It's Sunday evening, which sadly for most folks, means a return to work tomorrow morning. Some people (some government workers, students, school employees, etc.) will get tomorrow off to celebrate the birthday of the greatest American president of all-time, Abraham Lincoln. Most of us, unfortunately, do not, thanks to some genius deciding to roll Lincoln's birthday (traditionally observed on the Monday closest to February 12) and Washington's birthday (traditionally observed the following Monday, closest to his actual birthday of February 22) into the generic "President's Day" on the Monday following next. In other words, instead of getting two three-day weekends in a row, you only get one. That sucks.

But in any event, for those of you who will get to relax and enjoy tomorrow off (and those of you needing something to read before trudging off to work tomorrow), let's take a look at the bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse at the tail-end of the weekend.

• Starting with our football program, Jim Mora seems to be everywhere, with columnists across the country weighing in on his hire at UCLA. Looking at how new coaches recruited, Ben Glicksman at Sports Illustrated gave UCLA's new coach, Jim Mora, a solid A following the awesome recruiting haul Mora brought to Westwood at his first recruiting rodeo. The only coach with a higher mark? Urban Meyer. Other UCLA coaching candidates discussed on BN, including Gus Malzahn (A) Kevin Sumlin (A-), Larry Fedora (B+), and Mike Leach (B). In conference notes, Glicksman gave Cal turncoat Tosh Lupoi an A for his work at Washington (he should get an A+ in our books for helping get McCarthy, Payton, and Lawler to Westwood).
• Brett McMurphy at CBS Sports notes that he and his colleagues at CBS Sports weren't as generous, rating Mora's hire at #15 (out of 26), sandwiched between Houston's Tony Levine (#14) and Southern Miss's Ellis Johnson (#16). At the top was none other than Urban Meyer, who will probably have a national title in Columbus within three seasons. BN targets got high marks: Rich Rodriguez (#2), Mike Leach (#3), Gus Malzahn (#4), Larry Fedora (#7). Chianti's original pick, Kevin Sumlin came in at #5 and former UCLA OC Norm Chow came in at #12.
• Going back to Sports Illustrated, Coach Mora got ranked, but in a somewhat different ranking: comparing and rating the various NFL announcing crews. It seems Coach Mora made a good career move, as Chris Burke at Sports Illustrated ranked Mora and his partner Ron Pitts on Fox as "practice squad" material only. Ouch. In Burke's view, the top tandem is the NFL Network's Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock. Others of note include our own Troy Aikman (and his partner on Fox, Joe Buck) in the third-tier as "reliable backups" and BN favorite Randy Cross (paired with Don Criqui at CBS) on the "practice squad" but mostly because they saw little action.

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It's Wednesday, so we're halfway to the weekend, and unfortunately, unlike last Wednesday is devoid of major recruiting news and big recruiting coups for Coach Mora. This Wednesday, we're just back to our normal routine of getting ready for Howland's Jekyll and Hyde dumpster fire team's pair of games, starting tomorrow against Stanford and wrapping up against Cal on Saturday. So, with that in mind, let's get right to it and discuss the bits and piece of news from around the UCLA-iverse:

• Speaking of basketball, let's start there. Over at the very good Bruin site, Bruin Ball, they took note that StatSheet is projecting UCLA to not only miss the NCAA tournament, but to miss out on the NIT as well, falling instead to the extremely weak-sauce (I'd call it junior varsity, but that would be insulting to JV teams everywhere) College Basketball Invitational. In other words, the Kraft Who Cares Bowl of college basketball. And yet, people somehow think Howland isn't to blame and that everything is all sunshine-and-rainbows. Time to face reality folks: it isn't looking pretty.
• While we're talking about hoops, following up on DCBruins' post yesterday afternoon on Shabazz, here's another take on the Shabazz situation, this time from Fox Sports' Rahshaun Haylock. Per Haylock, despite UCLA's struggles, Muhammad still has his eye on Howland and UCLA. But the real neat part of this piece is that photo gallery accompanying it, highlighting Shabazz's dominance recently against Whitney Young HS. If we can land him, it'll be a huge coup for UCLA, the biggest since Kevin Love came on down from Oregon.

