Did you know I still write about sports?

Me neither. Another bout of laziness. Anyway, I got a not from one of my most loyal readers, Anonymous, about the upcoming slaughter at the Rose Bowl. Specifically, he asks about this item about Pete Carroll deciding to go with U$C's red jerseys this weekend, an NCAA no-no.

I doubt I have to explain it, but the short version is that when both teams played at the Coliseum, UCLA and U$C used to wear their colors (home uniforms), since they were really both at their home stadium. Sometime thereafter, the NCAA passed a rule that says one team must wear white under penalty of one timeout per half.

Over the years, the idea of having both UCLA and U$C wear their home jerseys has been discussed, but nobody ever wanted to go through with it. There was talk of the actual home team burning a timeout per half to even things up, but it never came to pass.

But the era of two teams in home jerseys is back. Carroll will bring the trojans out in their red unis. The NCAA has since caved (a bit), and will now penalize the visiting team only one time out. Rick Neuheisel has announced that he'll use a timeout early in the first half to level the playing field. And

Really, they could probably take away all of U$C's time-outs and give UCLA about 15 per half and it wouldn't make a difference. As long as your offense scores 28 points for the other team, it probably doesn't matter how many time-outs you have, or how many your opponent doesn't have. I know the game from a few years ago should give me hope, but I just can't see the Bruins being competitive on Saturday (and no, the basketball team doesn't play on Saturday). And is this case of Pete Carroll saying "we don't need time-outs to beat UCLA"? Sure it is. But he's kind of a dick, so it's not surprising. That doesn't mean that he isn't right.

Personally, I think it's dumb rule. Who cares if one team is wearing white? Sure, it's a problem if two teams have similar colors, but just make a rule that says a team has to wear an alternate color when they share a primary color with the home team. There's really nothing holding this rule in place aside from the NCAA not wanting to spend time granting schools waivers. A couple years ago, Illinois wore their orange basketball jerseys at the Hall against Wisconsin, and with the small, not so great T.V.s at the Parkway (R.I.P. - man, that was a great bar) it was hard to tell the teams apart. So just don't let them do that when the colors are similar. Problem solved.

I think under different circumstances, it would be fun. Unfortunately, I don't this game will be very fun.

UCLA 56; U$C 46

It was an ugly game, and a really ugly final five or six minutes of offense for the Bruins, but on defense, it was a thing of beauty. Yes, the thugs shot 46.5%, but the trojans were one and done virtually all night, collecting only five offensive rebounds. Of course, that was when they weren't none and done. UCLA forced 22 turnovers, against nine of their own. T.O. O.J. Mayo had almost half of those by himself. When you grab eight more rebounds, and force 13 more turnovers, most of the time you're going to win the game, even on a night where shots and free throws aren't falling.

As for Mayo, Westbrook simply dominated him on defense. He finished the game with four points on 2-8 shooting. Darren Collison added 14 points of his own while applying excellent pressure to Angelo Johnson. It was a different Darren Collison than the one we saw in Seattle.

I'll admit, I'm a little confounded that Ben Howland didn't try to pound the ball into the post a lot more, especially after Taj Gibson picked up his third foul. Floyd showed that nothing short of a gunshot wound (it *is* South Central) or disqualification was going to keep Gibson out of the game, so I really expected UCLA to go inside in attempt to get Gibson his fourth foul. $C only got eight minutes from their bench, and those came after Davon "I hope they bring it" Jefferson picked up his second foul.

On the outside, both teams were awful, combining to go 4-21 from beyond the arc. Kevin Love hit the only two three pointers for the Bruins. Josh Shipp's shooting woes continued as he finished just 2-7, 0-2 from long range. But what they lacked from the outside, they made up for with very strong interior defense, and the aforementioned rebounding edge. It can't be any clearer at this point that the Bruins are a different team with LRMAM in the lineup than they are without him. Without him, they are a good team. With him, they are a great team. Coming off a bad ankle sprain, he put up 10 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and blocked a shot. They need him healthy for the tournament.

This is not one that will be featured on any classic games telecast, but the Bruins got a much needed win, and now have only one road trip remaining. They are once again in the driver's seat for the conference championship.

Pathetic

UCLA loses to a bunch of kids who can run and jump, but can't think their way out of a paper bag, which is why they've ended up at Thug Central. Note to the Bruins: The other team just isn't going to quit when you take the lead.

This is the most embarrassing loss of the Howland era. There is no excuse for crap performance that the Bruins put on the floor today.

And not to pin the blame on one player, but Russell Westbrook played BY FAR the worst game of his season. He's ahead of schedule, so a game like this was due, but he was flat out awful. Balls going off his feet, an inability to maintain possession, shots that barely cleared the rim at their highest point, and he's clearly fallen in love with the highlight reel, as his botched dunk demonstrated. 2-11, 0 three pointers, and fortunately ESPN's box score doesn't list his many turnovers yet. And as well as he did on defense in the first half, his man still ended up with 16 points.

You have to feel bad for Kevin Love. He didn't shoot well, but he finished with 18 and 12, outplaying Mayo. But in the end, all that matters is that his team lost. You can say the same for Josh Shipp.

As for LRMAM, well, he apparently needs another off-season to work on his jump shot. And someone can add shot selection to his lessons.

