ATLANTA — And sometimes, it’s just as simple as this: the better team wins.
There’s very little doubt that’s what happened tonight as Florida thumped UCLA. It was just a six-point game at halftime, the final score was 76-66, but really, this was just about as definitive a victory as the Gators had last year. Once they had their 12-0 run early in the second half, there was no real doubt about the outcome.
Probably the best sign of the quality of this Florida team is that the Bruins’ defense actually did a pretty good job of neutralizing the Gators’ inside advantage — and it didn’t matter at all. Al Horford and Joakim Noah combined for four points in the first half, 17 points overall, but the other three starters — Corey Brewer, Lee Humphrey and Taurean Green — had 19, 14 and 10 points, respectively.
“We knew our post guys were not going to get any shots at all at the basket,� said Florida coach Billy Donovan. “I knew it was not going to be that type of game because every time our bigs got it, they were going to double ‘em.�
And so Horford in particular was asked to be a passer, which fits with Donovan’s view of his team’s versatility.
“I think we have guys, if you take away an area of them, they can still do other things,� said the Florida coach. “… Al wasn’t getting a chance to get a lot of scoring moves at the basket in the first or second half, but I was not worried that he wasn’t going to rebound or stop guarding.�
Horford — and Noah — didn’t let their coach down. They combined for 28 rebounds, 17 by Horford. By themselves, they had two more rebounds than the Bruins. Overall, Florida finished with a 43-26 rebounding edge. “They have no weaknesses,� said UCLA coach Ben Howland, returning to a pregame theme. “They have a great inside attack. They have outstanding perimeter shooting. They’re very good defensively.�

ATLANTA — We all should have seen this one coming.
The ballyhooed matchup of Greg Oden and Roy Hibbert in the first NCAA championship semifinal could have been breathtaking, but mostly, it was abbreviated.
In the first half, it lasted a grand total of 2 minutes, 41 seconds, that being the time from the opening tip until Oden collected his second foul. They were both on the court more in the second half — mostly because Georgetown, being down, had to expose Hibbert for a long period with four fouls — but overall, they were both on the court for 14 minutes, 20 seconds. Georgetown won that part of the game, 34-28.
Which matters not a bit, of course. They count the score for the whole game, and Ohio State won that 67-60.
The Buckeyes, having become accustomed to tournament life with Oden on the bench, were better without its big man than Georgetown. Thanks to excellent play from the overshadowed Mike Conley (15 points, 11 in the first half) and an excellent transition game (a 22-10 advantage in points off turnovers, 13-1 in the first half, and a 14-4 edge in fast-break points), Ohio State led most of the way and punched the first ticket for Monday’s championship.
“When we got it moving up and down, and got some easy layups, I think that changed things,� said Conley.
Georgetown ended up with 14 turnovers to Ohio State’s eight.
“We just had too many turnovers in the first half (nine), to be honest,� said the Hoyas’ Patrick Ewing Jr. “… Thirteen of their first 20 points were off turnovers. If we wouldn’t have had so many turnovers, maybe something else would have happened.�
Coming up in a little more than a half-hour, UCLA-Florida. And based on the noise when both teams took the court for warmup, it is, unsurprisingly, a largely pro-Florida crowd. Florida's Gainesville campus, after all, is 308 miles away. Los Angeles is 2,185 miles, making it a bit tougher to drive in for the weekend.

Just wondering: The Ohio State pep band wears shirts embroidered with the phrase “Ohio State Athletic Band.� Does this mean there’s an “academic band?� Maybe a “horticulture band?�

ATLANTA — Took a brief timeout from basketball this afternoon and went to see the Atlanta Braves play the Chicago White Sox, mainly so I could add Turner Field to the list of ballparks I’ve visited.
It’s a fairly extensive list: 40 parks by the strictest accounting method (seeing a major-league game in the park, and yes, an exhibition will count), 42 by the most generous (seeing a sporting event in the stadium, although not necessarily baseball). The Braves become the 13th team I’ve seen play in two home ballparks, having been to a game at Atlanta-Fulton County in 1976. I have yet to see a team play in three different home parks, though the Twins are likely to be the first team to make that possible.
Turner Field in a nutshell: Nice park, very much in the Camden Yards/Ballpark in Arlington/Coors Field mold, which is to say a modern park with an old-time character. The signature feature, without a doubt, is the scoreboard, billed as the world’s largest High Definition video board. And the picture is, indeed, amazing.
I probably didn’t get a true feel for what the place is like on a typical day, because the crowd was sparse: an announced 18,570, though I’d be surprised if there were more than 12,000 on hand. Part of that, I suspect, has to do with regular-season prices — anything between the bases in the first two levels is $54 or $36 (I sat in a $12 top-deck seat). Part of it is that there’s little basketball tournament in town, overshadowing everything else.
Of course, the Final Four should have been more of an opportunity than a hindrance; there are an estimated 70,000 visitors in town, and most of them are looking for things to do. Had the Braves put some people in the downtown hotels to promote their games, they might have done better. But then, in the grand scheme of things, it’s just an exhibition game.

ATLANTA — If there’s a college basketball coach who’s not here this weekend, I hope the hospital lets him out of intensive care shortly.
You see, the National Association of Basketball Coaches holds its convention in conjunction with the Final Four, which means that virtually every coach you’ve ever heard of — and all the ones you’ve never heard of — are here.
I suspect this is a career necessity. Given that coaches are perpetually in search of their next job — either because they’re one bad season from getting fired from this one, are trying to go from assistant to head coach, or simply aspire to more than a lifetime at Really Obscure State Teachers College — networking is vital, and boy, is there networking going on here.
Mostly, the coaches are staying at the hotel across the street from the media hotel, but there’s some spillover here. (There’s Bobby Knight’s worst nightmare: Staying in a hotel with hundreds and hundreds of reporters.) This means you just about need to employ the Falcons’ offensive line (or maybe one from a good NFL team) to get through the lobby. Coaches are networking near the entrance. They’re networking in the Starbucks. They’re networking in the elevators. As I discovered today, they’re even networking — albeit in somewhat winded fashion — on the treadmills in the hotel exercise room.
Forget about yelling “Fire!� in a crowded movie house. The most dangerous thing you could do in Atlanta this weekend, the surest way to start a stampede, is to say, “I’m trying to fill a coaching vacancy.�
Had I thought of it earlier, it would have been fun to keep track of how many different schools I might have seen represented on clothing this weekend. It is, apparently, one of the unofficial rules of the coaching convention that you must wear school apparel at all times, so I didn’t bat an eye when I shared the elevator with a gentleman in a complete warmup suit from Eastern New Mexico, or that there were at least a half-dozen colleges represented on the T-shirts in the workout room. And, from walking to dinner this evening, I’ve concluded that coaches must hunt in packs.

