The Real UCLA Shows Up - Final Four x3

I don't fancy myself a great prognosticator. Anyone who read my NCAA Tournament predictions knows that's not true, but I would like to point out that after the WKU game, I wrote:

There's nothing about the recent play of either team that should make me feel confident about tomorrow's matchup with Xavier. That said, I think the Bruins will win, and while it won't be said and done until near the end, I don't think it will take overtime or a buzzer beater. It just has the makings of one of those games where everyone is convinced that Xavier is is going to really take it to UCLA, and the Bruins won't be able to respond, but when teams actually take the floor, the cream rises to the top. Get ready for all of the pundits to pick the upset. Those guys are usually wrong.

I'd say that was pretty spot on. That said, here are my thoughts:

• People thought Texas A&M would be a wake up call. It wasn't. Texas A&M is a good team, and they gave UCLA all they could handle because they were solid and unafraid. The wake up call was the second half against Western Kentucky. And I can almost guarantee you that Ben Howland reminded them how easily a game can get away when you don't give everything you have.
• Where are all the folks who say that UCLA gets all the calls? I wonder if they actually watched the last game. The officials were terrible. They called a very tight game on one end of the floor. Not that they let Xavier get away with murder, but they called so many non-fouls on UCLA that it was really embarrassing. In one sequence, they called what was a clear charge taken by Aboya a block, and shortly thereafter, they didn't call an obvious trip on what should have been a lay up by Russel Westbrook.
• Speaking of Westbrook, someone needs to tell him that there's no rule saying that when you break a full court press, you have to go right to the basket. Teams play the press hoping to create turnovers, but the real goal is to speed up the game, to force quick shots, and to get you into their tempo. The way you beat that, if you're UCLA, is to get the ball into the front court and slow it down. Run the clock. Alter the tempo. I said this the other day, but we're talking about UCLA. They should be able to force teams to play at THEIR pace.
  
• Xavier lost to Arizona State this year in Phoenix. In fact, they got hammered. Maybe they just got scared of the Sundevil on the court in tonight's game.
  
• Once again, Josh Shipp underwhelmed on the scoreboard, but I thought he played an excellent game. Had two blocks, a big assist, played excellent defense, and made great decisions. He passed up some threes, not because he was tentative, but because he knew that controlling the pace and the clock was in UCLA's best interests at those times. It's a cliché, but he really did do ALL the little things.
  
• Luc's ankle looked pretty good to me. 13 points, 13 boards, 3 assists, 3 steals!, some big baskets at big times, including a tough shot with about 8 minutes to go when Xavier was within 15 and just scored on their last possession.
• Raftery and Lundquist mentioned that only UCLA's starters were scoring. They did it a few times. And James Keefe clearly didn't have the game he had against WKU. But the other night, I mentioned that UCLA beat Texas A&M with two, maybe two and a half players. Tonight all five starters were on the scoreboard in the first six minutes. Love, LRMAM, Collison, and Westbrook combined for 68 points, against what is regarded as a very fine defensive team. You don't need bench production when you can get that out of your starters. You need some minutes, and some defense, but I'm fine with the starters dominating the scoreboard if they can put up those numbers.
• Mike Roll has a chance to be a member of five final four teams.
  
• This was, in my opinion, under the circumstances, the finest performance of the season by the Bruins. They led every statistical category. Xavier stayed within shouting distance for a bit, and there was as surge of momentum when they pulled to within 12, but they never really let the game get into doubt in the second half.
• Love was CBS's player of the game, but Collison was mine. 19 points, five assists, and three for three from three. Quite a comeback after what happened Thursday night. He was the difference maker tonight.
• Memphis or Texas? Don't care right now. But keep this in mind. UCLA has three losses this year. They can look back and say that two were avenged (OK, so they avenged the Washington loss before they lost to them), but if they face Texas, they'll have a chance to say they've beaten every single team they played this year. But I think they have a better shot to win against Memphis (who I think will lose anyway).
• It's nice to know that college basketball matters for another week.
  

UCLA Dominates, Chokes, Recovers, Against WKU

Well, that was a little too close for comfort if you ask me. But like I did for the last game, I'll just bullet out my thoughts. Keep in mind that I watched the first half in a bar, and that they turned the game off in the second half except on a couple of small TVs, after which I walked the (literally) 250 feet from the bar to my apartment to watch the rest. It was during this time that WKU started their run:

• Do not overlook the importance of free throws in this win. UCLA shot a 74.3% for the game, but they really nutted up in the clutch, hitting 12 of their final 14 to salt the game away. They way Brazelton was canning threes, they needed every one of those. Special congratulations to Russel Westbrook, who has been a little spotty from the line this year, but hit seven of eight last night, and was 6 for 6 in the final 1:11 of the game.
• Obviously the big stories of the game were the huge night for Kevin Love and the surprising performance from James Keefe. People forget, or are unaware, that Keefe was a McDonald's All American. I think he's struggled fitting in on the Bruins for the last two years, but the guy is a good basketball player, and he's really benefiting from the increase in playing time. He just looks more comfortable in the rotation, and last night he really emerged. That said, I don't expect another game like that from him in this tournament, but hopefully they won't need one. More than anything, it gives me a little more comfort with regard to next season, when Love likely won't be around. They'll be solid on the perimeter, and after last night's explosion, I think they'll be alright on the interior as well.
• I also don't expect another performance like last night out of Darren Collison. It's funny, but I didn't see or hear much "UCLA gets all the calls" smack last night. Maybe in some parallel universe, Collison actually touched the guy on that fifth foul.
• I'm not overly concerned about this game "exposing" the Bruins, or giving Xavier a roadmap to victory tomorrow night. I don't think UCLA's problem was with full court press, although that's going to be the dominant narrative. The problem is that they built a big lead, came out unfocused in the second half, started making mistakes, and couldn't get their heads back in the game. They let WKU speed them up, and they had a tough time re-grabbing the reins.
  
• To add to the point above, I think that a big flaw in the way they played wasn't so much the press per se, but rather the fact that they allowed WKU to set the tempo. The talk before the game was that WKU will speed things up, and the game will be fast paced, etc. But there are two sides of that coin. UCLA likes a slower style, and what they didn't do was force THEIR pace. This is UCLA, a number one seed. They should not allow their opponent to dictate the tempo. When you're UCLA, and especially a Bruins team that is this good, you need to make your opponent adjust to you, not the other way around.
• When Joe Shipp was at Cal, he always seemed like one of those enigma type players to me. He wasn't a speedy ball-handling point guard. He wasn't a three point gunner. He wasn't a high flying dunker. What he was was a scorer. He didn't do anything great, but he did a lot of things well, and at the end of the game, he'd have 15-20 points. That's the way Josh Shipp plays when he's at his best. Somewhere along the line, he convinced himself he was a spot up shooter, and I think that's contributed to his slump this year. But in the later part of the first half last night, he slashed to the basket twice for layups. I don't know if they made a difference in his confidence, but his circus shot at the end of the game was huge. He just needs to convince himself that there are shot worth taking from closer than 20 feet.
• Come to think of it, that's two circus shots he's hit with a clock expiring (either game or 35 second). Perhaps he's been TOO open during his slump. In other words, he's not shooting unless he's got a perfect opportunity, which unfortunately includes time to think about missing. I'm not saying he should take more contested shots. I'm saying that he probably shoots better when he doesn't have time to think about it, or more importantly, just isn't thinking. Shooting isn't a cerebral exercise. It's feel and mechanics. To paraphrase Crash Davis, don't think, just shoot.
  
• There's nothing about the recent play of either team that should make me feel confident about tomorrow's matchup with Xavier. That said, I think the Bruins will win, and while it won't be said and done until near the end, I don't think it will take overtime or a buzzer beater. It just has the makings of one of those games where everyone is convinced that Xavier is is going to really take it to UCLA, and the Bruins won't be able to respond, but when teams actually take the floor, the cream rises to the top. Get ready for all of the pundits to pick the upset. Those guys are usually wrong.
  

In Agreement with the Chronicler

I pretty much agree with all of this. And that goes for the basketball posts as well.

But, at this point, I've been doing this for the Vlad Era, and this many years into it, I think I'm pretty much out of things to say. Rally Monkey's better than I am on the stats stuff, Rob has the minor leagues covered with his daily updates, and I can always count on Seitz to criticize John Lackey's pitch selection or the umpires or whatever. Not to mention that Halos Heaven is about as thriving an online fan community can be. I think my capacity to share with my readership something new, and my devotion and energy to finding new things to share, is at a nadir. And the Halosphere has me covered -- I'm sure my twenty or so readers will manage.

Who knows, in two or three weeks, with the season in full swing, maybe something will occur to me. Maybe I'll end up doing one piece per month or something. If you have me in your blog reader, keep me there. If you don't have me in it, well, then you probably aren't reading this anyway. If you don't have a blog reader, you should start using one, they're really convenient.

Writing has been sporadic primarily because the few people that read this site come from either Bruins Nation or Angels sites, primarily Halos Heaven. And as those sites are updated much more frequently and have larger communities, most of what I could find myself saying has already been said, and at a place or places where the people that read this site have already been or will soon be going. That's part of the reason there have been more music posts. This is a pretty self indulgent exercise to begin with, and I'm not really out there soliciting traffic, though it's nice to know people stop by.

