UCLA is a “basketball school.”
What a bold-faced lie. What an utter joke. What an embarrassment.
Cal State Northridge clearly cares more about basketball than UCLA. As CBS cameras proved, the Matador faithful were huddled around a TV on Selection Sunday, waiting for the news.
Certainly this column reads like an emotional tirade ““ and perhaps that’s what it is ““ but perhaps that is what this school needs. I’m sorry, but my Selection Sunday experience has tipped me over the edge. UCLA is not a basketball school, and UCLA fans generally don’t care about sports. I wish I had known that two years ago. Maybe then I would have chosen a different school.
Sunday was Exhibit A.
At 2:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the selection show, the television inside Ackerman was tuned to the Lakers’ game. So was the flat screen in the Wooden Center. As I sprinted up the hill to my friend’s room, in total disbelief that the show wasn’t being broadcast on campus, there was a normal flow of Sunday afternoon people traffic walking down the hill in the opposite direction.
And we call ourselves a basketball school? Ridiculous. Yes, I know we are talking about a few incidents limited in scope. Two television operators might simply be Lakers fans.
But I’m sorry ““ Kansas probably had little Vizios hanging down from the rafters by a string in every hallway.
Kentucky probably called the cable company to make sure they blacked out every channel but CBS at 6:00 p.m. EST. North Carolina probably canceled class on Thursday, but UCLA broadcasts the Lakers game.
UCLA is not a basketball school.
I don’t care that people have “other things to do in Los Angeles.” Not only does that embody the attitude of a Southern Californian with a superiority complex, it doesn’t matter when it comes to what is happening on our very own campus. If anyone gave a lick about basketball, it’d be on the televisions, and there would be a viewing party in Pauley Pavilion.
But I can see why no one wants to organize such an event: No one would go. Everyone would be too busy studying for finals, which is what I guarantee half the folks strolling down Bruin Walk at 2:55 p.m. were going to go do.
People that go to basketball schools are locked in their rooms, holding hands and praying at that time. They put the books down for an hour, and then they spend another hour making their preliminary bracket. It doesn’t matter if the final is worth 10 percent or 100 percent ““ they put the pencil down.
One of the most exciting days in the college sports world came and went Sunday in Westwood. There was no buzz on campus, just complaints about finals, which students seem to believe will single-handedly determine their happiness in life.
You can argue that basketball and sports in general are not important.
That’s fine.
You can send me nasty e-mails explaining that academics are the reason you came to UCLA.
Good logic.
You can rip apart my harsh word choice and broad sweeping generalizations.
I deserve it.
And you can reprimand me for my narrow-sighted sports fervor.
You should.
But you cannot tell me UCLA is a basketball school. That might have been the case back in the Wooden era, but in 2009, it is a bold-faced lie.
If you want to do any of the above, e-mail Stevens at mstevens@media.ucla.edu.