Ben by the numbers: If Ben Howland wasn’t a basketball coach, he’d probably make a great accountant.
Sometimes, it seems there are more numbers rattling around in Howland’s head than in the mind of John Nash, the subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.� After games, he’ll usually open by discussing the key statistics. Before games, he’ll almost always offer some numerical analysis. It’s always without notes, and usually quite accurate.
Today’s press conference was a perfect example. Asked about Florida’s big-man tandem of Joakim Noah and Al Horford, he wandered off topic and started spewing numbers like a malfunctioning Keno machine:
“(Florida is) shooting 53 percent on the year from the field. They’re shooting 40 percent from 3 (-point range) on the season, 42.3 in the last 22 games.
“The way I look at things, when you shoot 40 percent from 2, that’s like shooting 60 percent from w, because you’re making 12 points on 10 shots. You throw out their 3s, you just look at the shots they attempt inside the 3-point line, they’re shooting 59.8 percent as a team. This team in reality is shooting 60 percent from the field on the year. They’re holding their opponents to 40 percent. That’s a 20 percentage point differential. They outboard their opponents by seven boards a game. That is domination. They lead the country in margin of victory over their opponents.�
(Just for the record, a check of the stats shows Florida is shooting 40.5 percent on 3-pointers, 58.9 percent on 2-pointers — he transposed a couple of numbers there — and their rebounding margin is 8.2 per game. So he was in the ballpark on everything.)
After talking a bit about the Florida players, he threw in one more statistical nugget, on Gator guard Taurean Green: “He’s shooting 49 percent from 3 over the last 23 games, which to me is like shooting about 75 percent from 2.�
Howland was recently asked about this statistical inclination.
“I do have a good memory for phone numbers and statistics,� he said. “It’s important to know as much as you can and get as much information as you can and learn from it.�

Final Four follies: Today’s press conferences followed a format similar to most of the rest of the tournament: 30 minutes for each team, half for the coach and half for two designated players. Other players are available in their team locker rooms.
The whole idea of these press conferences, in theory, is to service as many people as possible. With hundreds of journalists on hand, it would not be practical for everyone to gather around Howland outside the locker room. The coaching part works fine. The player part, not so much, mostly because coaches and sports information directors try to spread the attention around, or honor their seniors, or otherwise have an agenda that’s not the same as the media’s.
Consider today’s press conferences. UCLA, of course, brought in Arron Afflalo and Josh Shipp; they’ve done every pre- and post-game press conference to date. Since Afflalo is UCLA’s go-to player and Shipp is an excellent speaker, this is not too bad, though a little variety probably wouldn’t hurt.
The other teams didn’t win any popularity points with the media, though. Most of the focus on the Ohio State-Georgetown game is on the battle of centers Greg Oden and Roy Hibbert. Neither was brought into the conference room. Florida’s best-known player is probably Joakim Noah. He wasn’t in the conference room, either.
This is an issue only because everybody is still going to talk to these players, whether the schools make it easy or not, and the resulting crowds around those players in their respective locker rooms doesn’t serve anyone well. It can’t be comfortable for the player, it’s certainly uncomfortable for the media (I thought we were on the verge of fisticuffs around Noah today) and it’s just inefficient. As guys move in and out of those packs, the players have to answer the same questions repeatedly. In the interview room, they’d only deal with them once.
It’s not a big issue, of course. (It’s an issue at all only if you’re in the media.) But it’s just kind of dumb. Anyone who knows anything about these games could guess who the most in-demand players are. Why not try to react accordingly?

SAN JOSE — Watching UCLA beat Kansas on Saturday, I was reminded of something Tim McCarver once said about Bob Gibson: “He’s the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs.�
UCLA, it sems, is the luckiest team in college basketball. They always play when the other team doesn’t make any shots.
The Bruins’ 68-55 win over Kansas was like Thursday’s 64-55 win over Pittsburgh in one notable respect: the losing team missed an extraordinary number of easy shots. According to the play-by-play, the Jayhawks missed 18 layups or dunks.
When Indiana missed easy shots in the second-round game in Sacramento, I was willing to credit it to good fortune. When Pittsburgh did it — the Panthers missed 11 layups — there was a tendency to think some of it was a lack of scoring touch, particularly on the part of center Aaron Gray.
But three straight games like this — clearly, this isn’t happenstance.
Credit it to the Bruins’ defense, or the fact that they’re more tournament tested and not as subject to nerves, or a combination thereof. But don’t just say it’s the other team missing shots.
Kansas coach Bill Self, to his credit, recognized this, even as he and his players were asked about letting one get away — much as Pitt coach Jamie Dixon and his players had been, two nights before.
“Give them credit,� said Self. “They had a lot to do with us not making shots.�
Of course, Self also felt Kansas had a lot to do with it.
“I think we got sped up,� he said. “We played young when we got behind. Not young from a standpoint of defense, breaking down, that kind of stuff. Just young, overpenetrating, guys wanting to go do it so bad.�
The flip side of that would suggest that UCLA didn’t play young, that their experience was a difference. Self wasn’t in a big hurry to agree with that, noting the Bruins’ 25 turnovers. However, he did ultimately note, “I would say their ability to make hard shots at the end of the (shot) clock was as big a key as anything.�
I seems to me like that ability to make big shots could be connected to big-game experience. But maybe that’s just me.

Mea culpa: Based on what I’d seen recently, I didn’t think the Bruins would get back to the Final Four. But they recaptured something this weekend — an offensive threat from Arron Afflalo, for one thing — and the value of the Howland defensive approach must be acknowledged.
It’s one thing to see that defense work against teams that are less athletic, as has been the case in the first three games of the tournament. But Kansas looks more athletic than the Bruins. I had thought that athleticism might allow them to make the plays to beat the defense. It didn’t. Or when it did, the Jayhawks couldn’t finish the scoring opportunities.
So the Bruins move on, and they move on with a clearly different attitude than they had at this time a year ago, when they celebrated at length after earning a trip to Indianapolis. Saturday’s celebration was brief; clearly, just getting to the Final Four is not considered enough of an accomplishment this time. There’s a bigger goal in mind.
“We’re going to play a great team no matter who it is, either Florida or Oregon,� said Howland. “… We’re going to get a chance to enjoy this one — at least for another five hours.�

USC has to be a bit dazed, wondering what just happened.
The Trojans will have plenty of time to think about it.
Seemingly on the verge of a stunning upset — leading top-seeded North Carolina by 16 in the second half — the Trojans fell victim to a 25-5 blitz by the Tar Heels and were eliminated, 74-64— a 26-point turnaround in the final 17 minutes.
Since I was just watching on TV like everyone else, I’ll be interested to see if USC feels if it was done in by fatigue (the opinion of Billy Packer, as he made clear again and again and again) or by Taj Gibson’s foul trouble. Gibson had been playing an outstanding game before picking up his fourth foul midway through the second half; North Carolina’s run came as soon as he went out of the game.
(Given coach Tim Floyd’s meltdown when Gibson fouled out — he earned a technical foul with 48 seconds left that closed the final door on USC’s unlikely comeback hopes — I’m guessing he’d point to Gibson as the key factor.)
Unquestionably, this USC team came farther than most people would have expected, given its relative youth. Unquestionably, it has raised expectations for next year, when the talented but, um, unique O.J. Mayo arrives. (If you didn’t see it, seek out this week’s New York Times article on the recruiting of Mayo, and see if it doesn’t read as one long red flag.)
But for all the Trojans did, it figures to be forget the opportunity that just slipped away.
Didn’t get to see Oregon’s 76-72 win over UNLV, but it appears it should have told the nation what Pac-10 players already know: Ducks freshman Tajuan Porter is something special. He hit eight 3-pointers and scored 33 points — more than any two other players in the game.
So the Elite Eight is now set: All four No. 1 seeds, three No. 2s and Oregon, a No. 3 seed. Cinderella has taken March off.