That said, I assume that once the season starts, blogging will pick up more regularly. As the Chronicler noted, writing's only kind of fun when you have something to say. And most of what I write is based on what I see. Take for instance the post below on the UCLA game. Those are observations, some of which have since been covered multiple places, but they were thoughts fresh in my head based on what I had witnessed, and hopefully there was something there that someone enjoyed, or hadn't thought of in quite the same way. I'm not really a stat guy, so I'm not going to do any in depth analysis in that regard. When the games start up, and I start seeing more stuff, I'll start writing about more stuff.

That said, I will be writing more about the Kings next year, but probably not here. It's an opportunity to write for someone else's site, and I'll have more on that as the day approaches. That's of course in addition to the sporadic "Song of the Day" stuff I've had over at the Bulls' place.

UCLA over Texas A&M - Quick Thoughts

Instead of an extended post, I'm going on about five or six beers right now, so I'll do a quick one and bullet point it.

• I'm not going to second guess Ben Howland. I've wondered about his time out strategy, his scheduling, and a bunch of other things since he came to UCLA, but I've gotta wonder if he wishes he had gotten LRMAM into the game for a five or ten minutes the other night, just to get some timing down. He looked very out of sorts tonight. He didn't look like he had ankle problems, but he struggled with decision making, and that led directly to a couple of charges.
  
• UCLA beat A&M with arguably two and a half players. Offensively, they got nothing from LRMAM or Shipp, and Westbrook didn't show up until the second half. A full Bruins team is unbeatable. We learned tonight that half a Bruins team is still damn good if it's the right half.
• If I had to guess, based on tonight's game alone, I would guess that Kevin Love is gone after this season. And I say that solely because of the way he played down the stretch. He simply refused to allow this to be his last college basketball game. He hit two shots in the waning minutes that he normally wouldn't take. But ask yourself, would you have rather had him taking a bad shot than Shipp taking a good shot? He was not going to miss.
• He's got two more final fours than the other two, but Darren Collison has finally been admitted to the fraternity of Bruin guards that include, from my own personal era, Tyus Edney and Cameron Dollar. Admission requires a game deciding basket for a high seeded team in the final ten seconds. And honestly, the shot was almost identical to Dollar's, plus about seven seconds.
  
• I just saw the commercial for the new movie 21. For those wondering, the song in the commercial is Spoon's "My Mathematical Mind", which I suppose is somewhat appropriate.
• If the Bruins go on to win the championship, Lorenzo Mata-Real can forever tell people that he hit a 17 foot jumper that was, mathematically, the difference in them moving on.
  
• Did Kevin Love have seven blocks all season going into this game?
• I run hot and cold on Jay Bilas. I like him as a color guy, not as much as an analyst. He's incredibly misguided on the subjects of Tommy Amaker and Eric Gordon, but I like what he brings to the sideline, and he works well with Enberg. And his "OH!!" on Collison's game winner was eerily similar to his "OH!!" on Deron Williams' game tying three against Arizona in 2005.
• UCLA has a reputation, as we all know, for being a boring team to watch, because of their great defense. But had I not just checked, I would never have known that TAM went over eight and half minutes near the end of the game (for 10:09 to 1:19) with one point. For some reason, I thought the game was still pretty exciting.
• A friend of mine texted me to tell me that the next game should be easy. That's what Drake and UConn thought. But as long as we're talking about USD, remember when the Bruins had a coach that would lose to USD? I credit their success to the $150 dollars I gave to them in exchange for nothing more than another two months to decide where to go to law school.
• Call them the cardiac kids if you must, and no one wants to see the Bruins get behind and be forced to come back, but you have to think that the comebacks over the last three weeks helped the Bruins remain calm in the second half. Of course, they didn't help ME remain calm, but I'm not out there playing, which is good, because I suck.
• Digger Phelps just talked about Jordan Hill playing for Stanford. Digger Phelps is an idiot.
• With the upsets in the bracket, there's no reason the Bruins shouldn't get to at least the final four again. It's all on them now.
  
• Three Pac 10 teams in the sweet 16 is good, but not great. Not like 1997. We need all three to get to the next round. Let's get it done, Wazzu. Should be an interesting game. UNC's high powered offense against Wazzu's defense.
  
• On to Phoenix. It's only five hours away, folks. If you can get out there, go make the place feel like Pauley.
  

X at the Metro - A Quick Recap

So it's the 31st anniversary of the formation of one of the most influential punk bands ever, L.A.'s seminal X. I saw them a few years ago when they played the House of Blues. It was the first time I'd seen the original lineup, though I've seen John Doe play solo a few times and he usually throws a couple of X songs into his solo sets.