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Just in case folks forgot - today is the birthday of Jackie Robinson:

Jackie Robinson, who would have been 93 today, once said that "a life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives," Jackie Robinson said. By that measure, his own life was monumental.

In becoming the first African American to play Major League Baseball, he challenged racist assumptions about black inferiority and the logic for segregating the nation's pasttime.

After he walked away from the diamond - he won the National League MVP in 1949, and is considered one of the greatest second basemen ever - Robinson continued to be a pioneer. He was the first black commentator for a national sports broadcast, and the first black vice president of a major American firm.

Jackie is arguably the greatest athlete of all time representing those magical four letters:

Jack Roosevelt Robinson came to UCLA in 1939 and although he only stayed in Westwood for two years, he left behind one of the most powerful and proud legacies in UCLA's storied history. And soon, "Jackie" Robinson would change the world as well.

In his time at UCLA, the young man from Cairo, Georgia, won a national championship in track and field, two consecutive conference scoring titles as a basketball player, was an honorable mention All-American in football and played a little baseball, where he was so-so.

Well, he turned a little better than "so so" in baseball. Going back to football, Jackie made "an immediate impact on the '39 Bruin football team, averaging 12 yards per carry and 20 per punt return to lead the nation." You can read more about Jackie's UCLA legacy here and here.

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It's Sunday afternoon, which means work is on the horizon, which will be no easier despite Ben Howland's squad picking up a pair of wins over the weekend. As we've talked about before, this was a game we were expected to win, and one that is irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. In short, Howland is our Jeff Tedford for hoops (good, but not great coach, who can build excitement, but never get to the top), the real problem is our idiotic athletic director, Chianti Dan Guerrero, and the sleazy bureaucrats he's surrounding himself with at Morgan Center.

I won't continue to beat a dead horse. We know what needs to happen.

Fire Dan Guerrero. Replace him with someone who can competently hire an elite basketball coach to take UCLA back to its rightful place at the top of the college basketball world.

With that, let's turn to bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse at the end of the weekend:

• Let's start with a piece about Westwood's most beloved Bruin: Coach. Over at WWL, Ramona Shelburne has a really good story about a group of basketball coaches from war-torn Uganda who came from across the globe to study the teachings of Coach, on both basketball and life (HT bruinfollower). The L.A. Times also covered this heart-touching exchange here. Just absolutely amazing at how much of an impact this wonderful man from Indiana had, touching the souls of not just every Bruin to grace the Hills of Westwood, but positively impacting lives on the other side of the world.
• Following up on UCLA's sale of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden, the Rafu Shimpo (Los Angeles' Japanese daily newspaper) has a lengthy summary of the on-going university goal of selling off the cultural treasure and the resulting protests. Of course, the comments from Murphy Hall officials are tone-deaf and laughable, somehow claiming that selling the garden would meet the Carters' intent in gifting it to UCLA in perpetuity. Of course, these are the same fools who complain about a lack of money, yet make Chianti Dan Guerrero, a complete and total failure, the highest paid athletic director in the Pac-12. If these are the Baghdad Bob folks running UCLA, no wonder Chianti Dan still has a job. Total UCLA facepalm.

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It's Wednesday, so we're a day away from Ben Howland's total dumpster fire back in action, this time against our new conference foes, the pitiful Utah Utes, a team that guys like AA, JF, DC, RW, KL, LRMAM, AA2, LMR, etc. would have just absolutely dismantled. Instead we'll probably be treated to a half-hearted effort, squeaking by bottom-feeder hoops program in a conference of joke teams.

