Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Today’s Saturday's loss was tough, to say the least. This team clearly hasn’t developed the heart of previous Ben Ball Warrior teams.

Imagine JF and AA letting Arizona beat them by playing physical, all-out basketball. It wouldn’t happen, because they wouldn’t LET it happen. DG was and still is correct when he said that this team lacks heart.

The four game winning streak was absolutely incredible, but all of the wins came at home. Championship teams need to know how to win on the road. They need to learn how to take a punch and get back up and continue to fight. Today, our Ben Ball Warriors didn’t do that.

Our Warriors let Arizona thoroughly beat them down by playing with fire. The Bruins didn’t have the fire to fight back. We did see glimpses of fight when the Bruins cut the lead down to 9 late in the game, but they didn’t have enough to finish the deal.

But you know what? It’s OK. Everyone who is bashing CBH right now is not a true Bruins fan. CBH has led this team to 3 straight Final Four’s, and I am completely confident that he will instill in this team a toughness that is unmatched across the nation. The season is a marathon, not a sprint. CBH still has the rest of this month and the Pac-10 tournament to prepare this team for March Madness.

I was at the game today, and a U of A fan sitting next to me asked me I wasn’t absolutely furious with the end result of the game.

My response? “I will always be a Bruins fan, no matter what. Just because we lost doesn’t mean that we still don’t have a good basketball team. Being completely furious with this team is irresponsible, considering how young they are.”

Hours later, I stand by what I said. This team is still developing, and I am completely fine with that. In the postgame thread, Tydides said that he is still having fun watching this team. So am I. It’s fun to watch a team start out so young and inexperienced, and watch them grow game-by-game. There have been numerous games this season where afterwards, I have sat back and said: “Now that was FUN!”

I am confident that our Warriors will learn from this game. Hopefully they will be extremely disappointed with themselves, and vow to never let something like this happen again. If that happens, then we will know this team has grown up.

In the end, I love this team. Despite ridiculous attacks from bandwagon fans, I love CBH. I love UCLA, and one loss is NOT going to change that.