This was the fourth or fifth show of their current tour. They took the stage a little after 10:30 and played for about an hour and 15 minutes. I'll cop to never having seen their shows when they were actually producing new music (I was just a little kid), but the amount of energy they bring to their live shows can't have been much greater back then. They were a little sloppy at times, probably because they had such a long set list. It's easy to lose your place on the page when you've got 20 songs listed. Exene Cervenka chalked it up to being "new at this". But there's nothing more fun that watching Billy Zoom, wide stanced and almost motionless, standing there with a huge grin on his face while delivering some of the most complex guitar work found on any punk record. From Buddy Siegal in the OC Weekly:

Dave Alvin, the former Blasters' axe man who ultimately replaced Zoom, is a renowned guitar hotshot in his own right, but he soon learned that stepping into Zoom's cowboy boots was no easy task. "I was amazed when I had to actually sit down and learn 32 songs in two weeks," says Alvin. "How Billy Zoom put his parts together was amazing. For a three-piece band, his orchestration on guitar was really tremendous. They were almost mathematically perfect arrangements. Billy likes tinkering with machines and electronics, and in some ways, his guitar parts are put together like schematics. I'm more of a primitive. I lack that kind of technique, and Billy was very, very advanced. I learned a lot; my guitar playing improved a lot after I had to sit down and learn all of his parts. There's a part of me that's forever in his debt, from having my Billy Zoom guitar lessons. A lot of punk bands-a lot of any bands-don't have these kind of intelligent guitar parts. That guy is really good."

Decide for yourself in the samples below. Here's the incomplete and out of order setlist (they played at least six or seven more songs than this - probably closer to ten):

• Once Over Twice
• We're Desperate
• In This House That I Call Home
• White Girl
• Back to the Base
• Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not
• Johnny Hit and Run Paulene
• Soul Kitchen
• Nausea
• Los Angeles
• The New World
• True Love
• Hungry Wolf
• Motel Room in my Bed
• Because I Do
• Riding With Mary
• Blue Spark
• The Unheard Music

I was pretty stoked that they played Blue Spark. That's one of my favorite X songs, and they didn't play it the last time I saw them. Aside from that, you always expect to hear Hungry Wolf, Los Angeles, and White Girl, and they didn't disappoint last night. Here are those three (though the Hungry Wolf video is missing the beginning for some reason - also, give White Girl about a minute twenty before the song actually starts):

X - The Hungry Wolf

Sun Times Review

Tournament Picks

Upsets in red

Round One

East Region:

North Carolina over Mt. St. Mary's
Indiana over Arkansas
Notre Dame over George Mason
Wazzu over Winthrop
St. Joe's over Oklahoma
Louisville over Boise State
Butler over South Alabama
Tennessee over America

Midwest Region

Kansas over Portland State
UNLV over Kent State
Clemson over Villanova
Vandy over Sienna
U$C over Kansas State
Wisconsin over Fullteron
Davidson over Gonzaga
Georgetown over Maryland-Baltimore County

I know that Davidson is a popular upset, and that almost makes me want to pick Gonzaga, just because there's always a "lock" upset that doesn't come through, but Davidson is pretty good. They almost beat UCLA.

South Region

Memphis over UTA
Oregon over Mississippi State
State over Temple
Pitt over Oral Roberts
Kentucky over Marquette
Stanford over Cornell
St. Mary's over Miami
Texas over Austin Peay

West Region

UCLA over Miss. Valley State
BYU over Texas A&M
Drake over Western Kentucky
UCONN over USD
Purdue over Baylor
Xavier over Georgia
Arizona over West Virginia
Duke over Belmont

Round Two

East Region

UNC over Indiana
Wazzu over Notre Dame
Louisville over St. Joe's
Tennessee over Butler

No surprises here. The WSU-ND game should be good. The last time Notre Dame was a five seed, they made it to the sweet sixteen, but Tony Bennet isn't as dumb as Bill Self, so I think the Cougs will pull it out.

Midwest Region

Kansas over UNLV
Clemson over Vandy
U$C over Wiscy
Davidson over Georgetown

This bracket starts to get torn up. I like the athleticism of the women of troy, and if they can stay out of foul trouble, they'll handle Wisconsin. Davidson becomes my first major upset of the tournament.

South Region

Memphis over Oregon
MSU over Pitt
Stanford over Kentucky
Texas over St. Mary's

Again, no real surprises, other than perhaps MSU, but I'll give Izzo the benefit of the doubt come tourney time, especially with a senior point guard.

West Region

UCLA over BYU
Drake over UConn
Purdue over Xavier
Arizona over Duke

I love Arizona's talent if everyone is healthy. I think Jordan Hill can do some damage against an undersized middle. I look at Xavier and I still see the team that lost to ASU. I haven't seen Drake or UConn, but everyone's on Drake's jock, so why not?

Sweet 16

East Region

UNC over Wazzu
Tennessee over Louisville

Nothing to see here.

Midwest Region

KU over Clemson
U$C over Davidson

Troy gets a break after Davidson's upset of Georgetown.

