Stop criticizing UCLA b-ball, .696 is still a mean average

  Gilbert Quinonez Stat Geek Even though
the Stat Geek wore Angel gear to the Dodger game last night, he
still got pelted with nacho cheese by the vulgar Dodger fans.
Luckily his calculator remained unscathed. Console him at
[email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Gilbert Quinonez

Point six nine six ““ the winning percentage of a program
many fans have said “sucks”. As a diehard Anaheim
Angels fan (fill in Tony Danza/Christopher Lloyd “Angels in
the Outfield” joke here), it always pains me to hear fellow
UCLA students say that the school’s sports teams
“suck” and are unbearable to watch. Why don’t we
realize how lucky we are as sports fans?

Many, including me have made fun of Steve Lavin’s
inconsistent basketball team. It’s hard not to make fun of a
team that has lost to Cal State Northridge, Washington, Ball State
and Arizona State, yet has beaten so many great teams over the last
few years. However, never once have I said that the team
“sucks” or said that Lavin should be fired, like so
many other stat geek wannabes have.

As an Angel fan since 1994 (all of you have either lost respect
for me or are feeling sorry for me right now), I have learned that
good teams don’t grow on trees and should be respected.

In Lavin’s six seasons as head coach, the team has gone
135-59, with a winning percentage of .696. Wow. Still, many fans
are not happy with this. Ever since the great John Wooden was head
coach at UCLA, Bruin fans have never been happy with the
team’s performance, no matter how good it was. What was
Wooden’s winning percentage after his first six seasons?
.698.

I’m not saying that Lavin will win 10 national
championships here at UCLA, or that Lavin is as great as a coach as
Wooden. It just won’t happen again in college basketball with
so many dominant programs.

Jim Harrick, the only other coach in UCLA history to last at
least six seasons had a record of 137-53 after six seasons. What
did he do in his seventh season? Win the national championship.

While UCLA fans have been “suffering” with
“bad” sports teams, the Angels,who along with UCLA, are
the only teams I root for with a passion, have redefined the word
“loser.”

In the last six seasons, the Angels have gone 467-507, a winning
percentage of .479. To make it even more depressing, the Angels are
chokers. Every time they are in a playoff race, they roll over and
let the other teams run away with the divison. In 1995, the Angels
were beating Seattle by 12.5 games with 40 games to go. When ahead
by that much, all you have to do is win half of your games to
easily win the division and force Seattle to go 33-8 to catch you,
unheard of in baseball.

The Angels decided to win 1/3 of their games the rest of the way
and let a Seattle team catch them that, with the exception of Randy
Johnson, had a pitching staff about as good as the Daily Bruin IM
softball team.

This is just one example of many times the Angels have choked
down the stretch, nearly giving me a heart attack and almost
causing me to punch my precious, valued calculator … almost.

While the Angels always choke down the stretch, Lavin’s
teams, on the other hand, usually play their best basketball toward
the end of the season, just on time for the playoffs. As different
as the Bruins and Angels are during the regular season, during the
playoffs they are about as different as my hero Pythagoras and John
Rocker.

Under Lavin, the Bruins have made it to the playoffs every year,
including going to the Sweet 16 five out of six years, something
only one other team in the country has done: Duke. The Angels have
not gone to the playoffs since 1986, where they lost to the Red
Sox, one of the worst playoff teams of all time (and favorite
pathetic losers of Daily Bruin sports editor Scott Schultz). The
Bruins won a title as recently as 1995. The Angels have never even
been to a World Series.

The sad part is, the Angels aren’t even the worst team in
the league ““ like the Dodgers are. The Halos have been better
than the Royals, Tigers, Devil Rays, Brewers, Pirates and Expos
over to last few years, just to name a few.

We here at UCLA have been privileged with a great basketball
team, and great teams in other sports, too. In the last six years,
the football team has a .614 winning percentage. Also, the less
popular sports at UCLA are dominant. The men’s volleyball
team has won 18 NCAA championships, and the men’s tennis team
has won 15. The softball team has won 8 titles and is currently No.
1 in the country, as is the gymnastics team.

So, the next time you think that any of this school’s
sports teams “suck”, remember, it could be worse. You
could be a hopeless Angel fan.