constant crises

and that is why we watch sports: games like tonight's. unbelievable game, i can't believe i got to watch it in-person (thanks phil). the first game of the night, memphis-bradley was rather lackluster as the tigers used their superior athleticism and aggressiveness to run bradley into the ground. the arena was about half full. as we neared gametime for ucla-gonzaga, the seats started filling up. you could feel a palpable buzz in the air as tip-off came. to be honest, i've never felt something like that before a sporting event, even in the great stanford-arizona tilts. then the game started. and ucla was in trouble. they couldn't hit a shot. they couldn't defend morrison and batista. they couldn't keep their hands off players, repeatedly fouling. and, perhaps most of all, they couldn't keep arron afflalo on the floor (to score buckets and defend morrison). and yet, at halftime they were *only* down 13. i turned to phil and said, "i can't believe they're not down by 25." from my seat eight rows back from the court, you could tell that ucla came out to play in the second half. it's as if howland told them in the locker room, "we might foul every one of our players out of the game, but we're going to play our asses off." early in the second half, jordan farmar shoved derek raivio in the neck with a forearm, knocking him to the ground. when raivio turned and complained to the referee, i figured ucla had a chance. why? because tough teams know that you need to go out and TAKE games away. any team with a point guard that would spend that much time crying to the referee was expecting to be given something. still, i was stunned at the end of the game. i think stunning is the only word to describe it. at the end of the day, ucla made the plays when they mattered, scoring the last 11 points of the game. the most telling moment came with 2.9 seconds left, as morrison cried on the court, with the game still going on. it was the perfect example of why ucla won the game: they were determined and they WON the game. they didn't cry about bad calls. they didn't pout about missed shots. they didn't wonder about missed opportunities. they just wanted the game more. they were what we should (now) expect from ucla teams: tough.

tags: ucla, sports, gonzaga, basketball