Bruin Bites: Marcedes Praises Mora, Deeter Gets Honored, Shabazz as Ninth Overall Pick?

It's Monday morning, and our Bruin baseball team is coming off a huge 2-1 win over #4-seeded LSU in Omaha. If Savage's small-ball, offensively feeble-but-defensively superb squad, can navigate the treacherous path through North Carolina State and either LSU or North Carolina, the Bruins will find themselves in the national title series yet again. So, maybe, just maybe, in spite of our incompetent boob of an athletic director, the Bruins might just bring Westwood its 109th national title. So with that said, here's your Bruin Bites for this Monday morning:

• Starting with, what else, football, former UCLA TE Marcedes Lewis had a lot of praise for current UCLA head coach Jim Mora. Lewis, who was part of the offensive triumvirate (along with Drew Olson and Maurice Jones-Drew) that led the Bruins to a 10-2 season in 2005 despite Karl Dorrell's incompetence, is pleased to see a more professional mindset and culture shift around the UCLA football program. But, while Lewis is pleased to see UCLA turning around on the gridiron, he doesn't expect Mora to be around for too long, especially if things take off in Westwood, calling the former Falcons and Seahawks head coach "too good" to not be tempted away from Westwood.
• While we're talking about Marcedes, the former Bruin was in Long Beach to put on his annual Marcedes Lewis Football Camp at Long Beach Poly, which brought over 500 youth football players out to run drills and workout with Lewis. Fox Sports has a pretty good write-up on Lewis and his charitable work, which is the kind of stuff that makes you really proud that he's a Bruin.
• Speaking of youth and UCLA football, the WWL has more information on the eighth-grader QB from Texas that UCLA made a scholarship offer to. Lindell Stone, who despite being only in the eighth-grade already stands at 6'2" and 190 pounds, is still focused on making his high school squad before worrying about where he plays his college ball. Stone will attend Southlake Carroll HS, which is the alma mater of former Alabama QB (and current New York Jets' QB) Greg McElroy and former Missouri QB (and current Kansas City Chiefs' QB) Chase Daniel.
• Turning to hoops, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the Minnesota Timberwolves recently announced that former UCLA Gucci-styling mercenary one-and-done wing Shabazz Muhammad will be working out for team officials as part of the team's pre-draft evaluations. Minnesota, with the ninth overall pick, is figured to be in the range of picks that Muhammad is likely to fall to following an unimpressive (given the hype) season in Westwood.
• Flipping over to baseball, UCLA reliever Ryan Deeter picked up the Elite 89 award, which honors the student-athlete participating in a national championship tournament/game with the highest GPA in the sport(the 89 refers to the 89 annual recipients, one for each NCAA sport). Deeter, who is rocking Westwood with a 3.927 GPA, is majoring in mathematics and economics. Pretty exciting award for the young man: let's hope he can add a national title to his haul this year.
• Finally, on the baseball front, former UCLA ace Gerrit Cole's second start for the Pittsburgh Pirates wasn't as pretty, but it was effective, with the former Bruin picking up his second victory in the season in as many starts, helping lead the Pirates over the Dodgers on Sunday. Cole (5.2 IP, 3 ER, 1 K) did just enough to keep Pittsburgh in the game and hold on to the lead his offense managed to get on Dodgers' ace Clayton Kershaw.

Alright folks, those are your various bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse. Fire away in the comment thread with your thoughts, additions, and various opinions on all things UCLA.

GO BRUINS