Washington State at UCLA

The Washington State team from 2005-2006 showed up in the first part of the game, and combined with another solid performance by the Beached Whale (Kevin Love), the UCLA Bruins took a comfortable lead in the game.

Or so they thought. With about two minutes left in the game, The Wazoooo Cougars hit about half a dozen three pointers, gave the Bruins fans a scare, and almost managed to send the game into overtime, and could have caused the UCLA players an "Ammo tears" moment.

Derrick Low scored 24 in the second half, but where was he in the first half? The game was in the 70s despite Jay Bilas categorically stating that it wouldn't be in the 70s. Of course that was partially caused by fouling UCLA players and Wazoo hitting a barrage of threes during the last few minutes.

This was a classic deer in the headlights moment for Washington State. UCLA had already played a number of high profile games this season, and a number of their players had back-to-back Final Four experience. Wazoo on the other hand played a rather comfortable and comforting schedule, and this was probably their biggest game of the season.

Their initial deer in the headlights reaction was what took them out of contention, and perhaps exposed them a little bit. The game was not as close as the final score indicates, but then again, Wazoo was just a three pointer away from major drama.

So what does this tell us? UCLA is going to be hard to beat this season, that's for sure. Note that Howland limited Mata's PT and played more basketball skilled Keefe - to match up with the more fundamental Cougars.

Washington State on the other hand may be headed to another second round exit, since so far they have only beaten teams that would likely not make it past the first round of the NCAA tournament. Then again, they didn't play any other top tier teams, so we have to wait and see. Can they beat UCLA on their home court? Come back in February and we'll find out!