South Region

Michigan State over Memphis
Texas over Stanford

Interior defense and rebounding are MSU staples, and Memphis will be doing a lot of "kicking out" when their drives end up in the trees. They start missing threes, go one and done, and they won't help themselves at the free throw line. In the other matchup, I like Stanford a lot, but I think Darren Collison exposed Mitch Johnson's defense. DJ Augustin will get to the middle and create havoc, and if he can kick it out to open Damion James, Stanford is in for a long night, especially in what will be a home game for Texas.

West Region

UCLA over Drake
Arizona over Purdue

Like U$C, Arizona gets a big of a break by missing Xavier. I really don't like Arizona. I especially don't like Arizona fans. But I think they have the type of talent that can take them on a run.

Elite Eight

East Region

Tennessee over North Carolina

A running, pressing, shooting team, not unlike Clemson who coincidentally gave UNC a lot of problems in their three matchups this year. The difference is that Tennessee does all those things better than Clemson. The Vols move on to San Antonio.

Midwest Region

Kansas over U$C

In a battle of two teams that I hate, it's unfortunate that both can't lose. But Kansas' depth will be too much for the latex-thin Trojans.

South Region

Texas over Michigan State

Texas has too much, and playing in Houston, they'll ride the home court to San Antonio.

West Region

UCLA over Arizona

Scary game for UCLA, and I'm really tempted to pick against them here. The Cats scare me almost more than any team in this bracket because of the location of the game. But the Bruins have already beat Arizona in Tucson, and things won't get any easier for the Cats in Phoenix. The streak goes to eight.

Final Four

Tennessee over Kansas

Again, I can't think of two coaches I'd like to see lose more than these two. But unfortunately, the rules say someone has to win. Depth and balance should do the trick for Kansas. But as much I hate lying scumbag Bruce Pearl, he's a better coach than Bill Self. Self will somehow find a way to lose.

UCLA over Texas

Darren Collison is healthy. He wasn't back in December. And he's on a mission. Since that Texas game, only his second game back, after missing the first six, he's hit 53% of his three pointers. He will not let UCLA lose.

Championship Game

UCLA over Tennessee.

The Bruins ability to control the tempo will frustrate Tennessee, and their relentless ball pressure on the defensive end will lead to some easy baskets for the Bruins. It will be an interesting contrast in styles, but Kevin Love is going to be too much for Tennessee inside, and that will be the difference.

NCAA Tourney First Thoughts

• UCLA has a nice path to the championship, and based on that, they should be the favorite. None of the teams in their bracket scare me.
  
• ASU got dicked. This is what happens when the committee places too much emphasis on schedule and not enough on results. They are simply a better team than Arizona. They proved it over the course of the Pac 10 season, and twice on the court.
• Part of the problem for ASU was, as always, conference tournaments, which I hate. Why play a regular season if you're just going to award the automatic bid to someone who has a hot weekend? Illinois had no business playing for a shot at the tourney. Neither did Georgia, who probably kept ASU out.
  
• No quarrel with the number one seeds.
• Picks will come later this week, but right now I don't like the draw for Stanford, and I like the draw for Tennessee. I think they'll beat North Carolina. They're like Clemson, who UNC struggled with, but better.
  

Berkeley Game Follow Up

First on the Ryan Anderson play, this is from The California Golden Blogs, referring to the video posted in the previous entry:

We here at the California Golden Blogs do the dirty work you don’t have to. We watched this video. Over and over and over again. Hoping to see those damnable Bruins hogtie up Anderson and roll the ball out of bounds as the refs received millions of dollars in cash money from Bill Walton. Hoping to see something. Anything.

Well……………….and this is not what the Cal fans are not going to want to hear, but it actually looks clean. I know I know! The refs. Screwed Cal. No hope. Braun not at fault.

It goes down like this. Player #0, Russell Westbrook, comes towards Anderson from behind. He drapes his left hand over the back of Anderson. However, this is done with the gentlest of care, as if Westbrook and Anderson were in a committed monogamous relationship. Then, Westbrook slaps vertically down upon the ball and it looks like ONLY the ball. Then, Anderson falls to the ground as the ball bounces off his knee.

Now, here is where it gets a bit tricky. Even though its in slo mo and HD, it is tough to make out what happens next exactly. Westbrook clearly bounces the ball once, trying to recover it. It looks like Anderson then punches the ball out of bounds as he falls forward. I cannot tell if Westbrook in any way touches the ball also at this point. Another Bruins player comes over, but it does not appear as if he touches the ball. I have watched that section of the video innumerable times in both the side and front angle, but it is still a bit unclear. If you stuck a gun to my head and asked my opinion, I’d have to say that it looks like Anderson was the last player to touch the ball.

What this means is that the refs might have gotten it totally correct. From the video, it appears that the non-call on the foul was correct. And it looks reasonably certain that it was Bruins ball. I hate to have to say this. But I’m just trying to be objective and reasonable about it.

