Basketball Media Day yesterday!!  Unbelievable.  Unbelievable.  If you want to know how it's done just read the quotes from our players and coach.  It's total Commitment to Excellence.  Just read this from Rich Perelman LA Times What's Bruin blog:

Center Lorenzo Mata-Real, whose playing time will be the most affected by Love, wasn’t concerned. "It’s Coach Howland’s team, and I’m going to be a leader," he said. "I’m OK if I play 10 minutes or if I play 25 minutes. I’m going to play; I’m not worried about that. He [Love] is going to help us win some games."

That is how it's done. Taking read more

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While Dorrell cultists find numerous excuses for why Karl Dorrell has cemented our football program in mediocrity, two other coaches are going about doing exactly what they were hired to do, without excuses.  We all know about Ben Howland and our basketball team. Two Final Fours in his first 4 years, top recruiting classes, from a program that had its first losing season in half a century, that had 20 losses.   John Savage, our baseball coach, has taken a moribund program and in his first 4 years took UCLA to the College World Series Regionals in ‘06 and then the College World Series Super Regionals in ‘07, one game away from the CWS.  And that is after having sustaining key injuries.  Now, Rivals is calling Savage’s program the #1 rising program in college baseball!  Here is what Rivals has to say (HT to rybreadraz at BN):

Why are they rising?
After four seasons as the head man at UCLA, coach John Savage finally has the Bruins thinking Omaha on a consistent basis. The Bruins have yet to break through and reach the College World Series, but the future prognosis looks promising. The Bruins turned some heads by reaching the Regional round two seasons ago. But in 2007, they overcame adversity at times throughout the season and faced in-state foe Cal State Fullerton in the Super Regional round. UCLA took two giant steps forward during the past two seasons, but now they’re aiming for more. Just look at the Bruins’ returning roster. Sure, they must replace talented right-hander Tyson Brummett. But left-hander Gavin Brooks finished his freshman campaign on a high note. Additionally, reliever Garett Claypool was a Rivals.com Freshman All-American, while fellow sophomore Charles Brewer should be outstanding if he can stay healthy. The Bruins also have much to look forward to offensively with the return of Brandon Crawford and others.

“Bruins thinking Omaha on a consistent basis.”  And Howland has Bruins thinking Final Four on a consistent basis. That right there says it all.   Does Dorrell have Bruins thinking BCS on a consistent basis??  Hardly at all. How about just Pac-10 championship on a consistent basis? How about a Pac-10 championship just once??  Exactly. The differences between good coaches and a bad one could not be more striking!!

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Former UCLA great basketball player Sakuragi is expected to play for the Japanese National Team at the FIBA Asia Championship in Japan, a qualifier for the Olympic Games, according to The Japan Times.  Sakuragi, as you all know, was a freshman standout for the incredible ‘95 team that brought home to Westwood our 11th national title in hoops.  Who can forget the clutch free throws Sakuragi hit at the end of regulation against top-ranked Stanford at the Farm early that season?!   And who can forget the all-star freshman tandom of Bailey and Sakuragi during the NCAA tourney that year?!  Sakuragi … wait … who??

J.R. Sakuragi … that’s who … formerly known as J.R. Henderson. Now that we cleared that up … let us explain. J.R. had a great 4 years at UCLA and landed at the Grizzlies for one year in the NBA.  He has been playing in Japan since 2001 and has done quite well for himself. Apparently, he’s been seeking Japanese citizenship for some time (the Japan Times article does not say why) and finally had it granted to him July 2, just in time to play for Team Japan at the FIBA Asia Championship.  So J.R. Sakuragi may get to play in the Olympic Games for Japan, although it’s a long shot. Only one team will get the invite, and Japan hasn’t made it since 1976.  There is also this matter of the Chinese team …

Best of luck to a UCLA great .. J.R. by any name .. Bruin and Champion!

Note: China, as the host country, gets the automatic bid so Japan does have an easier road.

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Check out this hi-larious spoof of Steve Lavin’s nuptials to actress Mary Ann Jarou. You might recall that the lovely couple uninvited all of their guests in a strangely worded email and decided to elope to Europe instead. What’s hilarious to us is Lavin’s doo and makeup. Nice job by someone named Dr. Toast who sent this in to the LA Times UCLA Bruin blog.

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Editors note: Rich Perelman of the LA Times defends his paper’s report on this story as having been sourced independent of BruinsNation.com. We approved his comment below and take him at his word. Our apologies to Rich and the LA Times.

