UCLA v. Montana, Hoops Preview

As a kid raised in rural Northern California, the three quality California universities I knew was Berkeley and UCLA (I didn’t know Stanford was in California until my second year in community college). I thought these schools were out of my reach because many people at my school had a “that’s unattainable” mentality and for those that do make it were the exceptions. I let them weaken my motivation of going to either of these schools. So I decided to attend community college instead.

During my time in college, I thought that the UC schools would be an attainable goal and I strived in my academics to get in. In the Fall of 2002, I got a financial hardship waiver and I applied to the UC’s in Southern California for free: Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego and Irvine. The day my application was due, I decided to swing by a 7-11 to get myself a Slurpee. At the register, I realized I had 80 dollars in my wallet. I thought to myself “Ah…what the hell. I’ll get a 60 dollar money order and check UCLA on my application.”

In spring of 2003, I got my first acceptance letter from Riverside. I was ecstatic! My parents joined me on my visit to UC Riverside and my mind was starting to adjust on becoming a Highlander (their mascot). A week later though, I got accepted to San Diego, then Santa Barbara and finally Irvine. Irvine was my number one choice, since I had a lot of family in Orange County who were willing to support me, my girlfriend went there and Irvine felt most comfortable. I submitted my intent to register to Irvine and totally FORGOT that I had applied to UCLA.

On the day before the very last day of school notifications, it occurred to me that UCLA had not notified me. I checked online that night and was told to wait the following day after a certain time. The following day comes and I ask my friend to join me back home to check my “rejection” from UCLA. I sit down, power up and log in. What I saw shocked the hell out of me. I was accepted?!?! I couldn’t believe it!! I was accepted!! I told all my instructors, who themselves were surprised because I did not tell them I applied to UCLA. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. So the first thing I do to celebrate is rent an NCAA Football game for my PS2. It was then that I learned UCLA had a rival called…USC? “Never heard of that school. Where are they located?” was my first thought. My second thought “Condoms? Why name themselves after an army fooled by a wooden horse filled with enemies?” when I learned of their mascot.

I graduated from UCLA in ’06 (the year of our first Final Four run), went to Berkeley (class of ’09) to get my masters and now I am a PhD student at ’SC. I am a PROUD BRUIN!!!! I carry my UCLA button on my backpack as a talisman to protect myself from trojan proselytizers (think Dante going through the levels of hell. He kept his cool and knew where he stood). A snooty ’SC frat boy told me last year “What the hell is a Bruin doing as a student here?” My response: “They needed someone to legitimize your program, so they recruited me. Thanks for paying my tuition…Trojan.”

I don’t need to see him dominate. I would like to see him play consistently and not revert to doing some really questionable things (poor decision making and lots of turnovers). I think he will emerge as the go-to guy, but he needs to be more consistent.

Also, hoping Bruin fans show up tonight. Really bad scheduling. I think there are a lot of blue and tired bruins out there today. And as with regards to scheduling, I know it’s on ABC, but we really need to stop having night ucla-suc games. Too many hours of drinking. And if they’re going to be at night, I know I might get booed at for this, but the tailgating should start later. It’s just too much drinking on an already “on the brink” kind of a day. God only knows there were many I wanted to punch last night…a few more drinks and who knows? Well, I wouldn’t have, I don’t do that, but all that alcohol does have a tendency to create a lot of violence.