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Hoops Roundup

By Nestor

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Wow. Thanks for all the Facebook linkup guys. Pretty cool stuff. Keep them coming. Again, I am hoping we can use facebook as another avenue to share information, which will help us collectively proselytize about all that is blue and gold. Let’s get to some quick basketball notes.

I am sure everyone here knows by now that the Bruins jumped to number 4 in both polls. BBR has the details. Obviously, there are a number of things we can take issue with in both polls. I just don’t get how Florida is ranked above us in both polls, despite having the same number of losses, and playing a schedule that is inferior to the Bruins. But whatever. I will not get all that worked up about it. As the old cliché goes, we just need to take care of business on our end and keep winning our games. And we do have a couple of tough games to close out our home stand. Cal comes in on somewhat of a resurgent mode, winning it’s last 2 games against the Oregon schools. And everyone knows what happened the last time we played Stanford. We will have more on Cal later today or tomorrow.

Also, DC was named Pac-10 player of the week. He is somewhat the toast of the entire nation right now. From Parrish over at Sportsline:

Arizona barely recruited Darren Collison out of high school despite him wanting to be Lute Olson's next great point guard. So Collison signed elsewhere -- elsewhere being UCLA -- and, naturally, made the Wildcats pay in a big way Saturday, finishing with 17 points and 15 assists in the Bruins' 81-66 victory.

"I don't think there is a better point guard in America than Collison," Olson said afterward, which is a little like picking Wednesday's lottery numbers on Thursday.
That’s nice and all. However, I wouldn’t buy anything that crusty old man sells. In fact, I never take anything coming out of Lute’s mouth seriously when it involves UCLA. After all, this is the same man that for years was effusive in his praise of Steve Lavin, trying to do whatever he could in his own cynical way to keep that joke in Westwood. Now he is being effusive in praising Collison, perhaps hoping against hope that DC will leave early and leave his pathetic Mildcats alone. Whatever Lute.

Oh, and speaking of Steve Lavin, our women’s hoops team lost to ASU at Pauley on Senior Day. The Lady Bruins now have a pathetic 7-9 record in the Pac-10 (13-15) overall. From Jason76 at BRO:
Yikes. During the SC/UCLA game yesterday, Barry Tompkins and Mary Murphy were going over the rankings and when they got to UCLA all Tompkins could say was "I just don't get UCLA." Earlier in the season when UCLA played ASU, Murphy's warm up had her going on and on about what a great coach Charli Turner Thorne was, and then when she got to Kathy Olivier, she said rather meekly, "She's known for being a great recruiter." They also said Olivier was in Vegas looking at a player. Anyone know who that was?

Kathy Olivier will be at UCLA as long as she wants. Guerrero has given her the vote of confidence again and again. Her current contract expires in three years, which will coincide with the re-opening of Pauley. The losses this season to unranked teams, blowouts to ranked teams (the 40 point loss at ASU especially), combined with her public comments that have ranged from bizarre ("I don't remember the second half") to unprofessional ({Trakh} is sandbagging) should be enough for an AD to at least reevaluate her.

Coupled with UCLA's well publicized problems with African American enrollment and the fact that the bulk of the next team will be black, I think UCLA's next wbb coach will likely be an African American female. Dawn Staley has been mentioned, but she just got a rollover on her Temple contract so she'll be too expensive. Carolyn Peck is about to be fired from Florida and although she has a dreadful record there, she's telegenic, media savvy and has a name. She's also known for being very good at PR which could help solicit donations for the Pauley renovation.

If Coach Olivier is shown the door, Peck's name might be in the mix and then we might long for the Olivier days.
Not sure if I really give a cr*p about "telegenic" coaches. We have had enough of incompetent pretty faces like Lavin and Dorrell. Anyways, before we even get to that discussion, Olivier needs to be canned.

My question for those in the know: will Olivier be fired the end of this season or will Guerrero continue to allow this (what sounds like a clearly incompetent and clueless) head coach to rip off tax payers by posing as a leader and teacher of college kids next season? Anyone have any answers?

GO BRUINS.

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