Steve Lavin, who tortured us with his slickness for 7 long years, has done something that is hard to imagine … he uninvited to his wedding every one of his wedding guests, including presumably his best man John Wooden, in an oddly worded email. You have to read it to believe it (excerpted below). Lavin claims that there were too many invitees who decided to go to the wedding, exceeding the limitations of the 5-star resort the wedding was to be hosted at. Naturally when that happens you uninvite everyone and elope. Sound fishy?? You bet. As many have pointed out, a 5-star resort would have planned for such contingencies and would have bent over backword to make any accomodation. The best thing one can say about this is that Lavin lacked decorum. At worst, he is classless and smarmy and is lying. You decide.

First reported on BruinsNation, the LA Times has now run with the story without, predictably, giving credit to Bruinsnation. Here is the email:

Update from the Jarou/Lavin wedding headquarters in Newport Beach.

Unexpectedly we have received a stunning 95% RSVP on sent out wedding invitations. As a result, our wedding guest list has far exceeded the maximum capacity for a traditional ceremony and reception at The Montage Resort.

After giving serious consideration to alternative plans we have decided the best option at this late stage is to head to Europe to create a magical wedding day.

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconveniences this change in our wedding plans may have caused you.

We are sorry that we will not be able to share our big day with family and friends. We will be sure to send you photos of our wedding upon our return from Europe.

Please confirm that you received this email.

Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Warm regards,

Steve & Mary

Update: This story has picked up on the radio (Loose Cannons AM 570) and in the news elswhere including, AOL, LA Observed, Oregon Live, Pig Pen (just for variety), to name a few.

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Jrue Holiday, guard from North Hollywood Campbell and one of the nations top rising senior high school basketball players, has committed to being a Bruin!!  Does anyone now want to talk about recruiting at UCLA??  Ben Howland turned average recruiting classes into back-to-back Final Four teams.  With that success he is now getting the best players in the country (5 stars!!) to play in Westwood.  UCLA may have THE best class of ‘08.  Dorrell, by comparison, has 0 5-stars.  Sure, his recruiting class is good, but he hasn’t done anything with the talent he’s had in the past and if that is true this year the players he has verbals on may change their minds.  The same cannot be said about Howland, a true PROVEN winning coach.  Thank God for Ben Howland.

Welcome Jrue to Westwood, college basketball heaven!!!

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Update: Keating actually decides to go to Santa Clara.  Funny how CBSSportsline.com, the new butt of all bad news site jokes, changed their copy to Santa Clara from LBSU.  Fools … or maybe that’s us for believing what they write.

It was expected … Kerry Keating, assistant to Howland, has taken the head coaching job at Long Beach State. Congratulations to Keating! He deserves it and will due very well there at LBSU … after he rebuilds from losing the top 7 scorers at LBSU. Best of luck.

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It will be interesting to see the blowback from the Ohio State loss to Florida. Ohio State loses by just as much as we do to Florida, and we all know how the media crucified our program for it. What will they say about Ohio State?!

Florida had a very well-balanced returning starting 5 who won the championship last year. Three of their players could be getting significant minutes in the NBA next season (although some think Noah will go to the WBNA). They are the better team period. And we lost to them twice. We would have matched up better against Ohio State AND Georgetown, and would have had better games because of it. But that is all speculation because obviously those games won’t be played. And next year we will look very different with a true big in Kevin Love. We will not forget how the MSM treated UCLA however.

Congratulations to Florida … they will be a shell of the program they are now after this year. Donovan would be stupid to turn down Kentucky, and we dont think he is stupid. We, however, will be back to the top of the heap and will be for the foreseeable future … a bright one with a great coach.

Interestingly, one basketball “guru” is saying that Florida would own UCLA 99 times out of 100: John Wilner of .. well who cares.  The MSM keeps repeating their own hype so much they start believing it themselves.

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Great season, let’s start off with that. There is no other way to look at the loss though, it was ugly, again. So much to say but we want to keep it short … we are in no mood to dwell on it. Some thoughts:

1. The refs did not lose this game for us. But they had too much of a hand in both games yesterday too early and too often. The NCAA should seriously take a look at what they did to their showcase event. Everyone anticipated two high quality games and got essentially two ugly games with the stars on the bench (except Florida). Horrible horrible job. Many will say read more

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“I don’t think my teams played as good a defense as Ben’s teams,”

That from the legendary coach John R. Wooden in the LA Times.   Read the full article, it will put a smile on your face.  More Wooden on defense:

“I’ve always said, in any sport, defense most often will be the deciding factor. I still love to watch a 1-0 or 2-1 baseball game.”

True that. We love our focus on defense.  More from the article … Wooden jokes that he will live at least 5 more years because he just got his driver’s license renewed.  We would be so lucky.

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