Expert Opinions

Back again for another installment of Expert Opinions. For those just joining us, let me give you a quick run down. I like UCLA basketball. My expectations are insanely high for this season, however, my confidence is insanely low. To help me sleep at night, I spend typically two or three hours of every work day perusing the major sports sites to reinforce my high expectations. This leads to major disappointment. So one more time, below are my top 5 picks for biggest disses of UCLA basketball on the major sports web sites in the last few days. See the last couple entries here and here.

5. Andy Katz of ESPN.com handed
out some weekly awards after week 1 of college basketball concluded. Total mentions of UCLA - 1. Total mentions of Kevin "Could this be Love" Love - 1. This is unacceptable. Love has thus far averaged 23 and 10 (math done in my head, may not be correct) in three games. Katz instead opts for Michael Beasley for Player of the Week. Hey Andy, how many times did Beasley fire a 55 foot chest pass at 97 mph? Yeah...didn't think so. If Beasley was on the receiving end of a K-Love outlet pass I am quite certain that his wrists would snap like graham crackers.

4. Jay Bilas is at it again, this time dissing the Bruins of years past. In this piece, Bilas tries to come up with a college all star team if no players left for the NBA while they were still eligible to play in college. He calls it the all imagine team - I assume because after reading it you have to imagine that he is not a total douche. He lists a total of eight teams (40 players) and the lack of Bruins is a crime against bruanity (sorry about that). All in all, according to Bilas, a team that has gone to the final four the past two seasons has a total of two players in the top 40. Pshaw. Blow me Bilas, Blow me.

3. Two mentions in the Sports Illustrated style archive for 07-08. I might appreciate the mentions, if I wasn't so sure the entry was tongue in cheek. Hey Luke Winn, The flaming Mohawk is not something to be mocked. In fact, I think Westbrook's good start can be attributed in part to his avant garde style. When it comes to style, all innovators are initially feared. But where would we be without the Russel Westbrooks and Andy Warhols of the world? Then Winn has the huevos to insult the Yellow C on UCLA's home jerseys. I personally think that being the first NCAA team to 100 natty's is something to be proud of and celebrate, call me old fashioned.

2. Andrew Skwara is back and pissing me off again. In his latest mailbag he says a bunch more stupid crap. When asked for the best frontcourts in the nation he rightly selects UCLA as the best, but wrongly keeps talking. Observe -

"The Bruins don't have anyone as dominating as Tyler Hansbrough".

If he had replaced dominating with feminine he would be onto something. I mean, our worst player (Michael Roll) could dominate Hansbrough while wearing high heels.

Skwara is then asked why Bryce Taylor of Oregon was not in his preseason PAC-10 all conference team. Check out part of Skwara's answer -

"We would like to have included Love , too."

Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there. You didn't include Love. Not only did this douche leave Love off of his stupid list, he is stupid enough to remind everyone of this tremendous oversight. Almost makes me want to find this losers list to make sure it sucks. And for that matter, how easy is it to make this all PAC-10 list, anyway? Uh, the list is...UCLA. Done.

1. I had to bring in a forklift to get my jaw off the ground after reading this load of feces from Fox Sports writer, Greg Hicks. One must only read the title to know that Hicks is totally full of prunes - it reads, Bruins are good, but there are questions. You are right Greg, I do have some questions - like, "Will the Bruins lose a single game this year?" or "Will Greg Hicks finally admit that he likes boys?". After the title, things go from bad to worse as Hicks basically tries (and fails miserably) to insult our entire team.
On Love, he says,'I don't know that he's going to be "dominating."' I do - he is.
On Luc, he says, "Luc had a tendency to over-handle the ball as he tried to create plays off the dribble." No he didn't...liar.
On Josh Shipp, Hicks says, "At times last year Shipp would take the occasional bad shot." The only bad shot Shipp took last year was a body shot off of Regina Rogers.
On our boy DC, Greg says, "he does have a tendency to miss open teammates. It's not because he's being selfish, but rather due to a lack of vision." Collison has perfect vision - the only thing better than his vision is his speed. I take that back, they are tied.

It is obvious that this guy is having some trouble at home, maybe his wife left him or his son went gay, but one thing is for certain - he is way off on everything he says.


Well, that's it for the week, hopefully we finally get some respect and I can take next week off. Don't worry, folks, it'll never happen...

Expert Opinions

I have not been this excited about college basketball in a long time. With all the big pieces but AA returning, the addition of K. Love, and no Florida to dominate us in the tourney - this year could really be the year for UCLA basketball. So, in anticipation of the season I have enjoyed checking espn.com several times a day to boost my confidence further. But lo, the last few days have yielded several disappointments in this regard. Below are my top 5 picks for biggest disses of UCLA on espn.com in the last few days.

5. Jay Bilas lists his top ten pre-conference games that he'd pay to see. Conspicuously missing from the list - UCLA. It wouldn't be that big of insult as we don't really have any great pre-conference games, except for Texas. And #2 on his list...Texas vs Michigan State. Maybe this could be seen as a compliment to us in some way (he expects us to handle Texas and thus it will not be a great game to watch), but I still don't like it.

4. Fran Fraschilla has a similar list, but it even includes conference games. And you guessed it...UCLA not on the list. If I were to tell you that he picked a PAC-10 game that featured two of the nations top freshman recruits who would not be guarding each other in the match up...you would no doubt assume it was our game against our crosstown rivals and the matchup would be Love vs Mayo. Well, you would be wrong as Fraschila for some reason thinks that Mayo vs Budinger of Arizona is a better match up.

3. Not surprisingly, Fraschilla showed us little support in his chat from earlier today. He was asked point blank if this could be our year with Florida out of the way...he doesn't think so, we are among the top six teams, but it is not necessarily our year. In fact he doesn't see us in the final four...instead selecting Memphis, Louisville, Tennessee and North Carolina. And do we have a candidate for player of the year...nope. That my friends is what you call a triple dis.

2. Checking out another NCAA basketball chat, this time from the usually Bruin supporting Doug Gottleib, we find not a mention of our beloved Bruins. He is picking Kansas to win the tourney (widely believed to be a poor man's UCLA). When a WSU fan asks if UCLA will take the PAC-10, Gottlieb fails to make the pick. He even slurps on USC every chance he gets - praising Mayo and saying the Trojans have 3 NBA palyers on their squad.

And the biggest dis of the Bruins in the last few days on espn.com...

1. Doug Gottlieb had some seriously backhanded compliments for the two most beloved Bruins. In referring to Love's diminutive stature Gottlieb says, "His stats may be hurt, however, due to the depth of quality big men in the Pac-10. Remember that Brook Lopez, Jon Brockman, DeVon Hardin and C.J. Giles all will get up for Love." Of Darren Collison he says, "He is not a spectacular athlete" and "His shot is awkward-looking" and even goes as far to say, "He is not in the same class as Augustin, Rose or Chalmers". Ouch. Bite your tongue, sir. Ain't nobody talk that way about my chillun'.

So...in honor of the writers above, here's hoping espn.com decides to go for a week straight of Bill Walton authored pieces titled, "UCLA: the greatest thing in the history of everything". My confidence needs it.