not our sharpest game by any means, but with the win, we reached the 11-win mark in the conference and 18 wins overall, so i believe our dance card is punched. as far as the game itself goes, i thought we were a little sloppy, especially with our passing, but i think it was mainly because we knew it wouldn't matter (I know, no excuse). our defense was very good, as it has been in most of our recent games. we outrebounded oregon 42-22. at no point in the game did i think we were in danger of losing, regardless of how we looked or how small our lead got (it got as low as 8 down the stretch).

after thursday's game, I suggested that it might be wise for Shipp to sit out due to his injured ankle. what a great idea! not only did he play, he tied a career-high with 20 points. as usual, he was constantly around the ball, being active, and pretty much just "filling in the gaps" - doing whatever was needed to help us win.

another key contributor tonight was Mike Fey. He actually was very assertive once he got the ball, leading to some very positive results. on one memorable play, he put down his shoulder and cleared out a defender on his way to the hoop (i thought he was gonna get called for a charge). he ended up with 15 points (6-7 from the field, 3-3 from the stripe) and 11 rebounds (5 offensive). a very solid game indeed.

one observation about Howland: it is clear that he does not like to empty the bench unless he is ABSOLUTELY certain the game is out of reach. even with Josiah Johnson playing his final game at Pauley, Howland left him on the bench until about 20 seconds were left, even though there were several clock stoppages in the last few minutes with the Bruins up by 12. when johnson did get in the game, in a display of class, he didn't try to shoot or anything, he just let the clock run out. his dad, on the telecast, joked that he (Marques) would have gotten two shots off in that time.

anyway, we now have matched our season long for a winning streak (4 games) - not a bad time to be playing good ball. hopefully we will keep it up next week. not to ignore the chance of losing in the first round, but if we can pull off an upset against arizona in the second round, maybe our ncaa seeding gets bumped up a few spots.

Some recaps:
Box Score
Official UCLA Recap
Pucin
Plaschke
Dohn
Weber