SAN JOSE — UCLA doesn’t often get the opportunity to cast itself as an underdog. It has one now — and it’s not taking it.
Admittedly, UCLA-Kansas is hardly David vs. Goliath; it’s a little more like Goliath vs. a slightly bigger Goliath. After all, Saturday’s game matches a No. 1 seed against a No. 2, and the team ranked No. 2 in the most recent AP poll (Kansas) against the team ranked No. 4.
Still, the way seeding is holding up in this tournament, and in particular in this region, you might think the Bruins would want to play the underdog card. It’s such a popular motivational ploy.
Not gonna happen, said Arron Afflalo.
“We never really have an underdog approach,� he said at Friday’s press conference. “Our whole thing is to compete and play as hard as we can and execute to the best of our ability.
“Underdogs are all based on others’ opinions. Around our campus, the rich tradition within our school, it’s an expectation for us to win regardless. So we’re never taking that underdog approach. It’s all about winning and competing to the best of your ability.�

“Home� cooking: Kansas apparently isn’t thrilled that, as a No. 1 seed, it’s playing a No. 2 seed that has something of a home-court advantage. Clearly, UCLA fans were in the majority at HP Pavilion on Thursday.
“I don’t think it’s fair,� said Brandon Rush. “This is going to be like another away game, so we’re going to have our backs against the wall. We’re going to have to fight and use our talents.�
Said Russell Robinson, “Nothing we can do about it. It is what it is. I think we’ve just got to comje out and be prepared. We played in some tough environments all season. I think we’re well-prepared for anything and I think we’ll be ready to play.�
On the other hand, the Jayhawk players seem prepared to try to turn a hostile crowd into a motivator. It’s almost as if they’re the ones looking to assume the underdog mentality.
“It’s going to be great playing in an environment where, you know, the opposing team has more fans and stuff,� said Sasha Kahn. “It’s going to be a lot more fun playing that kind of game.�
Added Mario Chalmers, “I think tomorrow our back is going to be up against the wall with the UCLA crowd here. I think we’ve got to come out, be prepared, try to take the crowd out early.�

SAN JOSE — For just a moment, it looked like it might be a Yogi Berra kind of basketball game, which is to say Déjà vu all over again.
UCLA had controlled its game against Pitt, leading by 12 points with 10 minutes left. Then the Panthers started hitting 3-pointers.
As it turned out, it wasn’t a reenactment of last week’s game against Indiana, when the Bruins led by 16, only to have the Hoosiers rally to tie behind a barrage of 3-pointers. Even with Pitt’s six second-half 3s, the Panthers never pulled closer than six points, and the Bruins went on to win 64-55, setting up Saturday’s meeting with Kansas.
Still, it was hard not to think of the parallels.
“We never really pulled away,� said Arron Afflalo. “That team kept competing. …
“We were very aware that Fields and Ramon could shoot 3s.� (Levance Fields ended up 3 of 5 from the arc; Ronald Ramon was 4 of 7.) “That was one of our key focuses throughout our walk-throughs and practices, to limit those guys’ 3-point shots and force them to put the ball on the ground.
“We just had to make that adjustment, but they still made some tough shots.�

Bench marks: In terms of points, Pitt clearly had the better of the bench play. Thanks to Ramon’s 12 points, the Panther reserves outscored UCLA’s 22-9.
But what UCLA needed from its bench was minutes — particularly when Luc Richad Mbah a Moute found himself in early foul trouble — and in that regard, the Bruin bench delivered. Five players contributed 48 minutes, including 19 from Alfred Aboya, 10 from Michael Roll and, most crucially, 10 from James Keefe.
Keefe’s line — two points, one foul, everything else zeros — belies his significance. UCLA coach Ben Howland knew, though. After some general observations, Keefe was the first individual he singled out for praise.
“I thought James Keefe’s minutes were outstanding for us,� he said, later adding, “I think he’s played 10 minutes in a game probably three times since January, but yet he’s getting better. I’m excited because this kid has been getting thrown around a little bit. He got back in the weight room. He really wants to be a player. He’s a great kid.
“He went out there and battled and did a great job for us in the first half and made some big plays.�

Seedy: The West Regional will conclude with the No. 1 seed playing the No. 2 seed, which in a way isn’t great news for UCLA. In 14 West games so far, the lower-seeded team has won precisely once, when 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth beat No. 6 Duke in the opening round.

SAN JOSE — The upset-free region is still holding form, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Southern Illinois came within a desperation 3 at the buzzer of forcing overtime — thanks to two missed free throws that kept the door open — but ultimately, it was top-seeded Kansas advancing in the West Regional, 61-58, to meet the winner of the UCLA-Pittsburgh game.
"It was a grind-it-out game," said Kansas coach Bill Self, "and we were very fortunate to win."
SIU led 49-48 with 5:20 remaining, but Kansas regained the lead — for good, as it turned out, on a Darnell Jackson basket with 5:09 remaining. And for one brief moment, it appeared the Jayhawks might not have to sweat the ending too much. They were up 58-53 after Julian Wright made the first of two free throws with 1:23 left — but made just one of their final five free throws, leaving the door open for the Salukis.
Who ultimately couldn’t make enough shots to take advantage. Southern Illinois shot just 36.8 percent. Kansas finished at 25-42, 59.5 percent. For all the attention paid to the Southern Illinois defense — which did, indeed, make the Jayhawks work and forced 19 turnovers — Kansas ultimately had both the patience and athleticism to overcome that defensive effort, and certainly was no slouch in the defensive department itself, as that shooting percentage — and SIU’s 15 turnovers — would attest.
"All the talk was about their defense matching up with our offense," said Kansas' Mario Chalmers, "and I thought our defense did a good job of matching up with their defense."
The elimination of SIU ensures the regional final won’t strictly be some kind of defensive clinic. Had the Salukis won, the stage might have been set for a Saturday final score somewhere in the 40s. Or lower.

Clock-watching: Given all the discussion of the defensive prowess of both teams, I spent part of the first ahlf tracking the time of the first shot of each possession, wondering if it would provide any sort of insight or reveal any sort of pattern. It didn’t really seem tell me enough to offset the other things I was missing by focusing so much on the clock, so I finally gave it up.
The numbers from those 10 minutes or so more or less reaffirmed the obvious: Kansas was going to run if it could (on four of 17 possessions, the Jayhawks put up a shot within five seconds), and SIU was not; the Salukis never took a shot in less than 10 seconds, and were more likely to take 20 seconds or more.

Clock issues of another kind: One problem with conducting this tournament more or less on Eastern (or TV) time is that the start times aren’t necessarily great for the actual fans on site. The HP Pavilion was at best half-full when Kansas and SIU tipped off.

SAN JOSE — Since the media hotel for the regional is in a vast, and vastly uninteresting, office park near the San Jose airport, I used the city’s light rail system to ride downtown at midday. Not surprisingly, the streets were awash with basketball fans. Somewhat surprisingly, most of them were wearing Kansas T-shirts. A handful were decked out in Pitt gear. I saw two from Southern Illinois.
No UCLA fans, though. Perhaps that’s just coincidence; perhaps most of them were waiting for today to come up.
Apparently, they will be here, though. Had lunch at Gordon Biersch — only the bar was open; the rest of the restaurant had been reserved, I was told, for a private party. Or, as it turns out, two: UCLA fans had reserved the place at 1:30; Pitt had it at 3 p.m.
I cleared out long before the two warring factions could arrive.