I still think that Shipp’s shot was apparently illegal and should have been waived off. I also still think Cal would have nonetheless found a creative and exciting way to lose the game. I mean c’mon.

Now, about that shot, here's what an expert thinks (emphasis mine):

According to Hank Nichols, the NCAA's national coordinator of men's officiating, the rule is often referred to as the Wilt Chamberlain rule because its original intent was to prevent a team from lobbing the ball over the backboard to an immensely tall and talented player because the play couldn't be defended. "The intent wasn't to stop a circus jump shot," Nichols said.

So, we have even Berkeley fans admitting that there was no foul, and the ball correctly was given to UCLA, and we have the NCAA coordinator of officiating saying that there's really no good reason that Shipp's shot shouldn't have counted. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

Thoughts on the Berkeley Game

First, before reading any further, watch this.

You should notice a few things. First, Russell Westbrook got 100% ball on the slap that knocked the ball from Ryan Anderson's hands. Much like Dee Brown did against Mustapha Shakur in 2005. Just because you slap down, it's not an automatic foul. You actually have to hit the guy, which Westbrook didn't do.

Second, Ryan Anderson is a fucking liar. He claims "they clearly tackled me." Of course, he apparently realized how ridiculous that sounded and quickly backed off. "maybe not tackled me -- but I fell to the ground and it didn't go our way." That's better.

Third, if you watch the play and actually pay attention, you'll see Anderson's hand knocking the ball out of bounds. Right call on the no foul followed by the right call on out of bounds play.

As for the shot, the letter of the rule doesn't look good for UCLA, but it depends on the interpretation. To me, a shot going over the backboard is a shot that originiates from either directly in front or directly behind the backboard. If you're shooting from the side, they either have to make it so that it never counts if you start from behind the plane of the backboard, which would be stupid, or set up some sort of trapezoid from which shots won't count. Quite frankly, it's a dumb rule anyway, but that's beside the point. Ultimately, it's debatable, and I can see why people would be pissed, but tough shit.

One win ought to lock up the number one seed in the West, but they'll have to do it against either a fired up Berkeley team that will be out for revenge, or a Washington team that took the Bruins apart a few weeks ago. If Brockman is hurt bad, it will probably be Berkeley.

Congrautlations, Bruins

Three straight Pac 10 titles: Good

Darren Collison: Very good

Call at the end of the game: Probably not that great, but they blew a couple of huge calls that led to Stanford points, specifically Mitch Johnson's double dribble and Lawrence Hill's charge on the go ahead basket.

Me: Very, very sick.

Doug Gottlieb: Very, very stupid.

This is from the "Around the Rim" column today:

UCLA looked OK, but got nothing from Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Alfred Aboya, Lorenzo Mata-Real and Josh Shipp. Even Russell Westbrook was highly ineffective at times against Stanford.

Only in Doug Gottlieb's strange little world is 10 points and 11 rebounds from your fifth option, playing against two seven footers, "nothing". And only in that same world is 19 points "ineffective". Christ, every player has times during a game where they're ineffective. Let's face it, Doug Gottlieb is an expert on two things, stealing credit cards and missing free throws. The guy's an idiot.

Now it's time to close it out and win the title outright on Saturday.

Ready for a War?

Kings vs. Senators, tomorrow night. I don't know why, but for some reason the last two games between these teams have been freaking awesome.

In 2001, the game that made Adam Deadmarsh a Kings legend.


A (small) sample of what happened in 2006 when they met again.


And what happened after Jim Fox called out Bryan Murray for being a punk and sending big Zdeno Chara after Tim Gleason.


Let's hope tomorrow night is just as fun.

Most Anticipated Album of 2008 - for the time being

At least, now that the new Raveonettes album is out...

Spiritualized gets a date for the U.S. release of "Songs in A&E". This is really a reminder to myself more than anything. Here's some older stuff from J. Spaceman.

UCLA 68; Arizona 66

It's funny. A fan base can get so used to things going their way that they don't even realize what little bitches they become when the tide starts to turn. For two and a half decades, Arizona has been led by one of college basketball's Eddie Haskells. Mike Kzysrcksvisklseiski is the same way. These are coaches who seem so friendly and gentle in interviews and when away from the court, but who spend approximately 39:55 of a 40 minute game berating officials and whining like children. In their defense, it works. For years, each team has gotten virtually every call. Hell, Lute didn't even pick up a technical when he ran across the floor to call Lucas Johnson "crazy" in 2000. And somehow they had no problem with the officiating the regional final that season when six Illinois players fouled out, and no Wildcat had more than three fouls.

But times change, coaches change, and standards are replaced. For the seventh consecutive time, UCLA defeated Arizona, despite a great performance from Jordan Hill, and a "better than he usually does against UCLA" performance from Chase Buddinger. It wasn't enough to overcome 24 and 15 from Kevin Love (10-11 from the free throw line), and 16 points from Darren Collison, who continues to be hot from long range (2-3 in this one).

