Sports: UCLA 65 VCU 64

It was close down the stretch.

UCLA had a small to medium sized lead much of the second half but toward the end, it got way too close for comfort.

I'm sure many a Bruin fan wore a hole in the carpet pacing the floor while watching or listening to the game!

And about half the fans of post-game Bruin talk were reciting the mantra, survive and advance while the other half a were complaining that Howland can't coach.

Ridiculous.

Lute Olsen, the now retired dean of Pac10 college coaches (25 years at Arizona) won one national championship.

Roy Williams (21 years of coaching at Div. 1 at Kansas and North Carolina) has one national championship. Expectations are pretty high for UNC this year so Williams might win his second.

33rd year coach Jim Boeheim has led Syracuse to one national title.

Ben Howland coached 5 years at Northern Arizona, 4 years at Pittsburgh and is in his 6th season at UCLA. 15 years. Let's give the guy a little more time before saying the guy can't win "the big game."

Can Howland coach?

I suppose one could dispute his playing his starting 5 so many minutes. But who are you going to play when the game is on the line?

Freshman point guard Anderson had 4 turnovers in 6 minutes. He was able to give Collison a little bit of rest but he was clearly rattled by the pressure of the big stage.

Keefe and Roll got some decent minutes to rest the starters.

I was surprised to see that Lee didn't get a few minutes to spell the starters.

Gordon might still not be 100% so he didn't see any game time either.

I assume the final sequence worked out the way Howland drew it up.

He normally puts one of his bigs on the man inbounding the ball. But since he wanted to delay Maynor getting the ball, he doubled him up so the ball entered elsewhere but Maynor got it on the pass but some clock was lost. Collison played him close and once Maynor crossed half-court, Shipp briefly doubled him chewing up a some more time.

And what can you say about Collison?

In the final part of that sequence, he didn't buy the fake and stayed with Maynor on the shot without fouling and the shot fell short.