The rules: At the back of the regional media guide, there’s a full page (appendix 16, for those of you reading along at home) labeled “Obligations of the Head Coach.� Giving you some idea of who has the power in this event, there are eight general instructions (ranging from “wear at all times, visibly on the lapel, the credential pin provided� to “refrain from any act of dishonesty, unsportsmanlike conduct, unprofessional behavior or breach of law�) — and seven regarding dealing with CBS Sports (which could really be boiled down to a single instruction: “Do whatever CBS wants. They pay us a billion dollars.�)

SAN JOSE — In a tournament low on upsets, the West Region is the ultimate in following form: the four teams that have made it to San Jose — Kansas, UCLA, Pitt and Southern Illinois — are the top four seeds.
“I don’t think you should reach much into it,� said Kansas coach Bill Self, “other than the fact that you know, in this region, you got four very good teams playing here. Nobody lucked into getting here. Everybody earned their way all year long by the way they played to get here.
“Obviously, all the teams in the tournament are playing well right now or they wouldn’t be playing this week. Certainly, you can make a case for SIU being better than a four (seed), Pitt being better than a three and UCLA being better than a two. It’s a pretty tough region.�
Because of the lack of true underdogs, Southern Illinois is sort of being squeezed into that role, even though it’s somewhat difficult to call a No. 4 seed an underdog.
Certainly, in the grand scheme of things SIU is no Kansas or UCLA, but the Salukis are in their sixth straight NCAA tournament (one of only 12 teams able to make that claim), have won 20 or more games each of those six seasons, have averaged 26 wins (OK, 25.8 if you want to be precise) and are in the Sweet 16 for the second time in five years. If this is a Cinderella story, than it has to be one where she starts out rich and beautiful.
Of course, they are a “mid-major� — which is to say, not from the six anointed power conferences — which gives them at least a touch of underdog status, even though they disown the term, and the status.
“Personally, I don’t like the term ‘mid-major,’ � said guard Tony Young, “because I feel if you’re a good team, it don’t matter where you go, what school you are, where you’re from, as long as you compete … play hard, win games.�
Added guard Jamaal Tatum, player of the year in the Missouri Valley Conference, “You can call us what you want to call us, as long as you give us our respect at the end of the day. That’s all that matters to me. You can call us a D-II or D-III school, but if we can still compete with you, you have to give us respect at the end of the day.�

The buddy system: The best thing about the arrival of Thursday’s games will be the end of the story about the relationship between UCLA coach Ben Howland and Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, Howland’s former top assistant. Nothing wrong with the story — although in an era of constant coaching movement, these sorts of mentor-pupil matchups are increasingly common — except that it’s just been overexposed, because there’s very little about the tournament that isn’t overexposed.
“Bottom line, this game is about the players,� said Howland, who’s probably getting a bit tired of the story, as well. “Jamie and I are going to be in this business hopefully for a lot longer than just tomorrow. So the focus in my mind, the NCAA tournament, is about the players.�
Dixon was asked if this particular angle had been overblown.
“I guess if you know it’s coming, it’s not overblown,� he said.
“It is what it is. It’s probably a nice story. I think the point I like to make is it’s obvious we’re very close, but our families are even closer. I mean, his wife and my wife, Kim and Jacqueline, talk probably as much or more than we talk. …
“I think that to me is more the story. It’s more about a friendship than a basketball relationship.�

Dissonance: It’s usually not hard to tell when Howland doesn’t like a question, or a direction in questioning. He’s not rude and his tone doesn’t usually change, but he tends to answer briefly and manages to project his feelings.
Wednesday, that happened to a degree that it brought his press conference to a screeching halt far short of the allotted 15 minutes — somewhat surprisingly, since Howland usually gets very chatty at these things.
A Pittsburgh reporter quoted Dixon as saying recently that Howland wasn’t 100 percent sure the success he started at Pitt could be sustained, and asked why that was the case, and if he was surprised what Dixon had done.
“That’s not true, No. 1,� said Howland. “IU was offered other jobs after my second year and third year that were actually good jobs out here in the west, and I won’t go into naming them, but you can confirm that with Steve Pederson (the former Pitt athletic director), if you like.
“So that’s the answer to that question.�
The transcript can’t project the chill that came with this answer. It was an odd moment. Thinking about it since, my guess is that Howland felt it somehow cast a negative light on what he’d done at Pitt and his decision to leave, as if he was getting out while the getting was good. I certainly didn’t take it that way — I think there are legitimate reasons to wonder if Pitt can sustain its success, given that it been good before and fallen back in the Big East — but for whatever reason, it rubbed Howland wrong.

Just a brief update on the tournament tonight, since I’ve been almost completely out of touch because of travel, another assignment — and the cretins who stole my car stereo right before I went to Sacramento.
In another confirmation that this tournament is unusually close to form, 11 of the top 16 seeds are through to the Sweet Sixteen, including all four top seeds and three of the four No. 2s.
Nowhere did form hold more than in the West, where seeds one through four are on their way to San Jose, though the South (with the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5 seeds) came close. The lowest seed to advance is a No. 7, Nevada, which knocked off No. 2 Wisconsin.
As for survivors by conference, the Pac-10 did OK, with UCLA, USC and Oregon — half of its six representatives — advancing. The SEC also has three teams left; the Big East and Big 12 have two apiece.

My gut feeling going into this tournament was that UCLA would make to San Jose, but not out of the region. Nothing that happened Saturday in the 54-49 win over Indiana convinced me otherwise
Frankly, I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid about the Bruins’ defense, at least not to the point of believing it can atone for everything else. I’m also not quite buying the argument that a good portion of their offensive difficulties can be attributed to how hard they worked on defense.
Not that they didn’t play good defense. They did, at least for a while. But they weren’t as good as that 13-point first half, and the offensive problems started showing up too early to be fully attributed to being worn down from their defensive work.
UCLA was up 6-0 after three possessions, and should have been up 10-0 after five — but Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Richard Mata blew layups on consecutive possessions. Make those, and this game might have been truly easy. Instead, that started a stretch in which the Bruins failed to score on eight possessions, Indiana was able to hang around, and what followed was that ugly 20-13 first half.
Even with all of that, UCLA had a 34-18 lead six minutes into the second half, but couldn’t hold it. Indiana has some gifted 3-point shooters, and they started making their shots, which they hadn’t done in the first half. When that happened, the game changed dramatically, and the defense suddenly looked a lot less spectacular.
Don’t get me wrong: UCLA’s still a very good team. We know that from what they’ve done earlier this year.
But they haven’t recaptured their earlier level of play, and the time to do it is running out.

Well, all of a sudden, the drama is back in the NCAA tournament.
Overtime is breaking out all over — including the dramatic, draining and — for Washington State — devastating 78-74 double-overtime win by Vanderbilt over the third-seeded Cougars.
Think of it as the game that introduced Derrick Byers to America.
Washington State led by 10 in the second half, but was never able to deliver the knockout punch. And when Byers heated up — he hit 5 of 9 3-pointers after the intermission, scored 19 of his 27 points after the break, and had one huge blocked shot late in the first overtime — that inability to put the game away earlier proved to be fatal.
Terrific, terrific game. Having the rare luxury of just watching, instead covering, a game like this, you appreciate both the effort and the drama involved. Certainly, the Arco Arena crowd did. For a long period late in the game and into the overtimes, the entire building was standing. Even the previously neutral UCLA fans became fully involved, trying to root home their Pac-10 brethren.
Quite a game ... but now it's time for UCLA-Indiana.

