Let’s start our Tuesday walk with some potential good news. rgalloucla already posted the story last night. FoxSports.com is reporting that Johnson is going to let Morgan out of his LOI:
Sources told FOXSports.com that new LSU coach Trent Johnson plans to honor signee J'Mison Morgan's request and will release the senior big man from his letter-of-intent on Tuesday afternoon, effectively paving the way for Morgan to land at UCLA.
The 6-foot-10, 270-pound Morgan signed with former LSU coach John Brady and appeared to stick with his decision even after Trent Johnson was announced as the Tigers new coach on April 10. However, the family had a change of heart last week and asked for his release.
According to sources, Morgan has made no secret of his desire to play at UCLA.
Again please keep in mind Morgan cannot sign another LOI with UCLA. So until we hear about Morgan signing a grant-in-aid with UCLA (which he can back out of any time before school), I am going to treat this news with nothing more than cautious optimism. But one thing is for sure: it is great to be a fan of UCLA basketball.
Moving over to football, the team release it’s post-spring depth chart (HT to bluestreet). Here are some issues that stood out to me:
- I guess we are going to be running to our left a lot this coming season behind starting LG Darius Savage (6-4,2328). Starting at RG is Scott Glicksberg who is listed at 6-4, 269. Yikes. We are probably not going to get any immediate help from any of the incoming freshmen in terms of size at OL. Jeff Baca is listed at 6-4, 265 and Connor Bradford at 6-5, 260 [See commit list on BRO]. Let’s hope Glicksberg and his team-mates hit the weight room hard this off season, and Coach Palcic will have them well prepared by the opener against the Volunteers.
- Interestingly at TB spot Bell and Carter who have been rehabbing from their injuries checked in at 1 and 2. Moline was slotted at the number 3 spot in the depth chart. May not be a bad idea to move Moline (6-1, 236) at the FB spot and pair him more with Bell, Carter, Ramirez and the incoming freshman backs?
- Hopefully we will see lot more Dominque Johnson and Gavin Ketchum next season.
- We are going to need incoming freshmen such as Rahim Moore and E.J. Woods step in right away in the defensive backfield. We have a walkon slotted at the number 2 spot at the RC.
Anyway, those are some of my impressions from glancing through the depth chart. I am sure it is going to look a little different after training camp shakes out in August.
We will end the walk with a little preview on tonight’s baseball game against UCI. Once again it’s desperation time for Coach Savage’s program. This time he is taking on the program he helped build into a national player:
Stuck in a sixth-place tie in the Pac-10 with a record of 8-10 and struggling to remain in contention for a regional berth with an overall record of 25-23 is not the scenario the preseason No. 1 team had in mind.
"Our backs are against the wall," coach John Savage said. "Every win is critical toward earning a postseason berth."
Tonight’s game against No. 12 UC Irvine (33-13, 10-8 Big West) will provide yet another opportunity for the Bruins to begin a string of victories for a bid for a regional berth. A win against the Anteaters on the road at Anteater Ballpark would help the Bruins’ RPI – currently 54 – and would avenge an early-season loss to UC Irvine. On April 8, the Bruins lost to the Anteaters at Jackie Robinson Stadium, 6-5, in 10 innings.
"(Tonight) is a big game," pitcher Charles Brewer said. "Irvine is a good club, and they were in Omaha last year, so they are a team that we know we have to bring our A-game against."
I am getting little tired writing do or die clichés around our baseball team. I am sure they are too. I think probably at this point of the season they should just concentrate on fundamentals, and play solid baseball, and let everything else shake out. No reason to put too much pressure on themselves and play out with nothing to lose. May be that will do the trick for them because so far nothing else seems to have worked in this disappointing season.
GO BRUINS.