The PAC 12 is a bad conference. That was confirmed tonight in UCLA's 74-64 win, details are here. While the Beavers drove early against the Bruins to a 14-9 lead with 15:03 left in the first half, there is no way they could keep it going unless the Bruin's let them. Actually after that they could not even shoot finishing the first half shooting 31%. They are a bad team and you had to realize it was just a matter of time before UCLA took the game over.
In the first half Travis Wear continued to show that he is genuinely a good player on offense leading us with 9 points scoring in a multitude of ways: three, alley opp, and a nice put back. Also, ironically a key to the defense was his backup, Tony Parker who had two blocks and did a good job in a few minutes. Of course there was bad as well as David Wear continued to show why people need to separate the twins. David was in during Oregon's second half run as well and may be his brother's twin but he is definitely not his equal.
The second half UCLA started off with a nice run which included some surprising outside shots from Kyle Anderson who was hot the whole second half. At this point the game was over unless UCLA choked or Oregon starting to get hot from 3. Of course both happen. Oregon State closed to 48-58. As often happens, Shabazz and Kyle made sure we did not choke the game away. Shabazz hit a big three and Anderson had a couple buckets and the game should have been over but instead UCLA was content to "hang on". Which caused Bill Walton to say "Hang on and UCLA. Two things that should not be in same sentence."
Which bring me to the other show, Bill Walton. Bill is surreal with some of his comments such as his focus on the "little chairs" for the players. But in the big picture, Bill made some good points on UCLA and Howland. We will do more on this later but suffice it to say Walton is not happy with Howland. He was not impressed by the win streak.
Which sums up this game, we won but did not impress.