, scoring 10 points and dishing out eight assists. After the game, Ball told reporters in the locker room that it was his final college game. "When I talked to him after the game, I told him, 'You're going to win. You're going to lose. It's OK. No one goes undefeated,' " La Var said. "They went 15-17 last year and went to the Sweet 16. This won't be his legacy. It's just a step to get to the ultimate goal - the NBA.". La Var said he would have liked for Lonzo to have been more aggressive looking for his own shot at times during the game, but he felt that he had a successful college season and career. "They came up short, ...

Indiana Job Gives Ucla’s Steve Alford An Unavoidable Distraction

... 31-4 this year. Indiana should search for the best coach for the job, not just the best Hoosier __link__/a IK 8 s DL 9 DD. — Michael De Courcy (@tsnmike) March 21, 2017. So, as Randy Newman might ask , why leave L. A.? Two more stars from the Ball family, brothers Li Angelo and La Melo , are on the way to Westwood. And the weather is beautiful in Southern California, although Alford must endure the recurring storm front from Lonzo’s father, La Var, who most recently went insult-to-insult with Charles Barkley. A friend who has talked to Alford says he thinks returning Indiana to national prominence appeals to the New Castle native. That doesn’t mean Alford is a lock to take the job or Indiana AD Fred Glass is certain to offer it. It just means Alford remains at or near the top of the candidates list. Just don’t expect an acknowledgment from Alford. So far, he’s avoided public declarations either way, a high-wire act that will grow more difficult if the ...

Steve Alford Noise Is Deafening, And Kind Of Dumb

... you all to exert your enormous influence at Indiana University to discourage and prevent the potential hiring of Steve Alford. … I base this plea not on Mr. Alford’s lackluster coaching record, but rather on his off-the-court record. …His transgressions at the University of Iowa are not fitting with our values and priorities as a university. And that noise, while ugly, isn’t even the Alford noise I was referencing earlier. It’s the noise that started before Tom Crean was fired , noise originating from a sports website covering New Mexico — Alford coached at New Mexico from 2007-13; probably a coincidence —  aggressively (and misleadingly) linking Crean to Missouri. • INSIDER: A sleeping giant, will IU return to national stage. Since Glass fired Crean on Thursday, Alford has emerged as the hottest IU candidate. Glass fueled that by listing three candidate criteria, criteria that fit Alford and very few others, and saying all three factors ...

Steve Alford End Practice With Half-court Shot

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The Other Indiana Star Who Disappeared

... 94 percent from the foul line as a senior, Steve was on his way to bigger things at IU. There was the Olympic gold medal in 1984, on a team coached by Bob Knight. Then there was the national title in ’87. And in between, late in the summer of ’86, there was one more legendary Alford moment in the Fieldhouse. He was shooting. Tanya was rebounding. Steve swished his last shot and hung the net, then made up some lame excuse why he couldn’t get it down. He brought out a ladder and asked Tanya to climb it and fix the net. On the heel of the rim was a diamond ring. Where else would the two get engaged. “It was romantic to us,” Tanya said, “if basketball was involved.”. Among the throngs who packed those wooden Fieldhouse bleachers to see Steve Alford shoot was young Brandon Miller. His babysitter had become a hero. The Alford and Miller families were basically intertwined, starting with the patriarchs sharing a coaching office at New Castle High. Tanya remembers that one of her first dates with ...