Weekly Answers, Pt. 7

1) What is the blue sleeve that Dragovic wears on his shooting arm? What does it do? - Anonymous
It's called a shooting sleeve, and it's supposedly to help keep the arm warm and keep the form tight. Clearly, it has mixed results.

2) My understanding is that Howland has never used a zone defense prior to this season. Is Howland teaching the players how to do a zone defense, or is someone else in charge of that? - Anonymous
He dabbled with it earlier in his career, but this is the first time he's using it so extensively. He knows basketball defense, and he's the one teaching it.

3) Obviously, fans are curious about the recruitng game this time of year and readers of the blog "expect" you to have some inside knowledge on pending commitments. Given, all your other DN responsibilities, how challenging is it to make inroads with parents, recruits, coaches, etc.? - Jon
I've gotten to know some of the kids quite well, but others have simply been impossible to get a hold of. Ask spedjones. With a year under my belt, I expect to build relationships sooner, and hopefully it pays off.

4) Where do you recommend we look for UCLA baseball news? Is there a site out there that does a good job covering it besides the official site?
One good way is to follow Ryan Rosenblatt on Twitter - it's an official feed, but solid UCLA baseball information.

5) First of all, great coverage of UCLA FB recruiting! Just to let you know, I check this site 20-30 times a day hoping for the latest buzz. This is turning out to be an exciting recruiting year so many, many thanks for all the countless hours you have given to my information addiction on UCLA. My question is about your thoughts on CRN selling UCLA. Not many have brought this up, but last year CRN talked about a group of recruits collectively and consciously coming together to build a new foundation for a program. He said this happened for USC in 2003/2004. Lets suppose we land 4-5 big names like Zumwalt, Riley, Heimuli, Owa, etc in the next couple of days. Do you think the same collective new foundation is being formed at UCLA? Did they call each other up and say, "hey, looks like UCLA has a really strong class already..we can be the class that brings UCLA back to the national forefront if we all decide to go to be Bruins" - DieHardBruin
I think, as Scout's Brandon Huffman already told me, the seeds were planted over the last two years. But with the looks of this class, it appears to be shaping up to be UCLA's best in a while.