UCLA Basketball: Perfect Ending to Pauley!

And seeing Tyler Trapani make the last basket in Old Pauley made the win even better. Awesome game by the Bruins.

…far nicer than our regular ones. Let’s do a redesign based on this style, introduce them with the new Pauley.

What a perfect fitting end to the old Pauley! I’m so happy I got to attend this game (1st for me in 15 years), let’s keep up this fire in Seattle!

Photos on the floor today, after the woman’s game 3-5 and/or Men’s Volleyball 3-24

Sometimes there is a perfect moment. Thanks to Tyler, Coach and The Fates for great, great memory.

That game was incredible.
Reeves Nelson… goddam… he played like man today.
That was insane and completely worth camping out in the rain all night for.
Time to celebrate.

it’s obvious to everyone now this is a tournament team. Who knew we were capable of playing at full capacity for 40 minutes. What a team effort. Props to RN for taking charge on both ends of the court.

I can’t wait to see how the team responds on the trip to Washington.

1) Bruins beat the snot out of “the standard” by double digits!
2) Shut the hell out of Williams, who was boasting, after a quick start, that he was going to score 40 points. uummmm……..sorry.
3) St. John’s beat Villanova, increasing our RPI.
4) BYU beats SD ST., increasing our RPI.
5) TT scores the last basket at Pauley. The joy that the family showed could only be matched by Coach from up above.

*Note: If ASU can beat USC, it’ll be a perfect weekend.

NINETEEN! And ten of those came during that ridiculous 10-0 run.

Ben Ball defense… let’s keep it rolling.

I bought an extra 15,000 shares of Stover this afternoon. Mind you, the stock is still pretty cheap and I would advise others to participate. That guy is becoming a huge asset on Howland’s balance sheet. HUGE. Will be here four years. A shotblocking beast. High energy. Seems totally invested in the program. Hardly a clown. My favorite player of the last three classes.

As everyone has already raved, great great game. What spooky, tremendous wonderful ending with the ball falling out of the sky into Trapani’s hands, like Wooden himself was guiding the shot… and he did his great grandfather proud by getting proper position for the rebound putback. Awesome. Now if he could only keep his shorts on…

A few other things I loved:

- the perfect execution, mostly by Josh Smith, of beating the double team down low. Time and time again, they’d double Josh, and someone like Reeves would go shooting to the basket and Josh would perfectly pass over the defense for the score. That was great, consistent offensive execution to watch that we usually don’t get to see from a Howland team.

- we can run with any team that wants to play man-on-man on us for an entire game. We showed it here, we showed it against Kansas… will we show it against Washington?

- I have to say… after hating the Pac-10 refs year after year for being inconsistent and making soft calls, the last few games, it really looks like they’re finally letting the kids play more, which I think helps all the Pac-10 teams in the tourney.

Really proud of these kids for sticking with Howland’s style, learning the defense, and understanding what it takes on offense to execute. Go Bruins!

When Reeves hit 27 points, I think the Bruins had 64 points… at that point, he had accounted for 42% of the Bruins’ score. That is a good game.

So glad I was there today, and took my six year-old son as well. An incredible ending – textbook Hollywood! Coach would have been so proud and pleased.

I just got back. What an amazing game. I got emotional a few times watching it, realizing the weight of everything… Thanks to all my fellow students who showed up and were loud and cheering and standing the entire game, and to the alumni and fans who (mostly) wore True Blue and cheered a lot too. The team played fantastic and I know I will always remember this game. What a way to end these 4 years… It is, and always will be, a great day to be a Bruin!!

What a way to close out “old” Pauley. COACH we have you to thank for this building and all the good memories it brings to us older BRUINS. Tyler Trapani, thanks for the wonderful memory to cherish forever. And, Reeves – WAY TO GO! GO BRUINS! Let’s beat the Washington schools and on to the NCAA dance. HOORAY!

Tyler is Coach’s great-grandson.

