Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Basketball notebook
Moiso still out, Farnham still in
For at least one more game freshman forward Jerome Moiso won’t
be in the starting lineup, and for the third straight game
sophomore forward Sean Farnham will be.
Having started 19 of the first 21 games, Moiso has only played
46 minutes in the last five contests due to sore feet and has not
started any of them.
Even when he has played, Moiso has been ineffective. In those
games, he has connected on only four of 22 shot attempts and has
only five rebounds.
"Hopefully by NCAA Tournament time he’ll be back at full
strength," head coach Steve Lavin said. "He’ll have to grin and
bear it for the rest of the season."
In the meantime, Farnham has impressed the coaching staff.
"He has really been a pleasant surprise," Lavin said. "He plays
within himself and only tries to do what he is capable of."
Starting the past two games, Farnham is 5-of-8 shooting from the
field to go along with three rebounds, four assists, one block, and
one steal in 31 minutes of action.
Coach Lavin
apologizes
Remember Lavin’s tantrum during UCLA’s loss to Washington on
Super Bowl Sunday? Well, the apologies keep on coming.
After the game he immediately apologized to everybody concerning
his outbursts, and in the ensuing days, he sent a letter of apology
to all the newspapers that cover Washington basketball.
"It just reiterated what I said after the game, that they had
beaten us fair and square, and I didn’t want to take any credit
away from them," Lavin said.
"You don’t want to do anything to hurt the conference’s
credibility. It was just to make sure that they understood I was
sorry about what transpired."
Davis back on top of game
According to Lavin, sophomore guard Baron Davis is playing the
best basketball for any sustained period of a time since Ed
O’Bannon led UCLA to the national championship four years ago.
And it’s pretty difficult to disagree with him.
In the last month – the past nine games – Davis has been
virtually unstoppable.
Shooting nearly 58 percent, he has averaged 20 points per game.
In addition, he’s averaged six assists and two and a half steals,
and has hit 16 of his 32 three-point attempts.
"He’s just been an incredibly dominant player the last five
weeks," Lavin said. "It was just a matter of getting his rhythm,
his timing and his condition back to the levels he probably would
have been at, had he not injured his ACL."
Bruins rise,
fall in polls
Despite a 24-point victory over Syracuse and a win over USC, the
Bruins’ position in the polls was not affected much.
In fact, they even fell one spot – from No. 15 to 16 – in the
ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. The poll was released Sunday
afternoon, and thus many votes may not have taken the Syracuse win
into account.
UCLA rose, however, from 16th to 15th in the AP poll.
Notes compiled by Brent Boyd, Daily Bruin senior staff.
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