ucla Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The "Free Shabazz" Movement Is Underway At UCLA
Flea truly is our nation's greatest crusader for social justice. The Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist donned a homemade "Free Shabazz Muhammad" shirt while playing the national anthem Friday, and now it's a full-fledged movement. The other three members of UCLA's freshmen class wore their own "Free Sha...

UCLA's Joshua Smith Raises Bar On Trend Of Airballed Free Throws, Airballs a Crucial Layup
UCLA needed help in beating UC Irvine 80-79 last night at Pauley Pavilion. That help came first in the form of the Anteaters' Will Davis missing free throws at the end of regulation that would have locked up a UCI win, and then in the closing seconds of overtime as referees swallowed their whistle...

Youngest Gasol Brother Shows Up In A Reddit Thread About Himself, Confirms He's "Not Very Good At Basketball"
The folks in r/nba got to talking about the Gasols a couple of days ago—prompted by this great picture of Marc Gasol in high school—and one of the Gasols got to talking back. First, a little speculation from a non-Gasol, exactly the type of thing that might inspire a Gasol to get involved:...

Jim Mora Told His Assistants To Put Some Eyeblack On And They Went Way Overboard
Via SB Nation, Jim Mora asked UCLA's assistant football coaches to put on some war paint just before the game last night, and they…obliged. The Bruins tore Arizona a new one, so it worked....

Arizona's Three Losses Are The Worst Three Losses In College Football
Candidate for most crud-awful season in football this year: the Arizona Wildcats. Started 3-0, including handsome win over Oklahoma State team to get expectations buzzing. The Associated Press ranked the Cats for the first time since 2010. Next came a 56-0 paste job of South Carolina State. Oats wer...

Jim Mora Is An Asshole
When UCLA football coach Jim Mora kicked the media out of Wednesday's practice, he explained his actions by saying he had "some issues" with the school's sports information office after a couple of camera crews set up in what was supposed to be a restricted area....

The Rice Marching Band Took Some Halftime Shots At "U$C"
Thanks to Logan who sent in this photo of the Rice MOB (Marching Owl Band)'s performance at halftime of last night's season opener against UCLA. It seems, judging from Twitter, that the entire show was USC-themed—maybe some common ground with their Bruin opponents, or maybe just taking advantage of ...

Freshman UCLA Quarterback Brett Hundley Rushed For A 72-Yard Touchdown On His First Career Snap
When new UCLA head coach Jim Mora named redshirt freshman Brett Hundley starting quarterback for this season, it raised a few eyebrows. After all, the Bruins had two returning senior quarterbacks. To Mora's credit, it appears he may be on to something—the 6'4" 225 quarterback from Chandler, Arizon...

Student-Athletes To Be Slightly Less Exploited, At Least In California
We learned, from Taylor Branch's history, that the term "student-athlete" only arose as a (successful) attempt by the NCAA to avoid having to pay workman's comp to injured players. A Colorado football player, killed by a head injury in the '50s, wasn't entitled to a thing from the NCAA—no health car...

Minor League Football Organization Bans Two Players For Life After On-Field Brawl
The Northern Elite Football League (not to be confused with minor league football competitor New England Football League) banned two players for life after a nasty brawl broke out in Eau Claire, Wisconsin between the Lake Superior Rage and Eau Claire Crush....

Reeves Nelson Files Defamation Suit Over <i>Sports Illustrated</i>'s UCLA Story
SI's big UCLA expose came...and went. George Dohrmann (who won a Pulitzer for his coverage of academic fraud at Minnesota, a real scandal) painted a picture of a dysfunctional Bruins program, but there wasn't any there there. It didn't slow UCLA: they completed their recruitment of the best prep pla...

How A Career Ends: John Wooden's Pyramid Of Success Led Me From Belgium To Real Estate
Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today: guard John Vallely, who won national titles with and without Lew Alcindor at UCLA. ...

Before He Became Kareem, Lew Had Trouble Finding Pants That Fit
As a sophomore at UCLA in 1967, young Lew Alcindor already had one of the highest verticals in the game, and an inseam to match. (Fifty-one inches, to be precise.) Tailored clothes were the solution to that, but the rest of college basketball had no answer for Alcindor's and UCLA's dominance. The ne...

UCLA Basketball Players Fought Each Other Long Before Ben Howland
The year was 1945, and John Wooden was still in the Navy. It would be three more years before he took over in Westwood, but the UCLA Bruins under coach Wilbur Johns were already using revolutionary training methods....

Colin Cowherd Is Obsessed With "Thugs," So Here's A Rap Video Featuring Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd's no stranger to racial controversy, much of it dealing with his portrayals of black basketball players. During a discussion of the issues plaguing UCLA's basketball team, no fewer than 25 iterations of the word "thug" appeared on Cowherd's program today, usually with a direct asso...

Reeves Nelson Lawyers Up, Demands Retraction From <i>Sports Illustrated</i>
This morning, Sports Illustrated published a lengthy and unflinching takedown of the UCLA basketball team under Ben Howland. But whereas Howland comes across as overwhelmed and ineffective, the undisputed villain of the piece is Reeves Nelson. Writer George Dohrmann goes through a litany of incident...

Breaking Down <i>SI</i>'s UCLA Exposé To Its Underwhelming Core
George Dohrmann's investigation into the fallow years of Ben Howland's UCLA tenure dropped in Sports Illustrated today, and it desperately wants to be a cautionary tale. It wants you to make the connection—even if it can never quite do so itself—that the undisciplined and troublesome recruiting clas...

Recruit Says Bruce Pearl Sent A Beautiful Girl To Tell Him To Attend Tennessee
Small forward Jordan Adams is one of the many prospects out of Oak Hill Academy, and ESPN has him ranked as the 50th best recruit in the nation. He's going to UCLA in the fall, but they weren't the only ones who were interested: Bruce Pearl, while still at Tennessee, apparently called in the service...

Diddy's Son Commits To UCLA The Day After Its Coach Gets Canned
Justin Combs, son of the artist formerly known as a lot of different names and now known as Diddy, announced today that he will play football at UCLA next year....

Is This Petition The Beginning Of An Athlete Revolt Against The NCAA?
More than 300 football and men's basketball players from major, Division I NCAA programs have added their names to a petition drawn up and circulated by the National College Players Association (NCPA), which is headed by a former UCLA linebacker named Ramogi Hamu. The NCPA solicited player support f...