So I’ve been harping over the Bruins commit game in and game out… How it’s vital for them to keep it in check! So the last two games we have 8 against ASU and 9 against AU and look at our results. We won both games by 20 in both games! The Bruins could go along way in the big dance if they keep this kind of play up! Nice job today Bruins, looking forward to next week!

I am so happy for Tyler. I hope Coach was watching.

Bill Walton once put it succinctly.

When UCLA played basketball Coach’s way, even the universe readjusted and restored itself. With patchy white clouds against a bright blue sky on a brilliant late winter day in Westwood , I had the feeling COACH was indeed smiling down on us.

Today’s game showed Anderson coming into maturity, relieving Zeke with quality minutes of disciplined point guard play so sorely missed until this season. He penetrated behind the screen of JSmith, dished out assists, menacingly shadowed his Wildcat counterpart like an old hand whenever he stepped into the game.

Jerime, I am so tickled you finally outgrew your YMCA games.

Nelson is Pauley’s invincible force, when he turned on his game at its maximum notch. After that rebound basket on the heels of JSmith’s miss, Nelson spun around, cocking his head slightly forward and walked away in that ominous gait, both fists clenching tightly. Through the lens of my binoculars, I saw a gunslinger on the scene. He would level everything in the game, deny the Wildcats anything not without his say. Eyes glaring, Nelson did it for a full forty minutes.

At one point, after a foul, I even saw him motioned at the bench, signaling that he was not coming out yet. Well, the guy had some unfinished business to attend. It would not be over until COACH’s great grandson put in his rebound basket at the waning moments. That jolted the whole place into a deliriously wild frenzy as if Pauley just witnessed a divine revelation.

Undeniably, Honeycutt has the tools. He treated Pauley with his complete package, unwrapped, in full display mode. He will surprise many teams in March.

Many of us lingered, loitered just to soak in the inimitably magical aura of the place we have all become its hopelessly enamored fans over the years. Yes my fellow Bruins, there is a house COACH built with athletic achievements and academic excellence.

do not show their emotions when I finally stepped out of the building, dabbing my teary eyes.

as after this game. He was high fiving, fist pumping, and playing to the crowd…..crazy, wonderful, perfect game! So lucky I have a friend who followed up and made me buy these tickets!!!!

Well, they would, had the UC Irvine-Pacific game not gone to overtime. Sheesh, fouling a guy on a wild 3-point attempt with 1.2 seconds left?? Irvine choked this game away to overtime, thus pre-empting our women’s game.

Our women are playing at Arizona State tonight. They’re currently 13-2, 23-3 overall, and ranked #11 in the AP.

What a wonderful world! We are so very lucky to be in the BRUIN family!

Shabazz was watching. COME TO WESTWOOD! We’re gonna kill it!

Watched the game like so many others and wondered at being overcome by so much emotion. 17 year-old daughter watching the game with me was kind in understanding that her old Bruin Dad was experiencing something that only Bruins can. But still, what a wonderful and blessed experience!

I’ve been trying to wrap my arms around what happened today and skimmed the book “Wooden” written by Coach along with Steve Jamison back in 1997 and came across a passage Coach called “Adversity Makes You Stronger.”

“Most all good things come through adversity. There’s a poem that says:

‘Looking back it seems to me,
All the grief that had to be
Left me when the pain was o’er
Stronger than I was before.’
                 -Unknown

I believe that. We get stronger when we test ourselves. Adversity can make us better. We must be challenged to improve, and adversity is the challenger."

Apparently everything is working according to Coach’s plan.

God bless him!

On the court and on these message boards. Whatever happens the rest of the season this team made this one moment quite memorable and no one can take that away from them.

came up to the 200 section (north) after the game, while radio was still broadcasting. What a great young man. He is the kind of student athlete we need.

Of the few times Howland put him in, perhaps out of desperation to stem the onslaught, his painfully slow movement within the paint reminds me of someone on a pair of pogo sticks. His heels never left the floor even when fighting for rebounds.