At this point, we all know what is necessary to restore UCLA to its rightful place in the basketball world, to honor the legacy of excellence that Coach taught, to reject mediocrity and demand Coach's definition of success:

Fire Dan Guerrero and then fire Howland. Replace Chianti Dan with someone who can competently hire an elite basketball coach to take UCLA back to its rightful place at the top of the college basketball world.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse for the middle of the work week:

• Starting with football (because, well, everyone is looking for their hit of crack recruiting news in the homestretch before national letter-of-intent signing day on Feb. 1), there's a good video snippet of recruiting guru Brandon Huffman breaking down the impact Jim Mora has had on recruiting, the coaching moves he made that have dramatically turned around UCLA's recruiting this off-season. Good stuff from Huffman.
• Sticking with football, Jon Wilner at the San Jose Mercury News rolled out his self-admittedly way-too-early projections for how the Pac-12 will shape up in 2012. Naturally, Wilner went with the Ducks to finish at the top of the Pac-12 North, followed by Cal (in part due to drinking the Maynard-will-improve Kool-Aid), Stanford, Washington, Oregon State, Washington State. His Pac-12 South pick is hated U$C, calling them one of the best teams in the nation, albeit one of the thinnest in terms of depth. Behind Southern Cal, Wilner has Utah, Arizona, UCLA, Arizona State, with Colorado again pulling up the rear. If forced to make a projection today, I'd go with Oregon at the top of the Pac-12 North, followed by Washington, Stanford, Washington State, Cal, and Oregon State. In our own division, I'd have to go with U$C, followed by us (yes, us), Arizona, Utah, Colorado, with Arizona State at the tail-end. Disagree? Fire away your way-too-early 2012 projection in the comment thread.

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It's Sunday evening, which sadly means a return to work tomorrow, which be exacerbated by the Niners' heart-breaking loss to Eli Manning's Giants in OT (BTW, thanks for blowing it Kyle Williams). Fortunately, the return to work also means we're as far away from Ben Howland's dumpster fire brand of basketball as possible (at least for the time being), which, much like Rick Neuheisel's vespa clown show, is in its final death spiral.

Yes, Ben Howland is finished, but we'll have more on that later. For two years, major questions have been surrounding Howland since the wheels came off the program. We've discussed the various problems surrounding Howland, but while it's clear Howland is our Jeff Tedford for hoops (good, but not great coach, who can build excitement, but never get to the top), the real problem is our idiotic athletic director, Chianti Dan Guerrero, and the sleazy bureaucrats he's surrounding himself with at Morgan Center.

Howland needs to go at the end of this season. He's a good coach, but this is UCLA: we don't hang banners or pat ourselves on the back for Final Four appearances. That weak stuff is for joke programs like U$C. This is Wooden's program. This is where kids like Jordan Farmar walk into Pauley Pavilion and know that only titles get hung in the rafters. Howland simply isn't going to get us there.

But here's the problem: after watching Chianti Dan bungle not one, not two, but three football head coaching searches, there is zero evidence that Chianti Dan won't completely f**k up a coaching search for Ben Howland's replacement. Fortunately, there is a simple (and long overdue) solution:

Fire Dan Guerrero. Replace him with someone who can competently hire an elite basketball coach to take UCLA back to its rightful place at the top of the college basketball world.

Yes, that's right. Chianti Dan doesn't get kudos for lucking into Jim Mora, who so far has been knocking it out of the park on the recruiting trail, hitting all the right notes (although we should temper the enthusiasm until he actually wins games on the field). The body of Chianti Dan's work leaves all of us with zero confidence that he can competently hire a new basketball coach.

It's time for Howland to get the axe. And it's time for Chianti Dan to go with him.

