All Ball Sports: UCLA tops USC, finally; fans wait out baseball squabble
Redondo freshman Reese Wroblewski celebrates after tying the score 1-1 in the second half. Photos by Ray Vidal
by Paul Teetor
The streak is over.
Other than the always precious cross-town bragging rights, Saturday night’s epic hoops showdown between UCLA and USC had very little at stake. Even before the tip-off both teams were guaranteed to finish either second or third in the PAC-12 regular season.
The winner would then be second-seeded in the league tournament that began Wednesday and the loser would be third-seeded. Arizona had already clinched the league crown and the top seed in the tournament.
But for UCLA Coach Mick Cronin, it meant everything: respect, credibility and momentum heading into the postseason. That’s because Cronin had lost all five games he coached against USC since he came to Westwood three years ago to revive the once-glorious program after the nightmarish Steve Alford era.
His tough-love approach had worked in every way – except the most important one, which of course is beating their archrival USC. Cronin was sick of hearing all the chatter – on-line and off-line – about how USC Coach Andy Enfield had the hex on him.
That’s why the Bruins’ 75-68 victory in front of a delirious home crowd at Pauley Pavilion was so important. Not only did it boost UCLA to a second-place finish in the PAC-12 regular season, but it erased the shadow of the five straight losses – the last two of them on last-second three-point shots that broke Bruin hearts all over the city. Indeed, the second of last season’s losses to the Trojans had to be seen to be believed: guard Tahj Eaddy banked in a corner-three pointer at the buzzer for a one-point victory on a shot even he admitted was extremely lucky.
There were no such last-second heroics this time, but still it went down to the last minute before it was decided between these two evenly matched teams that could very well meet for a third time – in the PAC-12 Tournament – and possibly even for a fourth time in the NCAA tournament.
When USC forward Isaiah Mobley completed a three-point play with 1:22 to play, the sold-out crowd at Pauley Pavilion fell uncomfortably silent.
UCLA had led by 13 points just a few minutes earlier in the second half, fueling the crowd’s growing euphoria. But suddenly the memory of all five of those previous losses to the Trojans seemed to be arriving in the hallowed arena and landing directly on the Nell and John Wooden Court.
The Bruins had missed 10 straight shots and were about to fumble away another late possession. But senior Cody Riley turned around to hit a seemingly impossible fade-away jumper with three seconds left on the shot clock that gave UCLA room to breathe.
And though the erratic free-throw shooting at the end gave the UCLA faithful more reason to sweat, Riley’s jumper was just enough for the nationally 17th-ranked Bruins to post a victory over No. 16 USC.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t like the way we finished the game,” said Cronin after his first win in the crosstown rivalry. “It’s great, but there’s no banner going up.”
Jaime Jaquez, who led all scorers with 27 points on everything from a three-pointer to a get-out-of-my-way dunk, hugged teammate Jules Bernard as the crowd chanted “U-C-L-A” in celebration. The victory gave the Bruins a 23-6 regular season record (15-5 in the Pac-12) while dropping the Trojans to a 25-6 overall record and a 14-6 league record.
“He delivered for us,” Cronin said.
Jaquez made 10 of 16 shots while adding four assists after scoring a career-high 30 on Monday against Washington.
“I’ve just been feeling really good as far as my body. My ankles are feeling really good right now,” Jaquez said. “It’s time to start up into another gear right now.”
The Bruins players were mindful of the psychological importance of the intra-city win.
“This definitely meant a lot to end the regular season on a good note against a team that we in the last few games haven’t had success against,” said senior guard Jules Bernard, who scored 19 points in what might have been his last game at Pauley.
Neither Jaquez nor Bernard said it outright, but hanging over the must-win atmosphere in Pauley was the realization that the Bruins had not lived up to all the pre-season expectations generated by their miracle run to the Final Four last spring.
That run ended in a memorable semifinal loss to Gonzaga in which Jalen Suggs – soon to the be fifth overall pick in the NBA draft – banked in a 50-foot shot to win the game at the buzzer and prevent UCLA from advancing to its first national title game since they won the NCAA in 1995.
After that stirring finish there was feverish speculation that the team’s two best players – Jaquez, the tough-as-nails small forward and superlative shooting guard Johnny Juzang – would both declare for the NBA draft.
But after a couple of weeks of gauging their draft stock, both decided to come back for their junior year, and there was much talk about “running it back” with all five starters returning. That included Riley, the bruising but under-sized center, floor leader Tyger Campbell, and Bernard, the do-it-all glue guy with a knack for hitting clutch shots at just the right time.