I don't mean this to sound like a shot at Howland, but until a few years ago, this game would have been on Wednesday night. It would not have come after a week layoff. I don't know if the layoff had an effect, but in the past, it wouldn't have been an issue. It would have been midweek, and the Bruins would have been playing a non-conference game today. I love 99% of what Howland brings to UCLA, but I don't care for his scheduling, and I never have.

All you can do is hope they use this as a learning experience.

Thank God for Darren Collison

Is there any question now why UCLA lost against West Virginia? Aaron Afflalo had the bigger numbers last night (and take nothing away from Aaron, who played a very fine game), but Darren Collison was the difference in last night's 67-61 victory at Arizona State.

With 11 minutes to go, the Bruins trailed by 10 points. They had scored five points in the half to that point, both coming on jump shots by Michael Roll. UCLA got four points in one possession on a layup by Alfred Aboya --> foul --> missed free throw --> offensive rebound --> dunk by Josh Shipp. That started an 18-2 Bruins run, and directly preceded 11 straight points from Collison, including three 3-pointers. After an Afflalo three pointer capped the run, putting the Bruins up by six, it became a free throw fest for UCLA, and they got the job done at the line to preserve the victory.

Collison's 18 points were a career high, but the difference in the game was the lift he gave the Bruins during that run. One of those threes came as the shot clock expired, and it gave the Bruins the lead. What could have been, SHOULD have been a fruitless possession, turned into a three point lead, and the Bruins never looked back.

Josh Shipp was disappointing, and it's becoming a trend. His only field goal was the dunk, although he did hit some big free throws down the stretch, and added 6 assists. But he was 1-5 from the field, with three rebounds and four turnovers. Maybe he's not completely healthy. Maybe his hip is bothering him. But he needs to step up. I hope he wasn't just looking past this game. If he can't get up for a game against his brother, that's not a good sign.

Still, the Bruins got back on the winning track. ASU is not very good, but they aren't awful, despite their winless Pac 10 season to this point. The Pac 10 is very good, and they've lost a ton of very close games. But the Bruins are going to need to play much better to beat an Arizona team that's much better than it has shown this season. And with the season they've had, nothing would lift their spirits more than a win over UCLA. Coming off their loss to U$C, they're going to be very hungry.

U$C 65; UCLA 70

We've seen this all season. UCLA's opponent starts fast, but the methodical Bruins cut into the lead, keep the game close, survive a couple of spurts and win the game, which was kept close by a flurry of three pointers from the women of troy. South Central actually played a very a good game, and both Gabe Pruitt and Nick Young are terrific players, but at Pauley, a short bench just isn't going to be enough to beat UCLA.

I'm usually fairly quick to call out the officials when UCLA or Illinois loses a close game, but the fact is that home cooking is as much a part of college basketball as zone defense and undershirts. It's always been that way, and it's something that the road team has to deal with. That said, there was a large discrepancy from the free throw line, and UCLA took advantage of it, shooting over 77% at the charity stripe. If I were a trojans fan, I'd be upset about two calls in particular:

1. The technical foul on Lodrick Stewart: I think the refereee misinterpreted the outburst. I don't think Stewart was upset with the foul called on Shipp's layup (which wasn't called on him). But the fact is that it's virtually an automatic call when you slam the ball into the floor and don't catch it on the bounce. It wasn't a smart play, and I think if he had it do again, he'd clearly contain himself. It turned into a five point play and was probably the difference in the game.
   
2. The intentional foul call in the final minute: They may be upset about that call, but for once, the officials got it exactly right. I rewound and watched that play a few times, and Alfred Aboya spends about 20 seconds covering about 150 yards in the front court, running in circles away from defenders until he finally had his jersey yanked. I kind of hoped he'd run into the back court just to see if one of the $C would have chased after him.

Late in the game, there was an inbounds play where $C was going to foul right away. Tim Floyd was about 10 feet out onto the floor in the corner where UCLA was inbounding the ball. He seems to spend a lot of time on the court. I was kind of hoping that the player inbounding the ball would throw it at him, not to inflict pain or anything, but just because I want to see what would be called. It would have to be a technical, right?

Anyway, the player of the game for the Bruins was pretty clearly Darren Collison, who poured in a career high 17 points. The numbers don't tell the entire story, particularly the two assists against six turnovers, which admittedly looks pretty bad. But he was the only Bruin who was able to penetrate, and he did so for a couple of layups. On the defensive end, I thought LRMAM played an excellent game, in addition to collecting another double-double (11 points and 10 boards). Alfred Aboya had a nice 20 minutes as well, going 4-4 from the floor. And finally, Russel Westbrook gave the Bruins a nice lift early in the game when they were struggling against the zone. He was able to penetrate once for a short jumper, and again on a play that led to an easy Aboya layup.

The Bruins aren't going to win many games in which they make only two of seventeen three pointers, but the good thing is that there aren't going to be too many games where they shoot threes that poorly. This was not a textbook performance. They essentially partly because of their defense, and partly because of their ability to get to the line and make their free throws. But the mark of a good team is the ability to win games when they aren't at their best, and the Bruins proved last night that they have that ability.

Tough road trip on tap for next week coming off Saturday's game at West Virginia (which I may not get on TV). They had to McKale to play Arizona, who is looking for a big win coming off a series of losses. And they can't overlook Arizona State, who isn't very good, but gave Washington State all they could handle last week. A sweep in the desert should solidify their position at the top of the standings.