I didn’t really think UCLA’s Bruins would be “ruined” versus Gonzaga in the NCAA semifinals — despite what I wrote before the game. (See previous entry.) What that was … was invoking the opposite of what I really wanted, as a long-time UCLA fan. Not the blowout I predicted, but something a lot closer. This […]

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Did anyone else stay up late to watch UCLA come through with another upset in the NCAA Tournament? Remember? Four days ago? (It ended at 6:16 a.m where I live and yes, I would like to be congratulated for that.) It was nervous time, but it also was clutch time as the Bruins came through […]

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This is the biggest night for Los Angeles college hoops in … I think it is safe to say “forever.” Both USC and UCLA have battled into the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. That has never before happened. And not only that, they are playing in the same city tonight, in the same arena, one […]

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I have lived outside the United States for most of the past 12 years and I can vouch for this: Over that much time your sports interests mutate. Perhaps significantly. Some sports pretty much disappear from your mind. Thinking all high school sports; just can’t keep track of any of them, so I lost track […]

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Those of us who grew up with the UCLA basketball of John Wooden … and serial NCAA basketball championships … well, we were ruined for life. After 10 national titles in 12 seasons, including seven (!) consecutive through 1973, and an 88-game winning streak, unrealistic expectations became the norm. I distinctly remember listening to UCLA’s […]

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This is not an exercise in academic rigor. I did not have someone sitting with a note pad writing down literally the first 10 facts I could recall pertaining to sports in 2017. But … it is a fairly accurate recreation of a fairly quick trip through my brain to see what stuck from the […]

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Two of the top quarterbacks potentially available for the 2018 NFL draft attend Los Angeles schools. UCLA’s Josh Rosen and USC’s Sam Darnold. Each has college eligibility remaining — one year for Rosen, two for Darnold. Each is mulling whether to make himself available for the draft or to stay in school for another year. […]

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Yeah, more LaVar. I don’t plan to do that. But we have so many teachable moments involved here that we feel the gravitational pull … of the worst Basketball Dad in the history of the game. A Bleacher Report story, by a reporter based in Israel, where European basketball is a big thing, offers little […]

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For a time, I could not help but feel some sympathy, and a little admiration, for LaVar Bell and his big plans for his sons and for himself. Here was a father deeply (very, very deeply) involved with his sons’ lives, overseeing their training and practice in an effort to see all three of them […]

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Luc Richard Mbah a Moute‘s final season at UCLA, 2007-08, was also my last as a journalist in Southern California. I remember Mbah a Moute fairly well. He was a junior, a starter at power forward for a UCLA program that was riding high, and a regular contributor the previous two seasons. But he also […]

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