The Bruins started the season ranked second nationally, and an early win over highly ranked Villanova reinforced the perception that they were destined for another Final Four appearance this spring, with the difference that this time they could go all the way to the championship.
But then something bad happened. Or rather a bunch of bad things happened. The pandemic, of course, which stopped the season for three weeks. Various injuries, including an early one to Riley’s knee that took him four weeks to recover from. Then Jaquez – who really is the heart and soul of the team – suffered bad injuries to first one ankle and then the other that left him limping and ineffective. Then Juzang sprained an ankle that forced him to miss the two games before the USC game.
All of that adversity added up to five league losses and a distant second place to Arizona, which used the best player in the league – uber-athletic guard Benedict Mathurin – and an imposing front line to dominate the PAC-12.
So the Bruins have a lot to prove and a lot of ground to make up in the NCAA Tournament when it starts this week. Winning the PAC-12 Tournament would give them a great head start and ensure a high NCAA seed and an easier road to the Final Four.
But while the Bruins were under-performing, the Trojans were exceeding all expectations after their own impressive run to the Elite Eight last spring. That run was overshadowed by UCLA’s crazy, totally unexpected march from an 11th seed all the way to the Final Four.
The difference was that USC was led by a genuine super-talent, 6-foot-11 freshman Evan Mobley, who swept all the PAC-12 postseason honors last spring: Freshman of the Year, Player of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year. No one had ever won that triple crown before, and he followed it up by being picked third overall in the NBA draft.
He has had an outstanding rookie season for the Cleveland Cavaliers and is the favorite to win NBA Rookie of the Year. He is also one of the main reasons the Cavaliers have gone from the bottom of the NBA heap to fourth place in the Eastern Division and a legit contender to come out of the East and go to the NBA Finals.
Mobley’s departure last spring meant that expectations for this year’s Trojan team were significantly lowered. The burden would now fall on his older, less talented brother Isiah, a 6-foot-10 junior who can both shoot three-pointers and play inside.
Isiah Mobley had a good season while averaging 17 points, but he did not take the expected-and-hoped-for big leap that would have put him onto the NBA draft radar. Indeed, he is not listed as a first-round or second-round prospect in a single NBA mock draft. Which means that if he is smart, he will return for his senior season and continue to develop his game and work on refining his body into NBA-ready shape.
It figures to be an easy decision for him since his father, Eric Mobley, has been an assistant coach at USC for the last three years. Cynics would say that’s why both his highly-rated sons chose USC, but Enfield has always dismissed any suggestion that he hired Mobley as an inducement to get his sons to come here. That would be a violation of NCAA rules, which of course USC would never do.
While Mobley does not project as an NBA prospect yet, the bigger surprise is that neither do any of the Bruins players. Juzang, in fact, has slipped from his ranking in the mid-40’s last spring to the mid-50’s this spring.
Since the draft consists of two rounds for each of the 30 teams, that means there is a good chance he won’t be drafted at all if he does indeed declare for the draft and give up his last year of college eligibility. And remember: only first-round draft picks get guaranteed money, with decreasing amounts from the top pick all the way down to the 30th and last pick. Draft picks 31-60 get no guaranteed money, only the promise that they will be welcome to try out for the team that drafts them. But the reality is that many second-round draft picks never play a minute in the NBA and end up playing in the D-League – like the South Bay Lakers – or overseas in Europe or Asia where they can make good money but nothing like NBA money.
That’s why all the focus is on being projected into one of those top 30 spots. Beyond that, it’s a major crap shoot for any college player who leaves and declares for the draft before his college eligibility expires
The bigger mystery is why Jaquez is not listed on most mock drafts, first or second round. At 6-foot-7 and 240 pounds, he plays with an old-school force but has the kind of elite shooting touch needed to make it in today’s NBA. Some NBA scouts argue that he is heavy-legged and won’t be able to thrive in the modern pace-and-space game, but it says here that he is the best pro prospect at either LA college, a player the Lakers and/or the Clippers would be smart to track and try to acquire in any way possible. Beside his physical attributes, he just has that mysterious intangible that separates winners from other seemingly equally talented players.
And if you look at the PAC-12 and its player prospects as a whole, you can see why none of its teams are odds-on contenders to win the NCAA tournament. Only the previously mentioned Mathurin of Arizona is projected as a probable top-5 or top-10 pick. And only his 7-foot teammate, Christian Koloko, is listed as a second-round pick in the mid-to-upper 30’s.
That’s it for the entire conference. And unless either UCLA or, even more unlikely, USC makes a run to the Final Four and gets its best players extra exposure, look for Juzang, Jaquez and Mobley to all come back next year for their senior seasons.
