Jeff Agase Now that it’s IM softball
season, Agase’s eyes well with tears when he looks at the IM Field.
E-mail him at agase@ucla.edu
with some soothing words.
Click Here for more articles by Jeff Agase
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT “”mdash; So this, as they
say, is how it ends: sitting in a seedy airport bar, watching the
second half of the UCLA-Missouri game on a janky 13-inch TV,
sipping a three-dollar Coke, trying to ignore some punk shouting at
130 decibels on his cell phone.
And seeing the Bruins exit arena left in the Sweet 16.
Again.
Same old story. Same old Bruins.
Just when you finally thought that romantic naivete for this
team wouldn’t break your already partitioned heart, the
Bruins drive yet another spike down the middle of it, shattering it
into still more unrecognizable pieces.
Sure, there’s still enough left to mount another torrent
of passion next season, but honestly, this flirtation bit is
starting to wear thin.
Come on Bruins, quit playin’ games with our hearts.
Whoops. I think I owe a boy band some royalty money for that.
No matter, though. Not now. I’m still coming to grips with
the fact that I, for a fleeting instant, pondered whether a weekend
of basketball in San Jose was somehow superior to my upcoming week
in London.
Why?
It was probably that force ““ those four days of pre-Sweet
16 anticipation many of us have enjoyed for three straight years
now ““ that had its way of turning even the most ardent
skeptics into anxious fanatics who couldn’t help but let
their eyes wander all the way to the end of that suddenly winnable
West bracket. I regret to say I was one of them.
Was I missing out on something huge?
After all, this was a No. 12 seed UCLA was playing. Sure, it was
a Missouri team peaking higher than any hoity-toity one or two
seed, but it was still a No. 12. The past two years of the Sweet 16
had brought the Bruins longshot upset opportunities but also little
hope of playing a second game that weekend.
This year was different, right? This time, Duke was already
toast and the “what-if” machine was kicking into high
gear by the time Matt Barnes went on a one-man rampage to power the
Bruins to a seven-point lead.
This year was different, right? Not only were the Bruins playing
a lower seed in a tournament the “experts” (and even
rubes like me) predicted they should have already exited, but they
were looking like legitimate Final Four contenders ““ and like
a team.
Cedric Bozeman, a kid who just recently earned the right to vote
but might have been elected de facto mayor of Westwood after a
titanic win over Cincinnati, had helped to pull together a
collection of disinterested and apathetic individuals into maybe
the most feared team left in the tourney.
This year was different, right?
Well no, not really. How silly we all were, once again, to get
whisked away into Bruin Fever, robotically nodding our heads to all
of the things they were saying in the papers and on TV.
But to our credit, it is the silliness that makes the one time
your heart is left intact all the more satisfying. Imagine the Cubs
finally winning the World Series, but on a smaller scale. After all
these teases, that’s what it would be like if the Bruins won
the Pac-10 or even (heaven forbid) the national championship in the
near future.
Now, the bad thing about the Daily Bruin not publishing Friday
of 10th Week (and myself having to write a story a week and half
after the game) is that it’s not exactly what big important
journalists like my boss Scott Schultz call
“timely.”
The good thing ““ besides, of course, the fact that I was
able to completely forget about the Daily Bruin and try my best to
deplete metropolitan London’s entire beer reserve ““ is
that it allows an opportunity for some reflection and forward
thinking.
Awww, “reflection and forward thinking.” Isn’t
that cute?
Although it may sound like it was ripped straight from a
post-Clinton scandal press release, I have something slightly less
trivial to say.
The loss of at least three starters (Barnes, Billy Knight, Dan
Gadzuric) and possibly a fourth (Jason Kapono) means that
we’re likely in store for another woefully unpredictable
first few months of the 2002-03 season.
But ridiculous as they seemed at the time, Steve Lavin’s
NHL-style substitution patterns gave at least six returning players
significant minutes, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more
experienced pair of sophomore point guards than Bozeman and Ryan
Walcott.
They will struggle early, that much is clear. Should Kapono
return, the starting lineup would be some five-man combination of
Kapono, Ray Young, Bozeman, Dijon Thompson, T.J. Cummings, and
newcomer Mike Fey, with Andre Patterson, Walcott, and transfer Jon
Crispin off the bench.
But if Kapono bolts for the NBA, the Bruins will be left with
one senior (who redshirted this season) and only 26 percent of
their scoring.
Kapono’s decision could be the difference between
championship contention in the Pac-10 and clawing for an NCAA
Tournament berth.
But hey, cheer up! Football season’s only five months
away!
I’m sorry. That’s probably not the best way to
brighten your mood.
Well, it MIGHT make you feel a little better to adopt a
conveniently optimistic characteristic of British soccer fans that
I discovered while across the pond. You see, no matter how well a
local Premier League club does, what’s really important is
how the country performs.
Manchester United may lose in the semifinals of the playoffs,
but if England makes a run in the World Cup, all is redeemed.
Which means, by moronically twisted logic, that no matter who
wins tonight, we UCLA fans can rejoice in the fact that the
champion will be American.
Please note the flagrant capitalization three paragraphs above.
Hey, I tried.