UCLA at Arizona

Seth Davis made some comments about the future of the Arizona head basketball coach position for the 2008-2009 season and beyond. But in this post we'll just talk about the game.

And unlike ESPN who would like to ask for its money back from Arizona, after Arizona delivered a horrible performance on the Primetime Gameday game at Pauley, CBS Sports got a better bang for their buck.

And if it wasn't for a trio of blatant missed calls by the zebras, Arizona would have walked away with a big home win. A textbook fouling the shooter, a textbook block, and UCLA's two wrestler-forwards playing human pinballs with Budinger were uncalled.

But ultimately the game has to be won on the court, zebras included, and Arizona was a shot away from tying or winning the game. But senior Kirk Walters had a "deer in the headlights" moment and screwed up the last out of bounds play. Lesson learned for coaches: Save a timeout so you can use it to prevent mistakes like that.

UCLA showed once again how they are able to win games they are supposed to lose. Part of it is being allowed to foul multiple times per possession, both on defense and offense. Part of it is the explosiveness of both Westbrook and D. Collison. Part of it is the game-changing savvy of The Beached Whale (Kevin Love). We didn't get a lot of "Laser Love" (credit: Marques Johnson), but Love had his typical now 20+/10+ game. Shipp didn't even need to shoot, and anything else UCLA gets from its four wrestlers (Lorenzo Mata, Keefe, Aboya and LR Mbah-a-Mute) are a big plus but not necessary.