Much has been made of Taylor's incredible game against the Bruins, and while deservedly winning Pac-10 POW, his wasn't the performance I was most impressed with was that of Aron Baynes. The reason everyone else isn't making much of it? Dave Libbey did everything in his power to keep him out of the game. The Cougs beat UCLA by 13 points for the 26 minutes Baynes played and UCLA outscored the Cougs by 12 points in the 14 minutes he sat on the bench. If Baynes was given the eight minutes back to equal the 34 he played in the last matchup, and this game might be a 10 point Coug victory without any of the flopsweat you drained in the last minute or so on Saturday.
Here are the happy totals from Saturday
Baynes | +25 |
Koprivica | +9 |
Casto | +5 |
Rochestie | +1 |
Forrest | +1 |
Thompson | +1 |
Lodwick | -1 |
Harmeling | -7 |
Capers | -23 |
Much has been ballyhooed about the Cougs' chances for dancing….I still don't buy the fact that we even could get an at-large bid. This is all a moot-point, as we have still yet to show that we can match up with a team like UW or Arizona. But let's play the game anyway: you figure that UW, UCLA, ASU, Cal and probably Arizona will all get bids. Even if we win out, we likely wont' pass USC in the standings, on top of the fact that they beat us twice. So even though we'd have 3 road wins over Top 25 teams if we won out, I still don't think it'll make a difference. And even the tournament seems pretty much impossible, as I doubt Taylor will be able to play 40 minutes four nights in a row. Anyway, let's enjoy the last games of Dick Bennett's original classes and keep perspective that we could possibly be let down with a 15 win season… Five years ago, we'd be doing cartwheels for 15 wins.
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