From: rsmith@strobe.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Russ Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: UCLA/Stanford and a little whining about Cal
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:48:41 GMT

UCLA went to 3-2 in the Pac-10 with a horribly played 84-76 win against
Stanford in Pauley. O'Bannon led the way with 19(his first sub 20 game
since breaking his nose and donning the mask),and Kevin Dempsey chipped
in 14 on 4-5 three pointers. This game was quite similar to the Cal/Stanford
game which bothered me so much. the better team won, but on paper, Stanford
is 20-25 points worse than both Cal and UCLA, yet both games were fairly
close because Stanford is well coached and their opponents played like
they aren't coached. 

Bright spots for UCLA were the play of Dempsey, Marquis Burns and Rodney
Zimmerman off the bench. For some reason I have yet to discover, Zidek
has been playing ahead of Zimmerman off the bench(does he have incriminating
polaroids of Harrick?), but last night Rodney played so well he ended up
playing more minutes than Zidek and also more than Petruska(or it seemed
so). He's more active on offense this year, I still don't like him that
much as a player but he was good last night. Burns does 2 things very well,
he has a real nice looking shot(made 2 3's last night), and he can flat out
sky off the floor, maybe better than even Mitchell Butler.

Weak points, Petruska and Butler both had their second straight bad game.
Butler's wrist is bothering his shooting , but he made alot of turnovers
too, so I can't really say all his problems are caused by the wrist.
Petruska was invisible, doing virtually nothing all night, and hardly played
in the 2nd half.

Now for the Cal whining, Cal lost to USC 67-65 on 2 freethrows by Phil GLenn
with .6 of a second on the clock. The play was a missed jumper by Chatman,
where Glenn and Cal's jerrod Haase went for the rebound. Haase in pursuit of
the ball backed into Glenn and bumped him and the whistle was blown.

Campanelli said he disliked the call but didn't want to say more and get in
trouble. Glenn said a foul is a foul no matter when it occurs. I disagree
here, admitting bias towards Cal, for the following reason. By definition an
advantage has to be gained in order for there to be a foul, yes there was
contact and yes Haase initiated it, but from what I saw last night(showed it
briefly on the late news) there was little chance Glenn would have or even
could have gotten off a shot on the play. The contact only made it tougher for
him to gain posession and since the clock had almost expired, there simply was
no advantage gained on the play. Bob Sitov made the call and apparently he
refused to elaborate other than to say the clock was not an issue, he just
calls it as it happens, but in this case I disagree. Bad call, let the game
go into OT and let the players decide the outcome.

UCLA and Cal go at it on Sunday in a big game for both teams. 3 losses this
early in the Pac-10 season could really hurt, especially for Cal with the
New Jersey debacle on their record.




Russ Smith
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"History proves again and again how nature exposes the folly of man"

                    "Godzilla"- Blue Oyster Cult
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