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SoCalHoops College Recruiting News

A Look At UCSB Recruiting
From The SB News-Press--(July 8, 1998)

Saturday's edition of the Santa Barbara "Coastline" News-Press carried a great story on new UCSB coach Bob Williams and who he's been recruiting. The article, by staff writer Mark Patton, features a great take from Williams' perspective on his returning players, the recruiting process, which events he'll be attending, and a bit of reminicing about the "glory days" when Jerry Pimm was the king, and UCSB was getting the same recruits as the top Pac-10 schools. It's a revealing article, and for once, at least there's some news about Santa Barbara. Nice to see it after about a six month drought. Anyway, because the article will not be archived (at least that's our experience at the News-Press), here it is (with appropriate attribution, verbatim--remember "fair use"--this is commentary after all.

Williams Hits The Western Trail

New UCSB coach will spend three weeks in Western States
looking for players to turn around sagging basketball program.
7/8/98
By MARK PATTON
NEWS-PRESS SPORTS EDITOR

Bob Williams just couldn't resist the majestic view from his new vantage point as a college basketball coach. He kept sneaking a glance out the restaurant window which framed a sparkling blue ocean, lapping up nearby to the threshold of his new workplace, as he discussed rebuilding the men's program at UCSB.``When I was an assistant at Pepperdine,'' Williams said with a smile, ``it wasn't too unappealing for Bob Hawking and myself to get into the car and drive up to scout a game and hang out in Santa Barbara for an hour or two. I thought the environment was incredible."

As he talked, he knew that it was going to be his last look for quite awhile. Starting today, the 44-year-old Williams begins a three-week odyssey, scouring the western United States for players that can turn around a program which has somehow gotten lost in paradise.

The journey to scout next year's high school senior class begins Thursday and Friday at the first of two Pump Brothers Tournaments in Los Angeles. Then it's off to Dallas for this weekend's All-American Shootout. The July itinerary for Williams and assistant coaches Jon Wheeler and Marty Wilson also includes stops in Tulsa, Las Vegas, Tempe, San Bruno, Pleasant Hill and San Diego (Superstars Camp).``We're going to be out everyday until the 31st,'' said Williams, who took over at UCSB just 10 weeks ago for longtime Gaucho coach Jerry Pimm.

He knows it'll be a crucial month for a program which is stuck on the treadmill of five straight losing seasons.``Without a doubt, the priority of this program has to be big kids,'' Williams said. ``We'll have only two post players in this program after next year. We need to sign a minimum of two and ideally three big kids by next year."

The good news, he said, is that it's a good year to be recruiting mountain men - at least on this side of the Rockies.``When you look at the West, there are a lot of young big kids, from Seattle down through Oregon and California,'' he said. ``There are a couple of kids in Arizona, too.``Right now, that's all we're talking to. We're really, actively pursuing young, big guys. If we recruit three post players, I'd guess that one of them would probably be a JC guy."

Williams doesn't think the string of five losing seasons is going to choke off the interest of recruits.``This is the best job in the Big West Conference - for its academics, for a place to live, for its facility, for its community,'' he noted. ``For what I believe in and what I think I can create here, this is the best job to have in this league.``If it's at the lower echelons of the league, that's just a greater opportunity for us to turn it around and get it where Coach Pimm had it eight years ago."

Williams got a taste of the Gaucho glory days during the late 1980s and early 1990s when he served as an assistant to Tom Asbury at Pepperdine. He often scouted games at UCSB, since the bulk of the Gauchos' preseason schedule was against his West Coast Conference rivals.``The way Santa Barbara was at that time, and what Jerry Pimm had created, was pretty much the envy of everybody with the exception of Vegas,'' he pointed out. ``You talk to Bob Thomason at UOP, he wanted to have it like Jerry. You talk to other coaches, and they felt the same way.``During the two years that I was at Pepperdine, the only two schools which ended up on the same recruits as the Pac-10, Big-10 or WAC were Pepperdine and UC Santa Barbara."

Williams, who is coming off an NCAA Division 2 championship at UC Davis, doesn't think that Pimm left the cupboard bare, even though UCSB graduated one of the nation's leading scorers last year in 6-foot-4 guard Raymond Tutt.

He sees virtue in all six returning Gauchos as well as in several of the players that were signed by Pimm last year.``I'm really pleased with the guys who are in the program and how hard they worked the last two months of school,'' Williams pointed out.

He said he watched just enough of last year's game film to get a feel for the returnees.``I didn't want to watch too much film and prejudge kids when things obviously weren't at their best and draw too many conclusions from that,'' Williams said. ``I wanted to have a clean slate for everybody who's in the program."

Here is what he sees coming back:

B.J. Bunton, 6-7, senior - ``B.J. is a very talented, versatile, inside-outside combination player who I'd expect to become a dominant player in the program next year. He'll put the ball on the floor a little more and shoot the ball from the perimeter a little more in the way we play."

Josh Merrill, 6-9, senior - ``If Josh does what what Josh does best and has patience, he's going to get five open looks at 3's during games. He's going to get those opportunities the way we play. If he gets five good, open looks, he's a kid that should knock down two to three of them per game."

Chris Lynch, 6-5, sophomore - ``We're going to time his rear end in the 40 when he get backs here - he is a jet-quick athlete. He is a phenomenal leaper, too. He tested 39 inches in the vertical, with a step. He is a pretty good open shooter. With his long arms and quickness and athleticism, he could be a dominant guy in certain aspects of the game."

Brandon Payton, 6-0, sophomore - ``I'm pleasantly surprised with his willingness to be coached, his willingness to listen, his willingness to adapt to what we believe in. I'm pleasantly surprised with his athleticism and what I consider to be just natural instincts on the floor. He has some personality."

Mike Vukovich, 6-9, sophomore - ``His improvement during the spring was the most of anybody in the program. His running improved greatly, and his body has been showing tremendous signs of improvement in the weight room. I think Vuk is a legitimate post man in the Big West. He's going to be a guy who's tough to handle."

Tory Woodward, 6-1, sophomore - ``Tory's a guy that we're looking at a possible position change (from wing guard to point guard). I think he's a tenacious defender. I'm really impressed with how bright he is and how diligent he is in terms of being committed to his academics and committed to his workouts."

Williams still has to form opinions on several of next year's newcomers, although he did land two late spring recruits himself - 6-1 point guard Larry Bell, a lightning-quick defender from state JC champion Compton College, and 6-6 forward Mark Hull, a long-range bomber from Glendale Hoover High.

He has gotten glowing reports about 6-5 forward Eric Hare, a Charles Barkley-like freshman who averaged 24.1 points and 12.5 rebounds for a successful McKinney, Texas high school team.

Williams also hopes to land a talented transfer or two.``When you get it rolling here, with this environment, I think this would be a place that could attract transfers,'' he said. ``We have to get lucky here, like Jerry got lucky getting Brian Shaw."

Shaw, who transferred to UCSB in 1986 after becoming disenchanted with St. Mary's, led the Gauchos to the NCAA Tournament in 1988 and is still playing in the NBA. One reporter described him as ``the genie in the bottle who washed up on the shore at UCSB."

On the eve of his first recruiting venture for the Gauchos, Bob Williams looked out a window to that same shoreline and said, ``It's like how Bob Thomason got lucky with Michael Olowokandi at Pacific ... The question is, who am I going to get lucky with?''