They can all run it back next season while giving themselves one more season to keep developing their games, and building their bodies so they’re as ready as they can possibly be when they finally get a chance to make it in the world’s best basketball league.
By then maybe UCLA and Cronin will have their own streak going against Enfield and USC. Every streak starts with a single victory, and that’s what Cronin now has against USC: a single victory.
It’s not time for Dodgers baseball
Famed Redondo Beach attorney Tony Capozzola has been a Dodgers season ticket holder for as long as he can remember. Every Opening Day he invites a bunch of his best friends to join him at Dodger Stadium to celebrate the start of another season and the start of another Dodger summer.
“It’s something I look forward to every year,” Capozzola tells All Ball. “It’s a ritual that I love. It means winter is over.”
But not this year.
This year, the owners have locked out the players, and this week Major League commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the season’s first two series have been canceled on the grounds that there will not be enough time to prepare for them even if an agreement is reached tomorrow – which it won’t be.
That means the Dodgers traditional Opening Day in late March is gone with the wind for Capozzola and 56,000 other Dodger fans who traditionally pack Dodgers Stadium to its full capacity. The earliest possibility for opening day is mid-April, and it’s getting that much later with each day that goes by without a labor agreement.
This showdown between millionaire players and billionaire owners started last December 1, a month after the Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros in the World Series. That’s when the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the owners and players expired without a new agreement in place, or even on the table for discussion and negotiations.
The owners immediately locked the players out, igniting the first work stoppage the sport had seen since 1994. Sources close to the owners soon started reporting that the owners and the players had each developed hostile attitudes and were determined to win this long-brewing battle. Some insiders even speculated that the owners are determined to break the players union, and will do whatever it takes to achieve the extreme result. If that is the case, then the season is surely lost.
Besides the specifics of squabbling over how the boatloads of money generated by the games should be distributed, there were deeper issues driving the antagonistic attitudes: the players felt that many owners were deliberately tanking – refusing to spend money on the top players because they didn’t really care about winning, thereby driving down the players market value – and the owners felt that the players’ greed has gotten out of control.
Both sides appeared determined to teach the other side a lesson, which is why baseball experts far more dialed in on the fine-print details than All Ball is are predicting there won’t be a new collective bargaining agreement until May, June or July.
Whenever an agreement is ultimately reached, it will still take a month or more of spring training before the games start to count.
And then there’s the nightmare scenario: at some not-too-distant point the negotiations break down completely and there’s simply not enough time to have a credible season even if there were a new CBA. That would force Manfred to cancel the rest of the 2022 season.
But even such an extreme outcome wouldn’t solve the bottom-line financial disputes. It would simply push a resolution into the 2023 season, and so on to the 2024 season.
The owners, of course, are banking on the reality that only top tier players have made enough money to be set for life with or without a new contract. The rest of them need those big paychecks to pay for their mega-mansions, and high-end Teslas. When they start missing mortgage payments and car payments and credit card payments, they will be driven back to the bargaining table and forced to accept terms that they currently say are unacceptable.
Or at least this is the owner’s hope and belief.
The players, meanwhile, know that most franchises – especially the big market ones, like the Dodgers, Yankees and Giants – are cash cows that the owners would sorely miss were the labor dispute to extend beyond the short term.
And both sides, of course, are counting on the ultimate jury – the fans who buy the tickets, who buy the Dodger dogs, who pay the outrageous parking fees – to turn on the other side when and if Memorial Day comes and goes without major league baseball.
But there’s another way that could play out: the fans – especially the younger ones who aren’t invested in the game’s long history, who prefer video games to real games – could simply quit caring about baseball at all and never come back.
Capozzola said he will resume attending games once the dispute is resolved. Like most season ticket holders, he pays for the tickets during the off season so in that sense he is committed to returning to Dodgers Stadium once the games begin anew.
As an attorney who was the personal lawyer for Dodgers legend Tommy Lasorda, the former manager who passed away last year, Capozzola brings a unique perspective to the dispute.
Lasorda was tight with Dodgers management because that is who gave him the job in 1976 and kept him on the job for 20 years. And even after he retired, he stayed on the Dodgers payroll as a roving ambassador, a jovial spokesman who served as the enduring face of the franchise while players came and went.
But Lasorda was known as a player’s manager, a former player himself who understood what the players were going through during the grit and grind of a 162-game season.
Capozzola said he, like Lasorda would have, blames pure greed – on both sides — for the work stoppage.
“I know how disappointed Tommy would be that the two sides have not come to an agreement. He would be upset about the greed being exhibited by both parties,” Capozzola said. “And he would be really upset because the fans are the ones getting screwed.”
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER