Or the OCR asking if Howland made adjustments in the second half. Dumb ass, Shipp, Collision, and Westbrook all had 4 fouls before the second half was even halfway through.

What will suck is when we win they will change their tune and take credit, saying their negativity is what woke the bruins up.

I truly believe CBH has the ability to, and will, motivate, inspire and coach this team through any adversity in a march to San Antonio.  Should he be stopped short in his ultimate quest, he will praise the team for a very good season, and will promptly set his sights on next seasons march.  These are good times.  Reading the sewage produced elsewhere does nothing but stress the walls of your arteries, because we know it is not true.  I have resolved to read only the positive from BN where I can band together with my second family to enjoy these great days.  It is absolutely a treat to be watching the Bruins playing on these last weekends of the season.  

He paused. He looked up.

"Don't you?"

No.

I don't care what Dickie V or Digger or Knight say.  (In fact, I especially don't care what those three say.)  I won't hear what they or any announcers say tonight.

Those guys are truly irrelevant in the world of college basketball.  How many assists did any of the smart people get?  Zero.  How many time-outs did they call to settle a team down or set a defense?  None.  They are irrelevant.

The only really relevant guys are the players and the coaches.  (I hope the refs are irrelevant, although they might not be.)

But these parasites who feed at the press box trough and then vomit onto their keyboards or into their microphones?  I just don't care what they think or what they say.  I think no less of the team for what they say, and their superb analyses truly show there are no Bruin grads in the group.

They're winning.

If our Ben Ball warriors were as unresilient and inconsistent as MSM makes us to be, why are we in the Elite 8?

They focus on the our "inconsistency" of stellar play through the entire 40 minutes. The "inconsistency" of offensive scoring from all players. But they refuse to focus on the most important consistency.

They're winning.

Sure enough, the team did not play hard in the 2nd half Thursday night -- until they had to. However, even as the game was slipping away, even as the team was experiencing things it had not experienced before this season -- an opponent proficient in the full court press, JS/RW/DC in foul trouble -- they found a way to gather themselves and win. They found a way to win. The mark of a true champion.

But those with the unrealisitc expectations -- bandwagoners,for instance -- look at the other #1 seeds and want a blow out. They want domination. They want victories without any strings. (If any of the other #1 seeds don't make it to San Antonio, what good will those blow-out wins do for them?)  And it is the bandwagoners that are buying local papers in droves to feed their hunger for more information about their newest and latest sports crushes. Remember this. Plaschke and his ilk are in the business of selling papers. They work for an industry that is being slowly driven to extinction by the Internet. They are trying to survive and their editors are not interested in boring, well-researched analysis. They want pizzazz, no matter how inaccurate or inarticulate the piece may be.

No one locally is writing about the effect of a brutal Pac-10 schedule. Where would TAM and WKU finished in our conference? The Bruins have been playing better teams all year long and I feel they have suffered a mental let down as they entered the tourney. You mean to tell me Howland wasn't warning them about letting down at halftime on Thursday? The team, however, failed to heed his warning --possibly due to mental fatigue -- and almost paid the price. But they won.

Today, I expect the Bruins to be well-prepared and to play hard for 40 minutes and to win. The margin of victory is irrelevant. My mantra this year has been: As long as they keep it close, they'll find a way to win.        

Look at what the media is saying:  the Bruins failed to live up to expectations.  They have been saying this as we won the PAC 10 by 3 games, the PAC 10 conference and 3 tourney games so far.  What does that really say about the media:  they know we can be SOOOO GOOD if we are playing our game.

We did not in the 2nd half against WKU.  We did not in the first half against Ta&m.  True enough.

But the real point is we know how to win even when we are not playing our best.  And our best is the best.  Let's hope we see it in the next 3 games!

Smoke on that haters!

To be sure (and of us who were around concur), the most profound effect was on the thin-skinned Gene Bartow. We may have behaved to some degree like spoiled fans and not appreciative of the teams he fielded who were (1) loaded with talent left over from the Wooden era (Marques Johnson was one such player), (2) manned with good recruited players (i.e., Brad Hollins, David Greenwood and Roy Hamilton), and (3) ran offenses that looked like statue gardens with a modicum of "D" to match.

As commented on before, perhaps we as fans were spoiled but there was a fine line between expecting a banner and expecting the players to play well as a team. Gene just couldn't manage that so he let the pressure get to him.

In all honesty, few ordinary coaches could have tolerated the pressure. But to say that they all had that monkey on their back is ludicrous. Immediately after Bartow left for UAB, Larry Brown came in and put together a team whom SI proclaimed as moribund after a few losses in the December pre-conference season. The infamous "Bruins in Ruins" SI cover and article, as I said before, dripped with the same East-coast bias/Bruin hatred from those who feared the rise of another dynasty and further-crowded rafters in Westwood. Larry produced a team that played over their heads, achieving the same performance we have come to know and love here.

Oh, and by the way, many of us count that team among the best at UCLA despite their having "let us down" (sarcasm) by not winning the banner against L'ville in the final game. (Bad call against Kiki in the last few minutes.)

The ensuing coaches were just good guys who allowed the vision of all the draperies in the rafters drive them out; perhaps it is easy to cut them some slack in that regard.

But, fer chrissakes, Lavin is a runny stool sample if he thinks he was a victim of some "pathology". The only pathology in his life is the Bardahl he uses in his hair.

Give it a rest, will ya (Lavin). We out here are just looking for decent guys to be recruited, play as a team, and exceed their abilities separately and collectively. If you can't do it, then go away and shut "TF" up!

..besides, don't you remember a few articles on how Lavin was all moist over the little tête-à-têtes he was having with "Coach".

The rest of the brain-dead media and Ward Bonds can suck rocks.

We man NOT get past the "X" tonight (doubt it), we may not win the banner this year (believe we will)  but we'll be back..

..year after year after year..

So, deal with it!