I’m not a nail biter, but if I was, I wouldn’t have fingers.
I’ve spent the last few hours watching basketball. I didn’t care much about Duke losing to LSU, but was glad to see Texas win over West Virginia. Neither one of those games made me feel like I did during UCLA’s game. They started off bad. Not, it was beyond bad. I found it hard to watch as Gonzaga’s lead went from 5 to 10 to 17. But that was the first half, and as I saw on Saturday UCLA plays with more fire in the second half.
My Bruins didn’t fail me this time.
Adam Morrison might still be crying in a locker room in Oakland. Perhaps he should blame Joel (see his comment to this post).
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute provided a shocking ending to Adam Morrison’s amazing season. Mbah a Moute scored underneath with 10 seconds left and the second-seeded Bruins scored the final 11 points of the game to knock out Morrison and third-seeded Gonzaga 73-71 Thursday night to advance to the regional final.
Morrison, Gonzaga’s shaggy-haired star, made two free throws with 3:26 to go, giving him 24 on the night and the Bulldogs (29-4) a 71-62 lead. But the Bruins (30-6) didn’t wilt.
Mbah a Moute scored six of the final 11 points and got a key steal in the final seconds to seal the win and send UCLA to its first regional final since 1997. The Bruins will play Saturday against Memphis (33-3), which beat Bradley 80-64 in the first semifinal of the Oakland regional. The Tigers beat the Bruins 88-80 in November.
Morrison put his hands on his head and leaned over, overcome with emotion, Mbah a Moute stole the ball from Derek Raivio with 2.6 seconds left, fighting tears in what was probably his final game in a Zags uniform. He is expected to turn pro.
J.P. Batista missed a desperation 15-footer at the buzzer and fell into the Zags’ bench, where coach Mark Few helped him up.
When the buzzer sounded, UCLA senior Cedric Bozeman ran around the court with the ball in his hands — Ryan Hollins right with him.
Hollins and Afflalo went to help up Morrison, who was spread on the floor at midcourt. Few then came to hug the crying Morrison. (Yahoo! Sports)
see… I told you I would jinx the Zags!
Woo hoo Bruins!!! Yeah, that was pretty great. And any time Duke loses it’s great too, as far as I’m concerned. A twofer.
Yeeeeahhh! Sporting my UCLA paraphenilia today!
So proud to be a bruin! so proud to be from U-C-L-A!
I left my house when after watching UCLA hit the skids after 13 mintues of play. I couldn’t bare to watch. When I got home, I fought with my dsl connections lag and was desperate to see the score on espn.com. I yelled in excitement. It was 245am and everyone told me to shutup. hahaha! GO BRUIN!!!!
Go UCLA! The game was crazy, although painful for most of the time. I was accepted there a few weeks ago… I don’t know if I’m going for sure but for some reason my acceptance has legitimized my Bruin pride
BC lost today by a point. Boo! On the bright side, my Lakers won big against the Bucks. 3 over .500 now. Hopefully Odom and Kwame can keep up the production they are giving us.
Trench… Being a Wizards fan I can tell you right now not to put any hope in Kwame. I’ve seen how that story ends, and you’ll go crazy trying to figure him out.
He’s possibly the most frustrating athlete in Wizards/Bullets history, and that’s really saying something because we’ve got a long history of crazy players!