Cal / UCLA

Well, the Bears had a chance. I guess that is as good as it gets with UCLA. They are a bunch of hacks, but they get away with it, and if the Bears want to win in the Pac 10 they are going to have to deal with it. Anderson even said after the game that he needs to focus when getting double and triple teamed about getting the ball out faster, not trying to do it all. I think that also indicates that the pressure was too much for him. Imagine how Devon felt.

The Bears scored poorly. They missed all sorts of shots, and they still had a chance to bring it back late in the game. They should feel good about that. They are a team that needs to flow to win, and they need to find a way to grind out the wins, like UCLA does. It is ugly but it works.

After this weekend, I am cautiously optimistic about this season. I think that we can get to our needed 20 victories. I think we can beat USC again, probably Oregon, Arizona, Washington and Arizona State. We could beat all of them, and if we can do it once, why not twice? I think that Stanford and UCLA will give us trouble. We need to get one from the Lopez twins, and see if we can get lucky and get one down at Pauley. Washington State is trouble for us.

It is like we are in the upswing of the Braun cycle. We have the team that can win, and take us to the sweet 16. We are not going to be making the move beyond that level. Devon just is not the player to get us there. I hope I am wrong.