This one was over early, as the Bruins raced out to an 18-2 lead in roughly the first ten minutes and never looked back. It's not often that you say a game wasn't as close as a 21 point spread makes it appear, but honestly, that's the truth. It was complete and utter domination on both sides of the floor for the Bruins. Stout defense that frustrated the women of troy at every turn, and a very well run half court offense that created a lot of easy baskets. Good interior passing by the guards on penetration, and big men who could actually catch.
Farmar got the scoring rolling with three early three pointers, and although he struggled somewhat after that, it really didn't matter. Aaron Afflalo added a very quiet 11 points. LRMAM, who is cementing his status as the jewel of this freshman class, led the team again with seven rebounds to go along with his ten points, two coming on a very impressive tip jam of a Alfred Aboya miss (who drove to the basket on the play, which led me to realize that when he drives from the perimeter, he gets to the hoop in a hurry). By far the relative best line of the night, however, belonged to Ryan Hollins, who added 9 points and 3 rebounds in 21 minutes. He was active, and at least two of those rebounds were on the offensive end. He also had a big blocked shot and a couple of dunks. He still has awful hands, but if he can contribute, that's a huge lift considering all of the injuries.
Pac-10 official watch: They blew at least 2 blatant out of bounds call, the first coming in the opening minutes when it was pretty clear to everyone who has ever watched basketball that it went out off of a U$C guy. Also, apparently there's a new rule that when you're down by 25, you get an extra two seconds in the lane, as the trojans twice scored points only after the shooter had enjoyed some smores, put out the fire, taken down the tent, packed up the truck, and left the campsite. Not that it mattered. I just marvel at how incompetent Pac 10 officiating has been this year (and seemingly every year, as the Chronicler will point out).
Big tilt with West Virginia this weekend. It would really help in the tournament seeding process, and serve notice to those on the East Coast that they still play basketball in Westwood.
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2 comments:
I was actually at this game, and there were a number of sketchy calls -- when you're actually there you can really see how often the refs seem to not have a clue. Not only are some of the calls baffling, but the whistle often comes in late, as though the refs are waiting to see if someone makes a shot before deciding whether or not they were fouled.
But that wasn't the story of the game; this was a terrific team victory all-around, with no real standouts for most of the game, but a dominating team effort. I was quite impressed by Hollins hustle and effort; something has really gotten into him since he missed all that time.
A few comic moments: at one point, the U$C cheerleaders came onto the court at the wrong timeout, and found themselves dancing to the UCLA band. I actually see why they were confused, as a team called a timeout very close to where the TV timeout was going to happen, and the $C "dance" team was likely scheduled to perform during the TV timeout. Still, it was high comedy.
The other great moment was the genius of Tim Floyd in arguing against a good call, kicking the basketball away from the refs, and then kicking paper at the refs. He probably could have been served with two or three technicals and an ejection for his tantrum, and somewhat lucked out to only get whistled for one. Maybe he was trying to fire his team up ... or maybe he has that little control over his emotions.
There were more bad calls than I mentioned, but I forgot a few since I didn't write this up until this morning. Next time I may keep a pad and paper at my side.
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