Better lucky than good?

That's got to be what UCLA is telling themselves at this point.

UCLA 67, Stanford 64

Somehow or other, UCLA again defeated Stanford despite Kevin Love doing his best (injury-induced, to be sure) Daven Harmeling imitation-- all jump shots, no post play-- and the team shooting free throws like they were at those carny stalls with the heavy balls and the 18-foot rims. Somehow they managed to get by on an assortment of H.O.R.S.E. shots from Darren Collison, who seems to have taken his Angel of Stanford Death role somewhat seriously of late.

There's something about UCLA that just provokes panic in opponents. I'm not really sure what does it, but every game it seems like the opposing team goes through a stretch of about 5 minutes where they make every possible wrong decision, and for Stanford, that stretch came between about 7 and 2 minutes to go in this one. UCLA hit a couple of buckets to go up 55-48, and then the wheels suddenly fell off of the Stanford offense. Instead of pounding it into the post or moving the ball around the perimeter, the "offense" suddenly became off-balance 12-foot prayers from the middle of the lane and turnovers. Lots of turnovers. The team sort of recovered its composure after a while, but a pretty spirited comeback in the last couple of minutes ended with a halfcourt heave clanking off the side iron. It didn't have to be that way.

Trent Johnson needs to use this game as a lesson for the team. Something like "Look, guys. We have a good defense. We know we can shut down the opposition's offense to give us a chance to get back into games. But the only way that's going to happen is if we run OUR offense, because quite frankly we suck at 'panic offense.'" Which is true; as I said, in a sloppy game, Stanford's advantages are largely nullified.

More to come soon, once Stanford's NCAA fate (seemingly, a 3-seed in the Anaheim subregional... but which regional, and which other 3 teams standing between them and the Sweet 16, TBD) is known.