In a fairly surprising development, Arizona got more minutes, and more production, from its bench than UCLA. Part, perhaps most, of that was due to foul trouble, particularly from starter Fendi Onobun, who lasted only 13 minutes before fouling out. Jamelle Horne also struggled with foul trouble, and Jordan Hill caught the bug in the second half.

On the other side, every Bruin starter played at least 33 minutes. What looked like a deep bench at the beginning of the season has been dramatically shortened, and that could cause problems for the Bruins down the stretch. Chace Stanback has been somewhat disappointing in that regard. Note that I'm in no way calling him a bust. Very few freshman come in and contribute right away, but the Bruins benefited the last two years from unexpected contributions from Darren Collison and Russel Westbrook. Both of those players have proven that their freshman contributions were no flukes. They're very special players, and not everyone can bring what they've brought. But of all the bench guys, I figured Stanback might be the guy who could give them a five minute shot in the arm from game to game, but it never materialized. Nikola Dragovic has been a bit of disappointment as well. If anyone could have replaced Mike Roll's shooting, a desperate need for this team, Dragovic figured to be the guy, but he's struggled with his shot all year.

McKale is never an easy place to leave victorious, but Bruins managed to do it yet again, and now they'll fight for a number one seed this week at home against the Bay Area schools. Beat Stanford and they clinch the Pac 10 title. Lose, and they may not be the top seed in the conference tournament. And if they win that game, they absolutely cannot afford a let-down against Berkeley on Saturday. The West Coast road to the Final Four is theirs for the taking. Now they just need to get it done on the court.

Coach Wooden Hospitalized

Get well soon, coach.

UCLA 70: ASU 49

Not exactly where I expected the score to be after about 15 minutes of truly horrid offense from both teams to start the game. But suddenly Darren Collison found his shooting touch, the UCLA defense started forcing turnovers, things started to open up, and what was an 11-11 game with 5:35 left in the half turned into a 29-18 first half lead for the Bruins. 11 points in almost fifteen minutes, and 18 in the last 5+.

It was the Bruins starters who led the way, save for a quiet statistical night by LRMAM. Love, Collison, Shipp, and Westbrook all hit double figures, Love's 18 points leading the way to go along with his 12 rebounds, and a couple of the bullet passes that have really been a joy to watch this season. For a team that didn't make a jump shot until the final 10 minutes or so against Oregon, the Bruins shot the ball pretty well. They were 49% for the game and 10-20 from beyond the arc, which is almost a requirement if you're going to beat a team that relies so heavily on the zone.

Personally, I hate zone defenses. They're tediously boring to watch, and to my mind, they're essentially an admission that your team is simply not good enough to play man to man (and I'm sure it's not a coincidence that my two favorite teams, UCLA and Illinois, are coached by men who flat our refuse to give in and play zone). And while the conventional wisdom says the Bruins have struggled against the zone in the Howland era, I'm not quite sure the facts bear that out. Part of the problem is they just don't "look" good against the zone. They've never had a boatload of shooters to bust zones up, and they typically run the shot clock out before shooting. But this tends to be more typical in the first half as they probe the zone and get used to playing against it. They rarely struggle in the second half against zone defenses, and last night was no exception, as they put up 41 points to cruise to the easy victory. I think their struggles against zones are oversold, and going into the tournament, it's not really something that concerns me.

Josh Shipp finally showed signs of breaking out of his slump, hitting his first three of the game, and first in 21 shots, before looking awful on his next two. Two of those came in a relatively pressure free second half, but the key right now is confidence, and hopefully he regained a fair amount last night. Darren Collison, in comparison, knocked down five of the six he attempted, and four of those came in the first half when things were still in doubt, including a terrific shot at the end of the first half that gave the Bruins a double digit lead that they would never relinquish.

Has any team been as crazy as ASU this year? They have wins over Xavier, Berkeley, Stanford, and two over Arizona. But they've been just decimated twice by UCLA, and they were slaughtered by an awful Illinois team to start the season. They probably need at least two conference wins, and a win in the Pac 10 tourney to make the tournament. Not sure if they can pull it off. The good news for them is that they finish with the Oregon schools. That OSU game could be tough. It's the last game of the conference season, and OSU will probably be gunning for their only conference team. They could be dangerous. Crappy, but dangerous.

On to Tucson to face a reeling Arizona squad that looks like they have NCAA tournament issues of their own. They'll be looking for payback after the drubbing they took at Pauley.

Beware of Falling Objects

Do not get in this kid's way.

Pretty Close to a Dream Lineup

At least until the Lassie Foundation comes to Chicago.

April 4th. The Vic.

White Rabbits.



The Walkmen.



Spoon.



All on the same Goddamn night. Thank God for internet pre-sales.

