Roundup From BN Walk: News & Notes

Jill Painter from the DN has more followup on Donovan Edwards:

I just talked to Donovan Edwards, and he told me that he's taking two summer school classes at Diablo Valley College and he needs to get at least a `B' in both classes. In order to be admitted to UCLA, he needs two more classes and at least a `B' in each.
``I'm definitely going to get things done,'' Edwards said. ``This is the opportunity of a lifetime.''

Donovan left no doubt where he wants to play football:

``UCLA was the right choice for me because of the educational values,'' Edwards said. ``I really like what Bob Palcic and Rick Neuheisel are doing. I love L.A. I really want to live there, even after I'm done at UCLA.''

Good luck to DE in taking care of his academic requirements. Let’s hope he will be fired up and ready to go this August, joining other outstanding Bruin student athletes such as GiOnna DiSalvatore:

For an 18-year old incoming freshman, GiOnna DiSalvatore arrived in Westwood, Calif., with an already sparkling résumé of accomplishments that illustrated just why she had been recruited by the premier softball program in all the land.

To say that DiSalvatore, 19, who will soon enter her sophomore year at UCLA, merely added to that list of accolades during her first year donning the True Blue and Gold would be quite the understatement.

How is that?

For starters, the All-Everything, ex-Countryside High standout became the first freshman softball player at UCLA to earn first-team All-American honors since 2001. The last was Natasha Wately, a Bruins assistant coach and current Team USA member.

DiSalvatore also racked up a first-team All-Region award, was named co-Freshman of the Year within the UCLA softball program and became the 2007-08 Freshman of the Year encompassing all of UCLA athletics.

She started all 60 games during UCLA's 51-9 Women's College World Series run, finished tied for sixth in the Pac-10 Conference in batting average (.362), led the Bruins in game-winning RBI's (11), multihit games (20) and overall hits (68), and finished second on the team in RBI's (45) behind Amanda Kamekona's 46.

Those grafts were taken from a profile on GiOnna in a local news paper in Tampa Bay, Florida. So now Fox71 is no longer the only member of BN in Tampa.

Moving on, bruinhoo blogged about WWL’s mock draft (version 6.0), which has RW going at 4 (Sonics) and KL at 9 (Bobcats). Ian Thomsen has the same projection on SI.com.

Both of them will be in NYC on Thursday night. I am sure many of us will be watching and rooting not just for those two, but also for Luuuuc.

GO BRUINS.

UPDATE (A): According to today's New York Post, Coach Ben Howland is also in New York for the draft.

Westbrook, his agent, and UCLA coach Ben Howland arrived in New York yesterday for the draft. Westbrook, the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year, was part of the first crop of Knick workouts June 4 - and actually went mano-a-mano against other players, unlike Bayless' and Gordon's solo workouts. Westbrook (12.7 ppg) is not a very good shooter but a great penetrator.

The article suggests that the Knicks would love to have Westbrook.

As a fan, I think it would be very cool to have Westbrook running the point for the Knicks. If he did well, he'd own New York, one of the most passionate and knowledgeable hoop towns in the country. On the other hand, if he played for Seattle, I'd get to watch him play when the Sonics played the Lakers or the Clippers.

On the other hand, the Sonics are fucking the people of Seattle (with their move to OK City) -- so screw the Sonics. I hope Russell ends up with the Knicks. (With the D"Antoni story, the Knicks will be on TV plenty of times.)