Love, Westbrook, Mbah a Moute to announce decisions today

I’ll update this later as it becomes official, but as has been reported in multiple places, Kevin Love will announce at a press conference today that he’s leaving UCLA for the NBA.

Jeff Eisenberg of the Riverside Press-Enterprise is reporting that Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute will announce their decisions as well.

Love and Westbrook were expected to leave, and it’s been rumored that Mbah a Moute would too. I’m not bitter about any of this, they have to do what’s best for them.

It’s just sad to see the careers of three UCLA greats end in Westwood.

I’ve joined Bugs & Cranks

I am the new Angels blogger over at Bugs & Cranks, one of the top baseball blogs out there. (Don’t just take my word for it, Ballhype has them at #8 in their sports blog rankings and #3 among baseball blogs.)

I will still continue to blog regularly here at Obscure Sports Quarterly, though the days of me doing 14 posts a week are probably over. My blogging about the Angels will be at Bugs & Cranks, I will continue to blog here about UCLA, non-Angels related baseball stuff and whatever else I feel like.

My first post is up at Bugs & Cranks, and I’ll have more there at this link as time goes on.

Save the Sonics

I’m not that big of an NBA fan, but I can empathize with Seattle Sonics fans. I would be devastated if my favorite team were to go away and leave me.

So it’s great news that former Sonics owner Howard Schultz is suing current owner Clay Bennett for breach of contract. From the Seattle Times:

When Bennett purchased the Sonics and its sister franchise in the WNBA, the Storm, for $350 million, he agreed to a stipulation that he would make a good-faith effort to keep both teams in Seattle. He has since sold the Storm to four Seattle women who will keep the team here.

E-mails among the Oklahoma City owners, made public last week, paint a different picture of their intentions. In preparation for a June 16 trial in Seattle’s lawsuit, which seeks to hold the owners to the remaining two years of the team’s KeyArena lease, lawyers for the city obtained several e-mails in which owners expressed an intent to move to Oklahoma City shortly after the sale.

Wow. While Schultz probably should’ve held on to the team if he had any doubts, it’s good to see him try to keep the team in Seattle. Fans shouldn’t lose their team because the taxpayers won’t pay for a new stadium.

(Hat-tips to Sonics Central and Ballhype.)

Kobe vs. Gathright

A friend just pointed me to this video of Kobe Bryant jumping really high right by a moving car.

I say jumping right by a moving car, not over, because at 0:33 into the clip, it looks like the car is passing just to the side of Kobe, so while still dangerous, not nearly as dangerous as Kobe jumping directly over the car. That’s still impressive. I’d say that Kobe probably could jump over a car moving right at him if he had to — it’s way too stupid of a risk to take though.

Kobe was just trying to one-up Royals outfielder Joey Gathright, who famously jumped over a parked car.

He also jumped over a pitcher in a spring training game this year, and MLB took down the video on YouTube. Here’s a link to the page where they have it (click on “Gathright goes airborne”)

UPDATE: I’m obviously not the first blogger to find the Kobe video. Ballhype has the full list.

Well, that was unexpected

The Pac-10 college basketball world has gone mad.

Last week, former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery was hired at Cal — Stanford’s rival.

Today, it looks like current Stanford coach Trent Johnson will reportedly be named the head coach at LSU.

Stanford fans must thrilled with life right now. Even their mascot is lame:

It’s only April, but it’s fun to look at the standings anyway

The Baltimore Orioles, who by most predictions were supposed to be terrible this year, are 6-1. I love to see teams that are supposed to be bad get off to good starts — it lets their fans be excited for a little while at least, as you can see at Camden Chat.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Detroit Tigers, the trendy pick to be one of the AL’s best teams, are 0-7. Tigers fans aren’t taking it well, as you might imagine. Odds are, the Tigers will eventually be good and this will be forgotten. You never know though — maybe we were all wrong about the Tigers and Orioles.

An open letter to Adam Rose and the LA Times

To: Adam Rose and the LA Times

I just read your announcement that the UCLA and USC blogs are merging, and that Adam Rose, who blogs about USC at All Things Trojan, will now be blogging about UCLA for the Times as well.

