One Win Away

Really fun to see UCLA school LSU tonight. The mistake a lot of pundits made was underestimating UCLA's offense. They have played really good defense for a while now, but because of their awful performance against Memphis on offense, I think a lot of people weren't giving them the credit they deserve. They don't score as much as some teams, but that's largely because they slow the pace of the game down. They are pretty efficient in scoring per possession, and the Memphis offensive performance was an anomoly. They combined their usual offense with their excellent recent defense against LSU, and it was a pretty good butt whooping. It's amazing how quickly people came around on them, because now they seem to be the favorite against Florida. I tend to think they'll win that game, and I think it might be pretty decisive again, but I'm not cursing anything with predictions. The one interesting thing is that going into this season, the thought was how good UCLA would be next year with all their young players developing. Yet this season ended up being the real success story and it will be tough to duplicate next year. Moreover, Ryan Hollins has developed into such an important player for them this year that it will be really tough to replace him next year, and I don't think anyone would have predicted that towards the beginning of the season. Hell, they wouldn't have predicted that in mid-January. This run has been so much fun for me, because every team I root for has given me more disappointment than joy (Wizards, Capitals, Redskins (I wasn't really a fan until I moved back to DC from Singapore in '91, so I missed most of the original Gibbs run), Orioles and now Nationals). I enjoyed Maryland's run with Dixon, Blake, Baxter and company, but it wasn't as nice as this one. Good times.