It's Good to be a Bruin

I

know a lot of you hate sports entries, but I can't help myself. I mean, it's great to be a Bruin right now. Saturday's game was ugly, I mean incredibly ugly. But we beat Memphis 50-45. Woo hoo! We are regional champs and are now headed to the Final Four in Indianapolis. Strangely, we are not the only non-#1 seed to get there. In fact, all #1 seeds lost--Memphis, Duke, Connecticut and Villanova. Of course, this really screwed up my bracket.

I had UCLA (of course), Texas (beating Duke), Connecticut and Villanova. Okay, LSU who beat Duke and Texas is a pretty tough team and Florida who beat Villanova is definitely not chopped liver. But George Mason getting into the Final four is a major shock... Or should I say mid-major shock. But this is cool with me, because GMU is a local team and everyone around here is going nuts, so I feel like I'm party to the celebration, even though people at the bar point out the fact that I am wearing a a UCLA baseball cap and a Bruin sweatshirt.

As for our boys in Blue, it was defense, defense, defense. They just shut them down. Some media people and the Memphis players themselves gave all due respect to UCLA's defense, but they said it was as much Memphis, that they just couldn't knock them down. Memphis All-American Rod Carney said about Afflalo:

"He's a great defender," Carney said. "But it was me more than anything. I couldn't concentrate on knocking down shots. I was just off. Everyone played terrible."

Yeah, right. Carney had only 5 points in the game and the last three came in the final seconds on a three-pointer. If you saw the game, you will have noticed that Afflalo didn't even try to defend him, and it went swish. Before that Afflalo hounded him and it just threw him off tempo, destroyed his rhythm. Yes, Memphis played terrible, but that was because of the Bruin defense. It was awesome!

But we now play LSU, and that Big Baby--Glenn Davis--they have playing the low post is as wide as he is tall. He is going to be hard to stop and UCLA will have to put in an extra effort on defense to stop this guy. But until then, I will enjoy the Bruins run and bask in the sunlight they have released over Bruin Nation. 10-2 football season and now a Final Four appearance.

It's good to be a Bruin.