With that, let's turn to bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse at the end of the weekend:

• Let's start with football, because I think Jon Gold is worth mentioning at the top of this weekend's edition of Bruin Bites. Gold has an absolutely pitch-perfect, on-the-money, [insert other catch-phrase here] article on the correlation between the decline of our offensive line and the decline of our program in general (HT 4everBruin). It's a really good read and really highlights what sets Gold apart from the other guys covering Los Angeles sports. It has the kind of depth and critical thinking you would never get from the morons at the Los Angeles Times sports section.
• Sticking with football, the big recruiting news (besides flipping Castro from Oregon) was Coach Mora landing the commitment of Sheldon High (Elk Grove) TE/DE Nate Iese, a very big get in Mora's first recruiting season. Iese's local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee profiled the promising young man this weekend, who talks about his desire to play either TE or DE for Mora, but ideally both.

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It's Wednesday, so we're a day away from Ben Howland's squad going back to work against the Oregon schools, starting with the Beavers tomorrow night and the Ducks on Saturday, and we're halfway through the work week on our way to the weekend. Obviously, the big news has been around Jim Mora's program, which has been on fire on the recruiting trail the last few weeks, snapping up Ellis McCarthy, T.J. Millweard, Colby Cyburt, Christian Powell, and Fabian Moreau, all within the last week.

But, let's take a step away from football (which we'll continue to update as things develop) just for a minute and let's take a look at the bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse for the middle of the work week:

• Starting with baseball, UCLA commit Luke Persico, an outstanding junior infielder who hit .395 last season, is being moved from the infield to center field for Newhall Hart High. Persico, a versatile multi-tool guy is expected to make a seamless transition to center field, per his current coach.
• Speaking of recruits, super-stud basketball recruit Kyle Anderson was profiled by Erik Gallant at MassLive.com, who recapped Anderson's performance on Monday's game in the Hoophall Classic (18 points, 10 rebounds, having shot 8 for 11 and 1 for 1 from downtown). Of course, Kyle was matched up against UCLA target Tony Parker for most of the game, so hopefully Kyle was putting in some recruiting work for Howland.
• Turning to current UCLA big man Josh Smith, ESPN's Peter Yoon (one of the few good regular writers employed by WWL) took a look at Smith's self-admittedly disappointing start to the season and points out a variety of factors he believes show that Smith is turning around his season, which could produce big results for UCLA, especially down the homestretch. Yoon gathers a handful of quotes from fellow Bruins, including Jerime Anderson and Travis Wear on Smith's turnaround.
• Meanwhile, Jon Gold hit on similar notes, talking about freshman guard Norman Powell high-flying potential and Howland's reluctance to utilize freshmen. Gold has a couple of quotes from Howland on Powell, as well as notes on the Wear twins and Smith's (hopefully) soon-to-come breakout.

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It's Sunday, but fortunately, it's not the last day of the weekend, thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. So, you get one extra day to sit back, catch some NFL action, and not worry about pushing paper around the office. It is game day for Ben Howland's squad against a terrible Second Choice squad (who would probably be the third or fourth choice team at any decent program), in a "road" game at U$C that UCLA has absolutely no excuse to lose. The match-up game-day notes are already up and the game thread will be up later today.

For now, let's get to your extended holiday weekend bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse:

• Starting with football (because, as we constantly remind folks, college football is king), Jim Mora picked up a big commitment that got lost in the wave of recent commits, landing FB/DT Christian Powell from Upland. Powell is a 6'0", 250 pound backfield beast who wants to stay at FB but is open to the idea of bulking up and moving to DT. In his comments to ESPN (not behind subscription firewall), Powell sounds excited and it sounds like the coaching staff did a great job of convincing him he'd be needed in Westwood during his visit.
• While we're on football, Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon (and former Washington Husky) offered his thoughts on a variety of topics on the 110 Sports Podcast, touching on Jim Mora and his hiring at UCLA (at approximately the 18:25 mark). Warren thinks Mora will be a great fit for college football and expects him to do a "great job" at UCLA.
• Now for some confusing news: for some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to invite Taylor "I Dream of Skipping Practice" Embree to a post-season all-star game. Apparently, while TE Cory Harkey will play in the East-West Shrine Game, Embree and safety Tony Dye will take part in the NFLPA All-Star Game. I guess there is an all-star spot for "designated punt catcher" these days.

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