Youngstown State at UCLA

A trip to the dentist might have been more fun. A classic Ben Howland game, uglier than ugly. At times Kevin Love looked like a unique player and a surefire top 10 lottery pick, at other times he looked like a ...beached whale :)



To be fair to UCLA, they were missing Darren Collison, shooter Mike Roll and forward James Keefe. Defensive lapses have probably put shooter Chace Stanback further back in the rotation, even though offensively he could easily be playing the Arron Afflalo position, infact Stanback is taller so he could shoot over the defenders.

Of general purpose interest, the UCLA student section embraced Steve Lavin. To be fair to fairness, they probably enrolled at UCLA during Ben Howland's tenure, so they may not even remember the Steve Lavin era first hand.

Lorenzo Mata added to his game, and he also added to his name. He is now Mata-Real. Hopefully the NCAA won't think he is sponsored by the Spanish basketball team Real Madrid and suspend him ;-)

Can you image if Darren Collison played for Roy Williams? He would go so fast, there would be sonic booms!

Not much to say about Youngstown State, these types of games are lambs to the slaughter for mid-major teams, designed to let the "designer" BCS teams walk through to the made-for-TV final four event. Unless of course they run into a Gardner-Webb and then poor Dick Vitale has to throw away his Kentucky notes and *gasp* learn about Gardner-Webb.