Relegated to the sideline most of the time, all he ever did was waving that towel, grinning that silly smile whenever a Michael Roll three point play edged the score closer.

That was a good shove you gave him, Howland.

Gordon was skilled, warts and all. He would flourish under Paul Westhead’s quick pace, rhythmless offense without defense strategy. Remember Hank Gather’s Loyola Marymount team ? It simply runs and guns teams into submission. For an out of control, temperamental Gordon, it would be his cup of tea. Howland’s tight rein, highly structured coaching was a bag of poison to him.

Good riddance. I wish he was watching this afternoon.

Nelson’s adrenaline fueled, raging bull performance dazzled everyone. Rebounding, shot blocking, driving to the basket, forcing turnovers, even to his chest bumpings with Anderson and others worked perfectly. Honeycutt was of course everything ever said positively about him.

At last season’s end, gloom and doom, not to mention that seething anger towards a certain long range bomber from Serbia utterly gripped BN, I remember saying Nelson & Honeycutt had to be the core of the next season’s team. Quite a few of us echoed that sentiments too.

Today’s game said we are prophets.

We hung around for the photo on the court. Then some of the players came out for pictures with fans—especially the kids. My grandson ran over to get his Wooden pyramid signed. I think the relief and joy was etched on the players faces, of of the mom’s said tears kept coming. I must say all the players that signed and posed for photos were incredibly gracious and kind to a young boy and made his day—-Zeek, Tyler Lamb, Tyler Honeycutt, Tyler Trampani, Josh Smith, Anthony Stover, and Reeves. Everyone just I talked to-felt the same way that something special had happened- that each kid had reach down and pulled out their best and together as a team, that best is pretty darned good. Infact, so good it is kind of scary. Like someone said, the score of 71- for the NCAA champs with the basket by Tyler —Coach just sent us a message, and he was smiling.
As I talked to a guy from Arizona, he said he even felt it.

http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/ucla/post/_/id/5088/video-tyler-trapani-makes-final-basket-at-pauley

Raise your hand if you picked us to be contending for the pac-10 title after a down year last year … Coach deserves major credit for concentrating on teaching and growing this young team to peak at the right time towards the end of the season, in the midst of incessant criticism from some of our Bruin faithful. Great job, coach, and great tribute to Coach Wooden!

Well, I knew it was going to be the best game I’ve been to before I got there, but NEVER imagined such a storybook ending. Of course, I should have realized this as I was driving towards Westwood this morning and instead of rain, saw the most beautiful cumulus clouds ever moving away. You never see those clouds in LA! What more is there to say? The team and the crowd were rocking for 40 minutes finally! Nan and Jim Wooden and the ‘71 Championship team… Tyler Trapani with the last shot! Taking pics afterwards on the Nell and John Wooden Court. This is the stuff dreams are made of! Maybe that’s why I mysteriously couldn’t sleep well for the past couple nights!

Question, I haven’t gone through my photos/videos, but I may have a couple I could post as well. Is the only way to post the videos to do it via youtube? Just wondering.

the yellow shoes are growing on me. I think the should wear them in Washington, and maybe in the final four :)

Right now Reeves Nelson is UCLA basketball.
Man oh man, he was everything you want to see and then some….
I have watched the replay twice tonight. If he can put that on the floor each game from this date forward, we have a run ahead of us.

I come to this board to enhance my experience of each game. I knew as I was watching the game today, that the board would be filled with exactly the kind of heartfelt joy I’d felt in watching it. So, thank you to all of you for sharing and multiplying that feeling.

This was the game we’d all been waiting for all year — a game that, potentially, let the Bruins feel what playing a game in true Coach fashion feels like. The focus, the relentless intensity, and the precision execution that comes from it. It’s a feeling they can duplicate. It’s a feeling they will want to duplicate. It’s infectious in the best possible way. If they simply maintain the feeling of that game, they will be nearly impossible to beat for the rest of the year.

GO BRUINS!!!