Let's start with a follow-up on last night's big win against Southern Cal. Ryan already posted the recap of UCLA's (34-11, 11-8) 13-7 win over the Trojans (23-26, 5-14). The official site in addition to a recap also put up the following interview and video highlights from the game:
It was a packed house last night at JRS. More than 1,700 fans jammed the stadium. Bruins are expecting larger crowd this weekend. So if you are planning to head out there today (2 pm PST) or tomorrow (1 pm PST), make sure to get there early (unless you don't mind sitting in the extended bleacher section out in the right field).
It is good to read the Bruins getting off to a good start in this Pac-10 series at home. That was a welcome change from what took place against Oregon and Arizona. I think it is going to be another tough game today against the Trojans this afternoon. So the entire team will need to be locked in and get ready to give their best effort against a team desperately looking to make a statement to salvage their season.
Come over with us after the jump as we stroll through number of other news and note we are tracking in a mellow spring Saturday.
Moving over to hoops, Diamond Leung of ESPN posted an interesting note this past week that many of us might not have thought about as the Bruins get ready to move around during 2011-12 while Pauley is being renovated:
[W]hile the Bruins make the move, a bit of history is apparently coming along with them. Asked if UCLA's national championship banners would hang at The Forum, Guerrero told the Los Angeles Daily News that they would indeed make the trip.
"(Laughing) We'll do that, no doubt. No doubt. That's a good question. We haven't thought about that, but yeah," he told the Los Angeles Daily News.
It is going to be very interesting to see our Bruins play in the arena we indentified with Magic, Kareem, Worthy and so many other Laker legends. The more I think about it, it could be kind of fun to have the Bruins extend themselves to another community in the City and to Orange County and the Inland Empire. If played the right way, it could enhance our recruiting efforts.
Speaking of recruiting or should I say transfer chatter, Jerry Mayer from Rivals.com had the following to say about Wear Twins and UCLA:
The working assumption in the college basketball world is that David Wear and Travis Wear will end up at UCLA. The Wears chose North Carolina over UCLA coming out of high school. They are from the Los Angeles area, and most folks have them penciled in as future Bruins.
The UCLA basketball program is down. There is no doubt about that. The program, however, isn't out.
Present players like Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson need to step up and perform at the level that was expected of them coming out of high school. Frontcourt players like Reeves Nelson and Brandon Lane need to get healthy and stay healthy.
I expect Tyler Lamb to come in as a freshman and be a valuable, versatile and reliable player.
A big part of UCLA's success next year will hinge on center Josh Smith. The five-star prospect will need to come up big as a freshman for the Bruins. For starters, that means Smith needs to lose weight, get in better shape and play with a competitive edge.
UCLA can't afford for their prize recruit to go the path of former highly touted center J'Mison Morgan.
Nothing in there should be a surprise to any of the regular members here on BN.
Moving over to football, interesting note from Dave over at Maize n Brew (via MVictors and Mgoblog):
Speaking to a Boston area alumni group, Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman announced that Michigan will be reporting self-imposed sanctions at the end of the month in response to the NCAA investigation. To get confirmation of this MVictors went straight to the source, and spoke with UM's media relations guru Bruce Madej about the rumors. The response was non-committal, but definitely indicates that Michigan will announce self imposed sanctions on May 24, 2010 with a formal press announcement on May 25, 2010. I'm confident that Dave Brandon and Mary Sue Coleman will do the right thing, but we'll have to wait until the end of the month to know for sure what will be announced. The full text of Madej's email response can be found at MVictors.
Hmm. I wonder why the Wolverines are going through all that trouble? They should have just gone the route of you know who and just resort to deny, delay, use attorneys to challenge NCAA at every step of the way, while using the "pundits" on tWWL and other media outlets to shill their talking points. That would have worked just fine.
Lastly, while the women's water polo team got bounced in the first round of the NCAA tournament as 5 time defending champions (by losing to LMU for the first time in program's history), the tennis team took care of business against Army in their first round NCAA matchup . Ralph, who is everywhere these days did a recap:
Good luck to our ladies in the next round.
GO BRUINS.