SACRAMENTO — So where are all the upsets?
The first round of the NCAA tournament wrapped up Saturday night with a real shortage of the surprises which tend to give the tournament its character — and the coaches in Sacramento didn’t have any real theories why that was the case.
First, a few numbers: Just five lower seeds won their first-round games this year, and three of those were ninth seeds beating eighth seeds, which hardly qualify as upsets. You’ll note the lower seeds normally fair much better:

Year — Wins by teams seeded tenth or lower
1997 — 7: Two 10s, one each by 12, 14 and 15
1998 — 8: Three by 10s, two by 11s, one each by 12, 13 and 14
1999 — 8: Four by 10s, two by 12s, one each by 13, 14.
2000 — 3: Two by 10s, one by 11.
2001 — 9: Two each by 10s, 11s, 12s, 13s, one by 15.
2002 — 7: Two by 11s, 12s; one by 10, 13.
2003 — 4: Two by 10s, one each by 11, 13.
2004 — 3: Two by 12s, one 10.
2005 — 5: Two by 14s, one each by 10, 11, 12.
2006 — 8: Two each by 10s, 11s, 12s; one each by 13, 14s.

The average for the last 10 years is 6.2 first-round wins for the teams seeded 10th or lower.
This year, even the two games that fall into that group deserve something of an asterisk. Only Duke could manage to enter the tournament with 10 losses, and riding a three-game losing streak, and still manage to receive a No. 6 seed. As Virginia Commonwealth confirmed, it was too high. And Winthrop had such a terrific reputation coming in that no one (other than maybe big-conference defender Billy Packer) would have argued with a higher seed than the No. 11 they received before beating Notre Dame.
Given all the talk how there are more good teams in college basketball, it seems like a year there should have been more upsets, not fewer.
“I still think college basketball, there’s more parity in it than ever,� said Washington State’s Tony Bennett, “but I guess you’re right. There weren’t many. Maybe the teams had more experience, or the people who seeded them did a really good job, I guess. That’s a credit to the selection committee.
“I just think it’s going to be hard fought, and there isn’t a big separation, and I’m sure when you get to the second round, some stuff will change.�
Maybe, but upsets don’t figure to be part of that change. Other than Virginia Commonwealth and Winthrop, the remaining teams are generally from the upper ranks of college basketball; there may be surprises, but there won’t be shockers.
UCLA coach Ben Howland and Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings didn’t have a lot of interest in this topic, landing on the same explanation: the bracket was simply set up really well.
“Credit the committee,� said Howland. “The committee did a great job of seeding the tournament.�
Maybe, but then you might also argue that they didn’t do a particularly creative job of selecting it. Going for the safe choices for the last at-large berths — teams from major conferences, instead of mid-majors with potential — may have eliminated some of the upset possibilities, simply because it eliminated a lot of the unknowns that come with the smaller schools.

Last team in, final update: Relating to that last point, Villanova, Illinois and Arkansas all lost their first-round games Friday. So the lowest-seeded teams from the big six conferences — the ones who received invitations, for the most part, at the expense of the teams who ended up in the NIT — went 0-6.
Maybe next year the selection committee should go back to the “more mid-majors� tactic it displayed last year.

SACRAMENTO — It’s not an ideal situation, having just a single day to prepare for a crucial game, but UCLA coach Ben Howland isn’t going to make a big deal out of it — except, as is his nature, to try to sell it as a positive.
“This is normal for us,� Howland said Friday, as the Bruins prepared to meet Indiana in Saturday’s second round of the NCAA tournament. “This is what you do in the Pac-10. We always play Thursday-Saturday, except once in a while on Thursday-Sunday. That actually is a benefit for us this time of year, although as a coach, you’d always like to have more time to prepare for your opponent than one day.�
Given Howland’s reputation as a stickler for preparation, that probably qualifies as the understatement of the day.
Howland noted that, thanks to TV, the Bruins faced five turnarounds from Thursday night to Saturday morning (pre-noon starts) this season, so this didn’t look all that bad.
“Our players are actually kind of used to the routine that we’re doing right now,� he said.
The players confirmed that.
“It’s pretty consistent,� said Arron Afflalo. “Because of our Pac-10 schedule, we’re presented with the same obstacle throughout the season. We prepare today and tonight, and we’ll be ready for the game tomorrow.�
Added Josh Shipp, “We stick to the same routine. Nothing changes. … Practice isn’t too long. We have a couple of walk-throughs and film session. When we’re on the court, we don’t try to stay on our legs too much. We get in and out, and do all our stuff at the hotel.�
As is usual procedure, one assistant coach was in charge of scouting for each of the possible opponents. Scott Garson was assigned Indiana, so he began watching tape of the Hoosiers when the bracket was announced last Sunday, and once that matchup was finalized, he briefed Howland.
“We have a whole complex way we go about things,� said Howland, “trying to pair it down to give players the best information we can in a short amount of time.�
Asked if it was difficult to strike that balance between giving the players the right information and too much, Howland was a bit dismissive.
“We’ve been doing it all year. Nothing changes. This is the character of what we do.�
Incidentally, Washington State’s Tony Bennett, whose team plays Vanderbilt in today’s first game at Arco Arena, sounded a similar note about preparing on a day’s notice.
“We looked at (tape) today,� said Bennett, “worked on some things, and tried to treat it like a Pac-10 Thursday-Saturday.�
And, as Bennett noted, ultimately, the emphasis on the opponent is secondary.
“It still comes down to your game, your style, and being who you are,� he said, “not focusing too much on the opponent but also knowing their strengths.�

SACRAMENTO — A few notes as Day 2 cranks up:

Last-team-in update: Georgia Tech’s loss to UNLV this morning means the lowest-seeded team from the six power conferences are now 0-3. Still to come today, the first games for Villlanova, Illinois and Arkansas.

Good thing it’s a neutral site: The UCLA-Indiana game not only matches the winners of 16 national championships — 11 belonging to UCLA — but it features two teams outstanding at home. Indiana was 15-0 this year at home and has won 17-0 straight at Assembly Hall. UCLA was 16-0 at Pauley Pavilion and has won 20 straight at home.

Series history: UCLA is 5-6 against Indiana, 1-2 in the NCAA tournament. Each team has beaten the other en route to a national championship. In 1973, UCLA beat Indiana 70-59 in a national semifinal, then beat Memphis State for the title. In 1976, Indiana beat UCLA 65-51 in the semis, then beat Michigan in the final.

SACRAMENTO It may be remembered as the least dramatic opening day in the history of the 64-team tournament — and the games in Sacramento certainly did their part to make it that way.
The higher seed won all four games — by margins of 16, 33, 28, and 13 points — with Vanderbilt’s rout of George Washington and UCLA’s 70-42 win over Weber State almost entirely lacking in drama. At least Indiana-Gonzaga was close into the second half, before Indiana pulled away to win 70-57.
Essentially, it wasn’t a lot different in the rest of the country. Oh, Duke was upset by Virginia Commonwealth, 79-77 — enough to make it a red-letter day for the nation’s huge Duke-hating contingent — but the Blue Devils never should have been a No. 6 seed in the first place. The only other lower-seeded teams to win were Michigan State and Xavier — but they were just ninth seeds playing No. 8s, so those hardly qualify as upsets. Xavier’s 79-77 win over BYU was also the only other down-to-the-wire result of the day.
If you’re a fan of any of the winners, that’s all fine, of course. But for fans of the usual NCAA drama, things can only get better.

