Basketball provides a needed win for Bruin fans

  Jeff Agase The Lions are 0-9. Agase
needed something to be happy about. E-mail him at [email protected] if you did too.

So why should you care about an 11-point nondescript, sloppy
UCLA victory over an overmatched Houston team that lost both of its
exhibition games?

Well, at the very least, it wasn’t UCLA football, and if
that doesn’t bring a smile to your face, I don’t know
what will ““ maybe the Gallery Furniture.com Bowl.

But all kidding aside, the Bruins’ 71-60 win in the first
round of the Maui Invitational means we can finally get our minds
off the last month of football self-destruction and onto a team
that should be a national contender.

Instead of drunken driving, we can look forward to dunks and
driving ““ down the lane, that is. And for those of you who
are still wondering what a spiral looks like and were unfulfilled
from watching Cory Paus, get pumped for basketball ““ where
the passes always look like they’re spirals.

OK, so it was only Houston. Neither team looked especially
polished, and the Bruins did their best to allow the Cougars to
hang around with a careless 20 minutes of ball in the first
half.

When he wasn’t shuffling his feet before a jumper, Jason
Kapono looked like he was passing to some guy in the third row.

But at least it wasn’t football.

Monolith center Dan Gadzuric picked up a pair of fouls in the
first five minutes of the game, but for every mindless miscue,
there was a Cedric Bozeman coast-to-coast drive or a string of Matt
Barnes rebounds that culminated in an uncontested layup.

No, it wasn’t pretty all the time. But it also
wasn’t 27-0. And it’s also just what beleaguered Bruin
fans needed to salve the wounds that gaped wider and wider over the
last four difficult weeks.

Although their press never fully dictated the pace of the game,
the Bruins owned the paint and are on a crash-course to a Wednesday
showdown with top-ranked Duke.

Never mind that the sleep-inducing affair was played in an arena
that the Men’s Gym would dwarf. At least it wasn’t the
Coliseum.

Forget the fact that Steve Lavin’s designer Hawaiian shirt
looked a bit forced. At least it wasn’t Bob Toledo burying
his face in his hands and uttering words like “inept”
and “snowballing.”

UCLA moves on to a semifinal game against Ball State, the kind
of team, much like Houston, to which the Bruins have chronically
suffered upsets in these early-season tournaments. It’ll be
an early test of consistency.

Granted, nobody foresaw the football collapse when pundits, fans
and players alike were openly talking about the Rose Bowl at 6-0.
And anyone who has followed this basketball team over the past few
years is almost expecting the customary January swoon.

But none of that is important right now. A win over a below
mediocre Conference USA opponent like Houston is but the first step
to recovery for Bruin fans who feel betrayed, angry and
frustrated.

The road is unquestionably a rocky one. Lavin’s teams
wouldn’t have it any other way.

But while the football team saw a dropped pass turn into an
interception and seven painful USC points Saturday, a potentially
dangerous injury to Gadzuric in the second half Monday turned out
to be no worry, and the big man returned to swat away Cougar shots
down low.

Bruin fans had to have been fearful that another break would go
against them. Not this time, thankfully.

Welcome back, basketball. We needed you.