This will be a battle of teams that are marquee examples of the answer to the question "What's wrong with the Pac-12?" These teams met less than two weeks ago in Tucson where the Bruins choked away another game late to the Oregon Ducks Stanford Cardinal Cal Golden Bears Oregon St. Beavers Washington Huskies St. John's Red Storm Wildcats. That win put Arizona on decent footing to nab themselves an at large bid to the tournament.

What a difference a week makes.

After losing to woeful ASU last week, Arizona finds themselves in the same situation as the Bruins and virtually all of the remaining Pac-12 field: Win or Go Home. That's not to say any of these teams really deserve an at-large bid, because they don't, but it underscores the prime opportunity the Bruins have to actually sneak into the field. In the 80 minutes of game time played between these two squads, the Bruins have probably been the better team for the majority of them. Arizona will also be without suspended guard Josiah Turner.

Whether the Bruins can capitalize on a weakened Wildcat squad will be another matter, with UCLA having had to play four of its starters 30+ minutes yesterday afternoon just to earn their first round bye in putting away the lowly Trogans.

Once again, the game will be on locally on FSN and AM 570.

What do you do when your dog is sick and in constant pain and clearly can't enjoy life anymore? You make the difficult and painful decision to put the dog down. You make that decision because you love the dog and you want to end its suffering.

Now imagine that the dog is the USC Trogans and instead of loving it, you hate it with every fiber of your being. That's when you substitute a lethal chemical cocktail for a shotgun and blast away.

By any measure, the Trogans' season has been an unqualified failure. As bad as UCLA has been this year, we haven't come close to the ineptitude of the 6 win, 1 conference win Trogans. This is, for all intents and purposes, a first round bye, and we expect and need big bench minutes if we are going to have any chance of navigating our way through the PAthetiC 12 Tournament.

For once, I advocate showing mercy to the Trogans and putting their pathetic season out of its misery. And just to cover our bases, if this glorified scrimmage somehow goes awry, Ben Howland can just stay at Staples and sell popcorn.

Game is on FSN and AM 570.

Believe it or not, for the dozens of fans left out there willing to subject themselves to more of Howland's dumpster fire program, there are actually a couple of reasons to be excited for this game.

As the final "home" game of the year, it is obviously going to be Senior Day, and given what we now know about Howland's abrasive, abusive, and negligent behavior, these seniors deserve credit for sticking it out and enduring it.

Sure, Jerime Anderson might have been one of the ringleaders of the three ring circus the 2008 class brought to town, but he is the only one left of that frightful fivesome, and putting up with Howland for four years should earn you some positive recognition.

Walk-on Matt DeMarcus will also be playing his final "home" game after four years in the program. Mad respect for walk-ons and the hard work they put in out of the spotlight. Good luck to you, Matt.

And then there's Lazeric Jones. While I'm sure we've all had our frustrations with his play at many times over his abridged career as a Bruin, we'd be as remiss in our duties as Chianti is with his entire AD if we didn't acknowledge that he was put in a very difficult situation, and kept battling. When it's all said and done, I can't imagine there are many who will think badly of Zeek.

This will also be our last game at Chianti Dan's garbage arena (barring earning and accepting an NIT invite with possible extra "home" games), and it will be against a Washington team that would make lovers of Steve Lavin's Jungleball proud. The first meeting should have been ours, given UW's confounding and undisciplined play. I expect a different result this time. Like almost the entire Pac-12, Washington just isn't that good. Vegas agrees, pegging the Bruins as 5 point favorites. Beefing up your record on this terrible conference like they've done is what we were supposed to do.

Game is on CBS (with Reggie Miller on the mic).

Southern California's premier collegiate basketball program is not on TV in the digital age. That gives whoever is left to watch this NIT/CBI bound trainwreck the amazing "opportunity" to engage in a throwback to years gone by and catch the action over the radio on AM 570. The team these fans will get to follow on the radio are also a throwback of sorts. Not to the good old days of Coach Wooden, but to the 1930's and 40's, when we were just another middling program in the conference and irrelevant nationally.

Howland may not care if his players beat each other, but his team had better beat Washington State, lest he pick up yet another performance based reason for his ouster. But to be positive for a moment, at least this untelevised game means that we will be spared the ugly sight of Chianti Dan's garbage arena.

For those with enough morbid curiosity to listen in or follow a gametracker somewhere online, this is your gamethread.