Weber State had talked beforehand about not being in awe of the Bruins. Maybe that's because they didn't quite appreciate what they were up against.
"They were bigger than I imagined," said senior forward Dan Henry. "They're quick. The bigs are big, their guards are quick, and the wings are shooters. They have it all."
Added David Patten, the transfer from Pepperdine who was Weber State's top player during the season, "They didn't disappoint as far as their athleticism and tenacity."
Patten had a fairly rough career finale — nine points on 1-of-6 shooting, with just three rebounds and three turnovers. His only basket came on a steal from James Keefe and breakaway reverse slam with 28 seconds left.
"That was a little frustration," Patten said. "He shot that lane a little too hard. I think coach would have been made if I didn't get that steal. ... That was a mean one for all the mistakes I made during the game."
By the way, Weber State, which ended this season against the Bruins, could open next season against them in a tournament, the College Basketball Experience.
"I requested to play UCLA in teh first round because I think it would be good for our kids to go down there and play them on their court," said Weber State coach Randy Rahe. "After watching them today, I'm not very bright.
"It'll be great," he quickly added. "Stuff like this, if you allow it to, will do nothing but help your program."

An obscure trend on display in Sacramento — Oral Roberts and George Washington both went down. Perhaps they should have brought some other guys with them.
Of course, Oral Roberts was one of the trendy upset picks of the first round. You should, of course, beware of trendiness; it gives us people like Paris Hilton and final scores like Washington State 70, Oral Roberts 54.
The front-line strength that was supposed to be Oral Roberts’ advantage didn’t work out so well. Caleb Green, the man who was supposed to make an upset possible, was troubled by Washington’s double-team defense, finishing 4 of 16 and scored 13 points.
“They did key on me,� said Green, “especially in the second half. … I felt they did what a top program is supposed to do — they eliminated me as a factor in the second half.�
Washington State outscored ORU 44-26 in the second half after trailing 28-26 at halftime.
“It was nice to finish like that,� said Washington State coach Tony (I Left My Heart …) Bennett, “and get that first win under our belt. It validates we can play with anybody.�
Oral Roberts shot just 35.8 percent to Washington State’s 47.4 percent, and the supposedly undersized Cougars finished with a 36-34 rebounding advantage.
George Washington, meanwhile, put up Stanford-like resistance, which is to say none at all; GW was down by 29 in the first half, trailed 45-20 at halftime, and then things really got bad. Final score: Vanderbilt 77, GW 44. Apparently, if you’re going to be named after someone, you should just go with one name.
These were the two East Regional games being played in Sacramento. Coming up, the West games, starting with UCLA at 4:25 p.m.

SACRAMENTO — Well, Stanford did a lot to justify that final spot for the Pac-10, didn’t it?
Blown out by Louisville, 78-58 — after trailing by 33 in the second half — the Cardinal didn’t do much for their conference, but might have stuck a blow for mid-majors everywhere.
One of the more interesting trends to watch this opening weekend will be to see how the lowest-seeded teams from the six power conferences — the kinds of schools that get spots instead of the Drexels and Air Forces — do in terms of justifying the major-conference tilt of this year’s selection process.
Stanford was the Pac-10’s lowest seed. The other five schools in that position are Villanova (the No. 9 seed from from the Big East), Texas Tech (a No. 10 seed out of the Big 12, already bounced by Boston College), Georgia Tech (a No. 10 from the ACC), Illlinois (a No. 12 from the Big 10) and Arkansas (a No. 12 from the ACC).
Those six are off to a quick 0-2 start. And while the seeding say all of them should, after all, lose, if they do indeed go 0-6, wouldn’t that be a pretty good argument for greater inclusion of second or third teams from the mid-majors, as oppose to fifth, sixth and seventh teams from the majors?

Themes from Patten: Weber State’s 6-foot-8 senior David Patten — who played basketball and volleyball at Pepperdine but left after a year — has become the key player for the Wildcats, turning himself from a perimeter player into the team’s inside force. He also proved to be pretty strong in the interview room during Wednesday’s practice day.
Talking about his time at Pepperdine, and why it was relatively short-lived, the native of Placentia and only Californian on the Weber State roster said, “When you’re 18 years old and play a couple sports, it often doesn’t go too well in other areas of your life.
“I won’t get into it too much,� he continued, drawing laughter as he circumvented admitting he hadn’t done well in class, “but let’s say the beach and volleyball and basketball came first.
“I took a year off after that, and decided to go to a school where volleyball wouldn’t be a distraction.�
Neither would the beach, for that matter.
Patten was also asked if there was any significance that UCLA’s coach, Ben Howland, is a Weber State graduate.
“You know, it’s nice to hear that about him,� said Patten. “It’s a cool fact, but it’s one of those they’ve-won-X-amount-of-times-on-a-Wednesday facts. It doesn’t really affect the game too much.
“I don’t think he’s going to ease up on us because we’re Weber State and he’s graduated.�

Bryce Taylor did his best to upstage him on Saturday, but the Pac-10 tournament really turned out to be TaJuan Porter’s coming out party.
After all the attention Aaron Brooks received throughout the regular season, it was Porter, Oregon’s other starting guard, who starred in the Ducks’ three tournament wins, scoring 61 points on 22-of-35 shooting.
Deservedly, after the Ducks routed USC 81-57 in Saturday’s conference championship game, he was named MVP.
Oh, and Porter is a freshman. A 5-foot-6 freshman. He’s going to be driving opponents nuts for a long time. In the short term, he and Brooks form a backcourt that will be difficult for any opponent to deal with in the NCAA tournament.
“They look pretty dangerous,� said USC’s Gabe Pruitt. “They shot the ball so well this whole tournament. They shoot the ball so well, they’ll be pretty dangerous to any team.�
USC coach Tim Floyd wasn’t going to blame fatigue for the loss — he noted that both teams were playing for the third straight day — but the Trojans did have a shorter turnaround than the Ducks, finishing about 11 p.m. Friday and playing again at 3. And it should be noted, the team winning the first semifinal has now won seven of the 10 conference tournament.

There’s still a day and a half of tournament play to go, but the bracket estimates/guesses are in full swing.
The consensus (from EPSN.com, CBS Sportsline, Bracketology 101, among others) seems to be that UCLA has held on to its No. 1 seeding, but after that, opinions are all over the map.
ESPN.com’s bracketlogist, Joe Lunardi, has USC as a seventh seed, playing in Winston-Salem against Davidson. Other sites have the Trojans anywhere from a No. 6 to a No. 9. There’s a real split on whether Stanford gets in to give the Pac-10 six teams (UCLA, USC, Washington State, Oregon and Arizona are the givens).
We’ll know a lot more in about 24 hours, of course. But if USC wins today, giving it back-to-back wins over ranked teams, you’d think they’d move up again.