Torii Hunter!

There really isn’t a better way to end a game than a walk-off grand slam. Torii Hunter gave us a chance to see the rare feat in Monday’s 6-4 win over the Indians.

In one swing, the game went from frustrating to thrillness, bleak to bliss.

Frankie looked terrible in blowing the save in the top of the 9th, but I don’t care about that — a walk-off grand slam cures all. Joe Saunders was great too.

This wasn’t just another Halo victory. It was a great and fun one — and thank Torii Hunter for that.

UCLA falls to Memphis

It’s always sad when the team you root for ends its season with a loss. It’s even more sad when this year more than any other was the year I had hope of UCLA winning a championship.

Don’t get me wrong — even with the loss to Memphis on Saturday, I still consider the 2007-08 season to be a success. Going to the Final Four is extremely difficult, no matter how talented you are, and well over 300 other teams would love to be in UCLA’s position right now. The Bruins went 35-4, winning over 90% of their games, which is impressive in any season in any sport. At a personal level, they were also extremely fun to watch with so many talented players, great defense and so many thrilling, close and come-from-behind wins.

But it’s still sad and frustrating that UCLA couldn’t get past Memphis. Frustrating because unlike UCLA’s other three losses this year, the Bruins just got dominated. Memphis was the better team, and is athletic and talented at every single position. They deserved to win that game. The game probably shouldn’t have been as close it was.

At the end of the game, when I was expecting UCLA to go on a run to win the game like they usually do, Memphis stepped up their defense. UCLA played well defensively — but Memphis was even better, shutting down UCLA when it counted the most.

It’s going to be a long offseason. I believe in coach Ben Howland and the players on UCLA enough to know that the Bruins will be back in the Final Four in the near-future and eventually win a championship. It’s just too bad we couldn’t see one this year.

Saturday has arrived — Gameday Roundup

After an extremely long week in between games, the day we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. UCLA vs. Memphis in the Final Four — a battle of two great teams with many talented players.

The last time these two met was that epic 50-45 Elite Eight game in 2006. Both teams have changed significantly since then, but as Bruin Basketball Report points out, there are some similarities:

Similar to 2006, many people this year have questioned whether the Bruins match-up well against the Tigers on the court.

In 2006, Memphis was considered the more athletic team with bigger and longer players. The Tigers had a high-octane offense, averaging over 81 points per game.

The Bruins in 2006? Well, they were considered the ‘disciplined’ team.

Sound familiar to recent articles in the media?

Yes it does BBR. Yes it does.

I’d like to point out one of the best features on Ben Howland I’ve ever read, written by Jeff Eisenberg of the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

In the five years since UCLA hired Howland to restore its decaying basketball program, he has earned a reputation for being controlling, demanding and maybe even a little bit pushy. From draping blankets over the clocks at Pauley Pavilion so players don’t know how much time is left in practice, to making sure they wear two pairs of socks under their sneakers to avoid blisters, no minutia is too small for Howland’s discerning eye.

Another excerpt from later in the article:

To change the program’s underachieving culture, Howland instilled newfound toughness, intensity and discipline. It’s not uncommon for players to receive down-to-the-minute itineraries before road trips or to watch tape of a blown defensive rotation up to five or six times.

“He is on top of every detail,” assistant coach Scott Duncan said. “He knows what’s going on in the training room, he knows what’s going on in the weight room, he knows what’s happening on the court and he knows what’s going on with academics. I think that gives the players a sense that they should be detailed, too. If this is so important to our coach, this should be important to us.”

Go read the article already.

As Bruins Nation found before me, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is getting a special surprise today. The Daily News’ Brian Dohn is reporting that for the first time ever, Luc’s parents are going to see him play in person. That is fantastic news and hopefully inspires Luc to play at a higher level than usual, if possible.

Lastly, Bruin Report Online’s Tracy Pierson gave Gutty Little Bruins permission to upload an amazing video on YouTube of Kevin Love draining full-court shots.

Amazing.