Ben Howland's dumpster fire program continues to remain in the hunt for unicorns protected seeding in PAthetiC-12 conference tournament. As DC Bruins explained here Bruins could have a shot in getting one of the top-4 seeds if they take care of business against a mediocre to below average Arizona team in Tucson this afternoon. If the Bruins had a decent team, it shouldn't have been a problem against Sean Miller's bunch that has been exposed without Derrick Williams this season. The problem for us is that our program is a joke.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to keep watching these games but we are addicts and we can't turn away from Howland's train wreck. The game will tip-off at McKale Center around 11:00 am PT (in about 15 mins or so). You should be able to watch it on CBS because the network thought before the season that this would be a big game with conference title implications. LOLOL. The official preview is here, while the BN game notes are here.

Don't really have to add anything more at this point. We will let you take it from here. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.

The Bruins have left the friendly confines of Los Angeles for their final road trip of the 2011-12 regular season, into the State of Arizona. The trip begins with tonight's game against ASU. It has been a down season for the Sun Devils. The official preview is here, while the BN game notes are here.

The game is starting right about now, and for folks that do not have access to Prime Ticket or are not getting the game on their cable carrier, ASU and Fox Sports Arizona are streaming the game here, free of charge.

Has it really been a year since the Bruins defeated St. John's in their trip to Los Angeles? I guess so, meaning that today is the occasion for UCLA to make the return trip to New York, to take on St. Johns in Madison Square Garden. Barring a tournament appearance of some kind, this is the last long-distance trip of the season for the team, with next week's Arizona trip being the only remaining scheduled trip outside of Los Angeles.

Of course the Bruins pulled out the win the last time these teams met, in Pauley Pavilion, but there is little in common on the Johnnies' side from that squad, and plenty of changes for UCLA as well. The official preview is here and gametracker is here. The Bruins Nation mini-preview for St. John's is here, while the game preview from Rumble in the Garden - SBN's St. John's community - is linked here.

The game is at 10:00 a.m. PST on CBS, called by Ian Eagle and Bill Raftery and will as usual be broadcast in Southern California on AM570.

January 16, 2010 was the low moment in Jerime Anderson's career. In a game at home against USC, UCLA lost 67-46. Anderson had the ball stolen from him at half court just trying to bring the ball up the court. Anderson himself called it his worst moment. In only nine minutes he had two turnovers and 0 points.

Well it is 2012 and tonight UCLA is at "home" for the last time in Jerime Anderson's career against USC. Jerime is a better player now and hopefully he can do his part to make sure the Bruins beat USC by more than the 21 points they lost to USC by in his sophomore year. The official preview is here and gametracker is here. The Bruins Nation mini-preview on this awful SUC team is here.

The game is at 7:32 p.m. PST on FSN Prime Ticket. Anthony Stover is probable for the game tonight. Great chance for the Bruins to rest some tired legs.

Go Bruins, Beat SC!

Bruins got off to a decent start in our final stretch of the season by taking care of the Trees on the Thursday night. With the victory against Stanford UCLA has now put together a nice little 10 game winning streak at our "home" away from home. Still the winning streak has come at the expense of some really bad to average teams. Well this afternoon the Bruins will have an opportunity to make a statement against perhaps the only decent (somewhat) program in the Pac-12 conference.

The Bears are not in the top-25 but under Coach Mike Montgomery they are getting the best out of the talent available in their roster. If the Bruins can hold serve against them this afternoon, it should give us another boost with 6 games left in the regular season. You can check out the BN game notes here. The official UCLA preview is here and game tracker is here. The tip off is scheduled for 1:07 PM (PST) on FSN/PT.

With that let's get the show started. This is your open game thread. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.

Well we have talked about it. If Ben Howland's Bruins want to mount a last ditch effort to save a pathetic season by getting into the tournament, they need to run the table. We should have a genuine shot at closing strong as we start with the soft part of our schedule tonight. Bruins can start a late season run by taking care of business against Stanford. As mentioned by DCBruins the Trees have been tanking in the Pac-12 after a nice start.

The Trees' preview is here. The official UCLA preview is here and game tracker is here. The tip off is scheduled for 8:07 PM (PT). The game will be broadcast on Prime Ticket with Joel Meyers doing play-by-lay, Don MacLean doing color and Courtney Jones reporting from the sideline.

With that let's get the show started. This is your open game thread. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.