Sixty, as it turned out, was the magic number for the USC basketball team. It wasn’t easy getting there, but the Trojans finally did.
On a night when every possession was a battle, if not its own little war, the Trojans finally edged past that 60-point barrier with 2:27 remaining and ended up with a 70-61 win over Washington State, earning a place opposite Oregon in Saturday afternoon’s Pac-10 title game.
USC has had any number of quality wins this year, but given the toughness of Washington State — and their two earlier wins over the Trojans — this victory might be as impressive as anything to date.
Washington State is very, very good when it holds teams under 60 points, which it does often, given its style of play. The Cougars won five Pac-10 games while scoring less than 60 points, won five others when allowing less than 60, and twice gave up less than 60 points but still lost.
Those numbers reflect the Cougars’ tenacity, offensively as well as defensively.
“They play with as much poise as anybody in the country, on both ends of the floor,� said USC coach Tim Floyd. “We knew they’d turn it over eight or nine times� — the final total was eight — “and I thought it was a real key that we were able to not turn it over.� USC also had just eight turnovers.
Those numbers are crucial because Washington State is not afraid to be very deliberate with the ball — and I do mean d-e-l-i-b-e-r-a-t-e; the Cougars do not think twice about working the ball for 30 seconds or more to set up a shot, if that’s what it takes.
USC is willing to work the ball, too. Perhaps not so single-mindedly, but still, the die for this game was cast when Washington State, on the first possession, worked the 35-second clock down to four seconds before taking (and making) a shot, and USC responded by working to eight seconds before its first attempt (and drawing a foul).
That style keeps scores down, of course, but what it also does is magnify every possession, and make the game a war of attrition. A defense has to work a long time against a team willing to pass and cut, and cut and pass, and reset and do it all again, in order to get a good shot.
And so every missed shot, every turnover seems more fraught with meaning — and every hot and cold spell seems enormous.
As it turned out, the Trojan had one early hot streak, and Washington State had one late cold spell. That was enough to tilt the difference, though it took quite a while to know it for sure.
In the first half, USC managed to build a 10-point lead while essentially trading baskets — not a trick you see very often, but one the Trojans performed with a barrage of 3-pointers.
When Gabe Pruitt hit a triple — his fourth — with 7:21 left in the first half, the Trojans were up 32-22 thanks to a stretch in which eight of their nine baskets were 3-pointers. USC was so hot from distance that, when a player missed a 2-pointer, there was a temptation to think he was too close.
Pruitt, on the other hand, seemed as if no distance was too great; he finished the night 6 of 7 on 3-point attempts.
“In warm-ups, I started feeling it,� Pruitt said, “and I knew if I got open looks, I would knock it down. So I just got myself into position to get those open looks. I tried not to do too much. I am the point guard, distributing other guys the ball, but I also tried to look for my shot today, too.�
After the Pruitt shot to give the Trojans that 10-point lead, the 3-pointers stopped coming. In part, Washington State finally realized the Trojans could do some damage outside that line and extended its defense accordingly. In part, USC realized that kind of streak wasn’t going to continue.
“We felt like that was fool’s gold,� said Floyd. “We saw that toward the end of the half, when we missed a couple of them and they made a little run at us, because, you know, long shot, long rebound provides an easier look on the other end.�
And so, by halftime, the lead was down to 38-34. It would take a long time to rebuild that double-digit advantage; even when it returned, when USC led 56-46 midway through the half after the Cougars scored on just two of 12 possessions, Floyd wasn’t feeling much of a comfort zone. After all, Washington State had rallied from deficits of 10 or more to win both regular-season meetings with the Trojans.
So, not surprisingly, Washington State mounted another charge, getting the lead to four with 6:22 left. But USC answered with seven of the next nine points, and finally, the lead — and the win — was secure.
“They’re a gritty group,� said Floyd. He was talking about the Cougars. Friday, though, he could just have easily been referring to his own team.
“I thought we played with a lot of poise ourselves, a lot of maturity,� Floyd said.
Young as this USC team is, that’s probably the most impressive thing about the night. It’s maturing very, very fast.

Cashing in: Never mind the Ducks and Trojans — the truly big winner Friday night was a fan from Watsonville who won a contest from a gasoline company, giving him a chance to shot four free throws on the Staples Center court at halftime. Each shot was worth $19,000. He made all four — a cool $76,000. Given the current outrages at the pump, of course, that will just about buy him enough gasoline for the drive home.

There are a couple of very good reasons no team has yet played all four days in the six Pac-10 tournaments that have used the four-day,10-team format.
One is that, since the only teams with a possibility of playing four days are the bottom four teams in the standings, they aren’t usually good enough to reach the title game. The other is fatigue, and it certainly appeared to play its part in Oregon’s 81-63 win over Cal.
You know how commentators always tell you that it’s a sign players are tired when they start leaving their shots short? Well, Cal — playing its third game in third days, including Thursday’s overtime win over UCLA — had players toss up airballs on consecutive first-half possessions. Not a good sign, but then, the scoreboard wasn’t offering any encouragement, either. At the time, Cal trailed by 19. At halftime, Oregon’s lead was 44-23. And at that point, I would have bet a paycheck — yours, not mine, for goodness’ sake — that Cal had nothing left in the tank and would go quietly.
It didn’t quite work out that way. Sorry about your paycheck.
To its everlasting credit, Cal actually had one rally left in it, pulling within six points at 59-53 with 7:16 remaining. But that, as it turned out was that. Oregon gradually rebuilt the lead, the airball made an unwelcome return appearance for Cal, and the Ducks finally dropped a 12-2 run on the Bears that removed all doubt about the outcome.
The Bears didn’t concede, though; coach Ben Braun was still calling timeout down by 16 with 1:24 left — much to the displeasure of USC and Washington State fans, who were hoping their game might end before midnight, or at least start before then.
Still, since Braun wasn’t able to draw up a couple of 10-point plays, it will be at least another year before a team plays four games in the tournament — and it wouldn’t surprising if it was longer than that.

It was a poorly kept secret, but now it’s official: the Pac-10 tournament will be staying at the Staples Center for another five years. As announced at a Friday press conference, it’s now booked into the building through 2012.
The interesting thing about this, really, is the limited say the Pac-10 apparently had in the deal.
The tournament is owned by Fox Sports Net — no, I didn’t know that either, until talk of the renewed contract surfaced — so it was Fox and Staples Center that struck the deal, leaving Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hanson to say he was “pleased to learn of the new agreement.�
Not everyone in the conference will feel the same way. Some of the coaches said before this year’s tournament that they’d like to see the event rotated around the conference, and a few media members have written the same thing. Usually, the two reasons cited have been the potential hometown advantage for USC and UCLA, and the fact attendance hasn’t been a sellout every single night.
These are, of course, contradictory — you can’t rip the people of L.A. for not showing up, and then claim they provide some huge advantage — and it’s not as if the Bruins and Trojans have dominated the event. Between them, they’ve won one title at Staples — UCLA’s last year — and were each 4-4 in tournament games at Staples entering this season.
The press conference itself was the usual gathering of guys in suits. Tim Leiweke of AEG, the owner of Staples and, it seems, most everything else in sports and entertainment, used the opportunity to plug the theater-restaurant-hotel complex under construction next door. Hansen deflected the sentiment for a rotating tournament, saying it takes time to develop the infrastructure for an event like this, and that L.A. remains the logical site because it’s the largest market in the league’s footprint. (Where would administrators be without jargon?)
The important thing is that the tournament is staying put. The need for it may be questionable in the grand scheme of college basketball, and it would probably be better with a smaller field. But given that it’s not going away and that it is pretty entertaining, it’s nice to have it here.