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.

Super Furry Animals w/ Jeffrey Lewis and Times New Viking at the Metro - 2/16/08 - A Quick Recap

SFA is a band for whom I no longer have any expectations where their live shows are involved. They've released eight complete albums, as well as a b-side collection, and when there is that much material from which to draw, it's a waste of effort to go to the show expecting to hear your "favorites". At the same time, because virtually their entire catalog is so good, it's almost impossible to leave the show without having heard a bunch of stuff that you wanted to hear.

Jeffrey Lewis opened the evening. One dude, one guitar, and few hand made comic books. It was actually a really cool set. It lasted about 20 minutes, and his stuff is certainly unique. It's like spoken word set to music, but nowhere near as pretentious as that sounds. He also draws comic books and presents them as "videos". Here's an example of what you're in for (he played this last night).


Times New Viking took the stage next, and they pretty much provide about a half hour of noise. It's not bad, mind you, but I think they're an acquired taste. They make Guided By Voices sound slick and over-produced.



SFA took the stage a little after 11:00, and in a first for the Furries since I've been seeing them, there were no video screens, no grand entrance. There were still a few theatrics, as the opening strains of Slow Life announced their arrival. Huw Bunford, Cian Ciaran, Guto Price, and Daffyd Ieuan took the stage, picked up their instruments and started playing along. Gruff Rhys strolled out shortly thereafter in his Power Rangers helmet and sung through the rest of the song. (Go here for pictures).

From there it a solid 90 minutes of SFA as they played material covering most of their career. They ignored Fuzzy Logic, but every other album was represented. And as expected, they played a fair amount from the new album "Hey Venus". Here's the incomplete and out of order setlist, though again, I'm fairly sure this is complete (I should probably give this a new name):

• She's Got Spies
• Do or Die
• Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy
• Calimero
• Ice Hockey Hair
• The Man Don't Give a Fuck
• Rings Around the World
• Juxtaposed With You
• Receptacle for the Respectable
• Hello Sunshine
• Golden Retriever
• Slow Life
• Zoom
• The Gateway Song
• Run Away
• Gift That Keeps on Giving
• Neo-Consumer
• Into the Night
• Baby Ate My Eight Ball

As is their custom, they closed with "the Man Don't Give a Fuck", though it didn't play for 20 minutes as it usually does, probably because there was no video screen backing them up. Also a first, there was no encore. And really, there was no encore required. They played roughly the same amount of time and material as they'd normally play. In fact, at the end, Huw held up a sign saying goodbye to Chicago, and Gruff held up a sign that said "Resist Phony Encores". And that was that. Another superb SFA show. When they've hit this town, they've never played anything but a terrific show. Can't wait until they come back. Until then, enjoy Neo-Consumer (live on David Letterman), Golden Retriever, and Receptacle for the Respectable.

There is funny, there is absolutely hilarious....

And there is "so batshit insane that it made me laugh for days."

Then, there is this:

IMO, the NCAA is fishing. They have an ax to grind ever since Coach Sampson got around his recruiting restrictions by text messaging. The NCAA is trying to "find" evidence against him so that the university will overreact and terminate him.

Just look at the evidence that the NCAA has, 2 Purdue recruits, 1 Illinois recruit, and a high school teammate of that Illinois recruit. In a court of law I don't even know if these witnesses would even hold up in court. Purdue and Illinois are obiviously Indiana's biggest rivals, I have a feeling both teams wouldn't mind seeing Coach Sampson fired and IU hurt. Doesn't anyone find it interesting that Matt Painter was the one that called out the bag, shirt, and shorts for Eltson? Painter has wanted Derek Eltson from the get go, and I am sure he wasn't happy when Eltson committed to IU.

The bottom line is, I think these allegations of lying are TOTALLY FALSE. The NCAA is just digging for stuff to get Coach Sampson fired. It isn't about justice or truth, but it is about making an example. I would be willing to bet that if Indiana stood behind their coach, did their own invesitgation, and took the NCAA to court, they would have a good chance of winning this case. The NCAA's allegations and evidence are weak, and it is obivious they have a grudge against Kelvin Sampson.

That, folks, is grade A hilarity. Delusional, but hilarious.

Indiana is going down, and they're going down hard. But who could have imagined that a guy who had made 500,000 illegal phone calls would commit additional violations and lie about them?

The sad thing is, Indiana didn't have to do this. They have multiple national championships. The state is hoops crazy. They were the last school to go undefeated. They should have had their pick of top coaching prospects. Yet they settled for a guy who is a) dirty, and b) a mediocre coach to begin with. Well done, Hoosiers. Way to hire a crappy, dirty coach.

Hope Eric Gordon was worth it. One season, in which they won't get to the final four (probably won't get to the elite eight) in exchange for multiple sanctions. Damn I love Schadenfreude.