We will begin our Saturday BN walk with bad news. First, the bad news:

Needless to say a disappointing and disheartening start to what is supposed to be a must win series if our guys want to make the post-season. Savage’s team will try to rebound today at 1 p.m. Right-hander Charles Brewer (6-4) will go up against OSU left-hander Tanner Robles (3-1).

We will find out whether they can fight back today. Because if they don’t … well I don’t want to write them off yet. But we would be getting close to the end.

Now onto  the good news:

They are amazing. Lady Bruins will take on UC Davis in the semifinals today.

Now shifting gear to our major revenue sports, WWL has this capsule on CRN in an article on how first year coaches are performing on the recruiting trail:

In addition to QB and skill players we need some OL. It will be interesting to see what kind of OL talent Neuheisel and Palcic bring in this year and beyond. From what I have heard this year is down year in terms of OL talent in the West. So the Bruin coaching staff has no choice but to look into the JC ranks for some immediate help. I think they should be able to put together a class that will provide some short term help and also decent talent, who Palcic will be mold into good players in college. It all starts with a stable, consistent, and simple offensive foundation. And fortunately for us we have that with a great coaching staff.

Speaking of having a solid foundation in place, Jay Bilas from WWL tells us there is nothing to worry about in the world of Ben Ball:

Well obviously we agree with Jay's main assertion but we need to make an important point. While we all took the loss against Memphis really hard, I don’t believe there were any questions from UCLA alums and students (at least the ones who have healthy perspective when it comes to our basketball program) wrt to how Coach Howland runs his program. We know in terms of hanging a banner in Pauley, it’s a matter of time. And we are happy to be patient, while enjoying the building and development process of Coach Howland coached teams put together one fun season after another. We believe in Coach Howland. He can take his time. We don’t want him to go anywhere else. Meanwhile, we are going to stick around, watch, enjoy, and have fun following Ben Ball.

GO BRUINS.

We will start our BN walk today from Baton Rouge. Per Chris Dufresne in the LA Times there has been no movement yet wrt to Morgan’s paperwork at LSU:

Notice how the LSU officials are no longer saying they haven’t received his paperwork. I think it is reasonable to interpret from Lowes statement that the LSU officials will try to take their time and try to convince Morgan to stay. They are not going to let him out of his NLI without making an effort to persuade him to stay.

As for the reference to the comments of Morgan’s mother here is the article from the Baton Rouge Advocate: The article is full of drama. Now wrt to the NLI please note that if (and right now it’s a big "if") LSU does relent and let Morgan out of his NLI, he will not be able to sign another NLI with UCLA. From the FAQs at national-letter.org: You can read rest of the FAQ here. So what would UCLA do if Morgan does get a release and commits to UCLA? He could come in with a non-binding grant-in-aid scholarship (which he could easily get out of). We experienced this previously during the Lavin era with a recruit named Spencer Gloger. Needless to say in terms of basketball talent Morgan is a different level recruit than Gloger (and our program right now is at a different level than what it was back in those dark days). So we will see how it all plays out.

Moving over the baseball, the team is heading up to Corvallis for a huge series to keep their playoff hopes alive. CSTV.com has the preview which includes the following encouraging notes re UCLA on the road: Let’s hope the guys can refocus and get a much needed series weekend in Corvallis. Speaking of being in focus the women’s water polo team will be gunning for their 4th consecutive NC. Good luck to our ladies.

GO BRUINS.

Once again we will start our walk by checking in on our baseball team today and the news is not good. Per Andrew Howard in the Daily Bruin the team suffered yet another frustrating loss last night at Jackie Robison stadium once again giving up an early lead:

By all accounts given the early expectations of this season the performance of our team has not been up to par. I will be very interested in hearing rye’s takes as we go through rest of the season. And FWIW the team maintains the season is not loss and they can still make the playoffs. From the same article: Seems like this weekend’s series against Oregon State is shaping up as a make or break series for the Bruins. If they drop this series against the Beavers, we might find ourselves in worse position than Team Clinton.

Anyway, moving on there hasn’t been new development on the Morgan front. Although Painter in the DN reported these thoughts from Ronnie Morgan, J’Mison’s brother yesterday: FWIW per LSU as of yesterday the school officials still had not received paperwork from Morgan wrt his request for release. So again everyone will have to hold tight and see how this plays out before getting too excited.

Moving over to fool in addition to Ben Olson Craig Sheppard also had surgery (shoulder). Sheppard has had tough luck at UCLA suffering one injury after another. I hope the rehab goes well for him. For what he has gone through and the work and dedication he has shown to our program, he deserves to have a great senior year. Good luck Craig.

Lastly, NCAA came down on number of schools (which includes some usual suspects) yesterday based on their Academic Progress Reports (APR). Here are the highlights from UCLA’s APR: Not too shabby considering unlike other schools there are no opportunities to get into UCLA by going to some shady high school programs with online diplomas or maintain eligibility by taking classes from a Senora Ross or majoring in Leisure Management. Great work by the compliance/academic officials at Morgan Center and let’s hope they keep it up.

GO BRUINS.

Time for our stroll around the BN walk and we will start with J’Mison Morgan. As I said last night before everyone get’s overly excited keep in mind that we have not seen any confirmed report yet that indicates that LSU has granted his request for a release. From the good guys over at Bruin Basketball Report:

So keep your eye on the wires next couple of days if you want to closely track this story. Again I think everyone should temper their excitement before seeing report of LSU granting his request for release.

Anyway, back in Westwood the baseball team will be looking to rebound tonight in what the Daily Bruin has been calling a "disappointing" and "inconsistent" season: It will be Garett Claypool (1-2), who will take the mound for Bruins against San Diego. Garett himself will be looking to rebound from his last outing when he got chased by the Waves in Malibu. From the official site: Here is to Garettt getting back in form tonight.

Meanwhile, over at the football front Ben Olson is having his surgery today. Good luck to Big Ben.

Staying with football, CPBruinFan over at Bruin Roar, has posted capsule reports on each of our opponents spring practices. Here is CPB’s lowdown on the Vols’ spring practice: So Harwell, Price and co. will have their hands full right from the start.

Lastly, an additional note re. our scheduled site upgrade, which is coming on Thursday. Our tech friends at SBN tells us that BN will be migrating to the new site late Thursday night, and if all goes well will be live the next morning (Friday, May 9 in our case). We are looking forward to playing with the new features in SBN.

GO BRUINS.

My apologies for indulging in this post, which doesn't relate to the Bruins or even BN much at all.  But, I wanted to say a few words about the dust up last week regarding Will Leitch's appearance on HBO's Costas Now.  

As you may have heard, Leitch, of Deadspin.com fame, made an appearance on Costas last week only to be ambushed by Buzz Bissinger, writer of Friday Night Lights.  In case you didn't catch the program, the video is here and here.  Take a look, it's pretty amusing to watch a grown man almost lose control of his facilities.

Yes, Buzz, I'm mocking you.  And I'm saying this as someone who has spent 34 years perfecting the craft.

I'm not all that interested in the "new media" versus "old media" debate.  I don't need to point out, again, how embarrassing Bissenger's profanity laden meltdown was.  I don't need to note sharply declining newspaper readerships or the employment fears of traditional writers.  There's no need to point out that there are good and bad professional journalists, just as there are good and bad blogs.  I don't even need to chuckle about some folks inability to discern the difference between a comment and a front page blog post.  Those points, and many others, have already been made (among other places, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

I prefer a slightly different angle.  As a blogger on BN, I don't spend my days worrying about how I'm perceived by professional journalists, or, frankly, anyone beside our community members.  I'm not looking for links.  I'm not hoping to see my post quoted in the paper.  And, while I can't speak for the rest of the front-pagers, my only interest is talking about the Bruins and sharing information of interest to the Nation.  

I don't need to be evenhanded.  I'm proudly partisan.  I don't care to mediate a detente between the media of new and old.  I'm only care to bleed blue and gold.  I'm not part of any movement.   I'm a proud Bruin alumni.  I'm not a journalist, and don't pretend to be. I'm a fan who enjoys stepping away from my hectic life to talk Bruins with my friends.  In the end, I view Bruins Nation as first and foremost a community.  At that's it.

So, when something like the Buzz Bissenger episode comes along, I can only shake my head, and wonder how so many people can not get it, and why so many of those people care.  Sure, some folks may think blogs are the end of sports news as we know it, but I'll just keep blogging about UCLA and won't spend a moment worrying about what's got Buzz's undies in such a twist.

(HT: the Wiz)

So, for the record, if anyone here posts another photograph of Matt Leinart boozing with teenage co-eds, please know that were not trying to show he's "a real human being."  He's an ex-player for our main rival, and we're making a joke at his expense.  And, yes, we're also trying to embarrass him (in whatever infinitesimally small way we can).  

Oh, and also talk about UCLA.

GO BRUINS.

Our stroll around the BN walk is going to be heavy on football.

We will start with the WWL where Ted Miller put together his own roundup of Pac-10 spring football action. Ted spots the obvious issue at UCLA: a thin and inexperienced offensive line:

As troubling as the situation looks at OL, I think it may not turn out to be as bad as people think. From what I have seen last few years the OL have struggled because of bad schemes and horrific play calling that bogged down our offensive time after time. I think the combination of Neuheisel, Chow, and Palcic will bring some modicum of stability in this unit, which could settle down due to the simplification of offensive schemes. Perhaps that’s why CRN was "surprisingly upbeat and optimistic" while talking about the OL in San Diego this week.

But before you all get too excited read Jason over at What’s Bruin Dawg, where he crushes any reason for hope wrt our offense: Ouch! Before anyone get too upset with Jason, read this from the same post: Honestly given Olson’s track record and the reality around our OL situation (and the schedule for next season), I don’t blame him for posting that kind of brutal take. The best case scenario right now is for the light bulb to go on in BO’s head so that he can come into the Fall camp, totally prepared and in the right mindset to play in Chow’s quick strike offense. And if BO can’t do that may be it will be Craft or Forcier who might pick it up a little this August. What are the chances of those scenarios taking place? I don’t think it’s very good. But I am not going to let that tamper my enthusiasm for the season. I am going to stick with this process, which will be a "long slog" and often painful, just like it was during Howland’s first two years at UCLA. What I will look for is to see whether the team sticks with it, keeps fighting, and hopefully improve as the season goes along.

Now staying over at Jason’s blog, he also put up a good post on why CRN have been talking so much about beating the renegade program from cross-town. Jason compares Neuheisel’s current situation at UCLA with that of Tressel when he took over for Cooper in Columbus: One thing to keep in mind. The program Neuheisel has taken over is nowhere close the program Tressel inherited from John Cooper. Tressel took over a program at the end of 2000, that had won the Sugar Bowl in 1998. Sure they had two lackluster seasons following 1998 which featured losses to the Wolverines, but they were nowhere close to the mediocre product (with not a lot of talent) that we have seen in Westwood last five years under Karl Dorrell.

But going back to the point Jason brought up I do agree with him about the importance of that last game of every football season. That is simply not just another game and no UCLA head football coach cannot take a luke warm attitude about that game. That said I don’t believe our season should be defined by what we do in that game. Yes, two years ago that game became lot more significant than it always is because of the streak. However, as we said consistently over through the years winning or losing that game doesn’t define our season as successful. We were going to call for Dorrell’s removal last season even if he pulled off a fluke win this past December.

Yes we are all going to be fired up for December 6th. But right now we are just fired up about Fall camp and then give all our attention to the Tennessee Volunteers. We are going to approach next season game-by-game just like we do all the time here on BN in both football and basketball.

As for Pom Pom being a "genius" we have already offered our thoughts here and here on the famed Humanitarian from South Central. No doubt the guy is a superb recruiter/"salesman" and a good defensive coach. But as for being a great coach, you can email Bill Simmons or any die hard New England Patriots’ fan and ask for his or her opinion.

And speaking of New England, there is lot of buzz around the Pats’ drafting of Matthew Slater. Here are the write-ups from the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald for those who are interested. I think given the work ethic and dedication we saw from Matt during his time at UCLA, he has chance of shining in Bellichek’s program. We wish him luck.

GO BRUINS.

Let’s start our walk with some good news up front. The baseball team got back on track with a win over LMU. Here are the top lines from the Daily Bruin on our 6-2 win at Jackie Robinson Stadium:

Read rest of the story here. The boys return to action tomorrow at Jackie Robinson Stadium (6 pm first pitch) when they open a HUGE 3 game weekend series against the Sun Devils (35-7, 10-5 Pac-10). Saturday’s game is scheduled to begin at 4 and will be televised nationally by FSN. We will throw up first baseball open game threads starting Friday for this big series.

Moving over to Pauley the local papers don’t have any thing more on the Stanback transfer news except for cut and paste articles based on the official news release (which we linked up yesterday). I want to make an additional observation on that development. As I said yesterday we wish Chace best of luck. But to cite this news as an argument that Howland should give freshman more opportunities even if they are making mistakes does not hold up. RW got plenty of opportunities in his first year even though he was playing behind AA and was not as heralded as JK? So what did JK do? He worked away during the off season, physically developed and put himself in position to make solid contributions in his soph. year until he had surgery. But after the surgery instead of getting down on himself, he remained resilient, worked his rear end off, and emerged as one of the key contributors in a Pac-10 championship winning Final-4 team. Hard work, determination, resilience, and tenacity are the key traits of a Ben Ball warrior. JK showed it this past season to get his mins. RW showed it his first season to make an impression. And of course kids like LRMAM showed it their very first season to make an entrance.

And it all starts with willingness to play defense. Even JS despite his shortcomings from long range and occasional defensive lapses was much better (and often Howland’s only option at 3) on D than Stanback. To be honest Stanback looked weak and lost on defense this past season (it was obvious he need to gain more weight and body strength to play Howland defense) and could not stay in front of his man at 3. Stanback playing in garbage time didn’t have to do much with making mistakes. It had to do with not beating out Dragovic in practice in the dept. of playing defense (that's how a Ben Ball warrior earns his mins in our program). He looked like he just wasn’t up to task by Howland standards in his freshman season. There was nothing wrong with that. I think if Stanback stayed and followed the examples of players like JK and RW, he would have improved and emerged as a key contributor in this program. It would have required patience and hard work on his part. But I guess he wants to try to fit in another program. We wish him nothing but luck. For us again it just means Howland gets to bring in another player whose mentality fill fit in with the championship mindset of our program.

Anyway, shifting our attention to football CPBruinFan at Bruin Roar made the following observations on Craft v. C-Force based on his first hand impression from the spring scrimmage: Speaking of spring scrimmage, Nebraska blogger Jason Sifring from Big Red Network has a pretty cool post on 2008 college football spring game attendance around the country. The 15,052 announced attendance at the Rose Bowl put UCLA at number 32 in the list. However, considering it was only the first scrimmage at the Rose Bowl in CRN’s first year, the figure is actually pretty good. Nebraska led the nation with 80,149. Alabama and Ohio State was second and third at 78,200 and 76,346. Then again the options for things to do on a spring Saturday in Lincoln, Tuscaloosa, and Columbus, are not the same as the ones available in LA (specifically around West LA). USC led the Pac-10 with 22,000. UCLA was second. Oregon for all its hype and media blitz clocked in at 14,107. 15,052 for a program that is coming off a 6 win season, with two injured QBs, no experience OL is pretty damn good actually. You can only imagine how the excitement will build of CRN methodically builds this program in the coming seasons.

GO BRUINS.

Now that we are in the off season, we can officially start our multi-sports/topic Bruin roundups. I think we will call these Roundup From the BN Walk (very original, I know).

We will start with the baseball team which lost to Pepperdine yesterday, failing to continue the momentum it gained in Seattle. Per the DB report one bad inning made the difference in a 2-6 loss. Hopefully, the team gets back in grove against LMU today, giving them a boost heading into the big weekend series against ASU.

Moving on to football, Ben Olson decided to have surgery on his broken right foot. From Jill Painter in the Daily News:

Good luck to Ben and we wish him a speedy recovery. Hopefully his rehab goes well and he can also make the best use of that time by familiarizing himself even more with all the ins and outs of Chow’s offensive scheme.

Speaking of a Bruin who has persevered through injuries, LMR is in the news today. Dohn reports about LMR eyeing a career in the Spanish professional league for all the right reasons: Well, I think I speak for everyone here in saying thousands of us are going to be rooting for this kid. LMR is graduating this spring with a major in history. Hopefully, he will make all the right connections in getting himself a pro K in Spain and realizing his dream. I would think Coach Howland and his staff with their connections in the greater basketball community will be able to set this kid up.

And since we are on the topic of Coach Howland and his staff’s connection to international hoops, especially Spain, according to Jeff Eisenberg of the Press Enterprise, Donny Daniels recently flew to Spain to check out British 7 footer Phillip Wait: We will see how this angle all works out. Either way, given the shape we are in, UCLA has the luxury to be patient. If Daniels thinks Wait is up to UCLA standards, and he is interested in coming in, then we are all for it. If not, we will move on to the next plan under Coach Howland. There is always a plan in place with Coach Howland in charge.

GO BRUINS.

We have some Rocky Top related news brewin’ in our world today.

Remember there is a coaching search going on as we speak wrt to our Lady Bruins hoops team. Kendal Salter from the Daily Bruin (referencing Dohn’s blogpost – come on guys link him up if you are going to reference him) has a very interesting update:

Nikki Caldwell of course knows all about championships. Congrats to the folks at Rocky Top Talk (RTT) who have been celebrating yet another NC banner (8th) over in Knoxville.

Speaking of the Vols, if you are anxious to get an early start on our first opponent for the 2008-09 season, make sure to check out spring footbaw action over at RTT. Can’t tell how excited I am about Monday Night Bruin football against the Vols on WWL. Getting hyped up for that game during August is going to all kinds of awesome.

Anyway, going back to hoops we will see how our coaching search ends up. If any of you follow women’s college hoops, we would love to hear your perspective on Caldwell or any suggestions on other candidates Long should look at in the coming weeks.

GO BRUINS.

I don't really care much for glowing over winning an award. However, I believe this is an exception.

If any of you have been following the 2007 CFB awards posts sequentially popping up all over the college football blogosphere today, you will know ... the winner of the 2007 CFB Award for "Best Community" was none other than YOU.

Yes, BruinsNation was voted by its peers - a prolific group of bloggers writing their hearts out for their favorite teams all over the country - as the "Best Community" in the entire college football blogosphere. Considering the other incredible group of bloggers - Blue Gray Sky, EDSBS, MGoBlog and the M Zone - who were nominated for this award, this is something special. Any of those guys - the elite blogging communities - that represent the cream of the crop of not just college football blogsphere, but sports blogosphere in general are deserving of this award. So big ups to all of them for a great year.

But let's come back to our little community here on BN.

After all the ups and downs and the roller coaster rides we have been through as a community through the last few years, this is something you all should be extremely proud of.

Odysseus, Ajax, Menelaus, Tydides, Meriones, Achilles, Telemachus, and yours truly have always believed we have the finest group of readers and, more importantly, community bloggers, who have helped us put together the liveliest and most passionate sports bar in the internets (that happens to be drenched in blue and gold). Now its nice to hear that sentiment from folks who are objective. Head over to Burnt Orange Nation (the reigning champion of this award), where HornsFan has a gracious post honoring all of you.

Once again take a bow Nation. Congrats to everyone here on BN.

Thanks to everyone again for making all this so much fun.

GO BRUINS.