Well, we have the answer now to that earlier question — UCLA was the first upset victim, falling 76-69 to Cal in overtime and very much leaving its chances at a No. 1 seed in jeopardy.
It marks the third time in the five years since the conference tournament was revived that the No. 1 seed won’t win, and the second time that the No. 8 seed has knocked out the No. 1. The other time it happened was in 2003, when No. 8 UCLA knocked off No. 1 Arizona — also in overtime.
USC also worked overtime, but the results were a little better. The Trojans rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit and beat Stanford 83-79, advancing to meet the winner of Thursday’s late game between Washington and Washington State. (“Late� being the operative word, since the USC game ended at 8:45, and the last game was supposed to start at 8:42.)
USC trailed 42-31 at halftime, mainly because of turnovers (Stanford had 18 points off turnovers to USC’s six) and rebounding (Stanford had a 10-6 edge in offensive rebounds and 12-4 advantage in second-chance points). and for a while, it looked like the teams were going to do their best to keep the final score in the 40s; the first 14 possessions of the second half produced two scores, one for each team.
Things eventually heated up, though, with USC making its final rally from a four-point deficit in the final 40 seconds. The Trojans were already securely in the NCAA field, but at this point, every win helps in terms of seeding.
Stanford, though, is not so secure— as witnessed by Stanford Trent Johnson's effort to spell out exactly why his team belongs in the NCAA field, and by the unsolicited testimonial by USC coach Tim Floyd. "It's ridiculous for anybody to start this bubble talk with Stanford," Floyd said. "That's an exceptional team."
Still, an 18-12 record is no lock, and Johnson knows it.
"We've had chances to take it out of the judges' hands, so to speak," he said, "so shame on us" for not doing so.

The drama starts early at Staples Center, with a spirited one-on-one basketball game between … the Arizona and Oregon mascots. (For those of you preparing for your mascot fantasy draft, Arizona’s Wilbur Wildcat has much better moves in the low post. And the Duck carries the ball on almost every dribble.)
The biggest shock when you see the Oregon basketball team is that it looks surprisingly like, well, a basketball team — unlike, say, the football team, which looks like something out of Rollerball. Somehow, the basketball team has managed not to follow’s football lead and simply become nothing more than an advertising arm of a shoe company.
Sure, the Ducks have the standard Nike uniform template, with the little winglets on the shoulder, but it’s not too outlandish. In this game, it’s actually Arizona that has yielded to Nike’s efforts to take over the world.
The Wildcats are one of four teams (along with Syracuse, Ohio State and Florida) wearing a new design featuring more form-fitting tops (not so bad) and a new style of shorts (really, really bad.) The shorts set an absurd new standard for excessive length and bagginess. (Paul Lukas, maven of the great uniwatchblog.com, calls them “skorts� because they look as much like skirts as shorts.)
You’ll probably see and hear way too much about these uniforms during the tournament (overkill is, after all, the Nike way), so be prepared.
Moving from the fashion show to the game, Oregon’s guard play — no big surprise here — was too much for the Wildcats. Tajuan Porter scored 21 points and Aaron Brooks had 16 in a 69-50 victory.
That makes three straight tournament games in which seeding has held. When will we have our first upset?

LOS ANGELES — Cal beat Oregon State 70-51 in the tournament opener, taking control with a 27-2 run in the first half to break a tie at 13. That means, for more than seven minutes, Oregon State was only two points better than if Cal had been playing five-on-oh. The last time anyone in the L.A. area saw a scoring run like that, it was a high school girls’ game involving either Lisa Leslie or Cheryl Miller.
At halftime, it was 43-25, meaning the game was over, since 11-21 teams like Oregon State don’t make a habit of erasing 18-point deficits. (The Beavers did pull within eight points twice in the second half, and on the first occasion missed a layup that could have made it a six-point game, but then, falling short is what you CAN expect from an 11-21 team.)
The inevitable outcome left plenty of time for contemplation: Since the 8-vs.-9 game should theoretically be the better of the two games, what did seventh-seeded Washington and No. 10 seed Arizona State have in store for us?
The answer, as it turned out, was another big scoring run. This time, it was by Washington, which finished the first by outscoring Arizona State 22-3 over the final 7:30.
The difference, this time, is that even with that — and a 32-24 halftime lead — Washington was pushed for quite a while before finally winning 59-51, trailing as late as with 4:19 remaining.
Still, the ultimate outcome was the same: The higher seed won. Which means the two bottom-dwellers in the conference, the ones that went 2-16 and 3-15 in the Pac-10, are going home. Where they belong.
We needed five hours of basketball to determine that?

Some random thoughts:
-- What is this, a golf tournament? There’s a car on a platform in one of the tunnels leading to the arena floor, a tie-in with a sponsor who won’t be mentioned here. (Hey, I’m not getting the money.) Not sure yet if the car is for a hole-in-one or closest-to-the-pin competition.
-- For those of you scoring the mascot competition at home, Cal’s bear, Oski, is neck and neck with the Stanford tree for least impressive costume. The thing looks like a grade-school arts and crafts project gone bad; as far as realism goes, this bear is apparently a careful representation of the species Gummi.

Quote to note:
-- Cal guard Ayinde Ubaka: “This was the first game we made a conscious effort to share the ball.� (Wouldn’t you think a team might have tried that before its 31st game?)

LOS ANGELES — Safe to say the opening doubleheader of the Pac-10 tournament won’t be a box-office smash. Only about half of the Staples Center concession stands are open, always a pretty good rule of thumb regarding expected crowds.
Not that this should be any real surprise, not with two games involving three teams with losing records (plus Washington, slumming in this group with an 18-12 record) or L.A.’s clear history in such matters.
Back in the Pac-10’s first flirtation with a conference tournament, the event was held in L.A. twice, in 1987 at Pauley Pavilion and in 1989 at the Forum. Both times, the day with the bottom four teams drew sparse crowds: 4,851 at Pauley, and 4,830 at the Forum. Last year, when the tournament returned to the 10-team format, the opening night at Staples drew 7,936, just a shade more than half the crowd for the two sessions the next day.
There are people in some Pac-10 cities who cite the lack of sellouts at Staples (for everything but the title game) as reason to take the conference tournament out of Los Angeles. I tend to think it’s more like a sign that L.A. fans know what’s worthwhile, and they aren’t convinced about the first day in the 10-team format.

As you may have heard, the NFL is attempting to trademark the phrase “The Big Game� as an alternate reference for the Super Bowl — mainly because that’s the advertising phrase of choice for people who aren’t NFL sponsors, but want to refer to the Super Bowl without getting a cease-and-desist order from the league’s attorneys. (This is why you’ll hear those ads imploring you to buy that new big-screen TV “in time for the big game.�)

Needless to say, this isn’t going over very well in the court of public opinion — the people at Stanford and Cal, who have been calling their football rivalry “The Big Game,� are particularly miffed — but the NFL, seeking world domination on a level challenged only by Nike, probably doesn’t care. Since the NFL seems to be able to do whatever it wants, as long as it doesn’t involve putting a franchise in the nation’s second-largest market, I wouldn’t be that surprised if it succeeds in trademarking the phrase, as ridiculous as that seems.

Of course, if the league succeeds, advertisers will simply move on and find another phrase. While I briefly considered attempting to trademark the following alternatives, just so I could see what it feels like to be ridiculously greedy, I have instead decided to offer them up free of charge. Feel free to print this out and save it for future reference:

The Huge Game
The Large Contest
The Immense Competition
The Biggest Day In The Chips and Salsa Industry
The Most Overhyped Game Since Last Year’s
An Advertising Extravaganza, With Football Attached
That Thing The Cardinals Are Never In

In tonight's edition of Medical Center, otherwise known as the Lakers injury report, the return of Kwame Brown is scheduled — not a moment too soon, since Andrew Bynum is coming off a three-day bout with the flu and is "pretty weak," according to Phil Jackson.

The news on Luke Walton is not as good. Despite Jackson's assertion that Walton did not suffer a setback Thursday when he "pulled up" in practice, in the coach's words, Walton is not back tonight, will not play Sunday in Phoenix, and is now scheduled to see a specialist at USC on Monday. Team spokesman John Black said the results of that appointment will determine whether Walton joins the Lakers for the rest of their four-game trip or remains in L.A.