LAst Night's Action: Good Basketball Day

Lakers 90, Hawks 83 - Kobe Bryant seems to be winning back the hearts and minds of America on this road trip. With three games to go until returning to Los Angeles, the Lakers are now 3-2 with many of those games showing major crowd support for the Laker's star. Bryant's 27 points against Atlanta weren't particularly impressive, but 11 came in the fourth quarter.

College Hoops - USC exploded back into the men's top 25, ranked 19th by the AP and 21st by ESPN/USA Today. UCLA was number two in both polls with one first place vote from ESPN/USA Today. Florida is the unanamous #1 in the AP, and six Pac 10 teams made the list. The Trojans will visit the Bruins in Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday. Expect another barnburner.

Mario Danelo - The junior kicker from USC was extremely drunk when he fell to his death. He had a BAC of .23 and died as a result of the injuries sustained from falling over 100 feet down a cliff in his hometown of San Pedro. The manner of death was listed as "undetermined," presumably because it is unclear if the fall was a result of suicide or an accident. LAist noticed that many news outlets referred to his BAC as almost three times the "legal limit" without noting that the "limit" is for driving, which he was not doing at the time. Most troubling was an interview on KNX 1070 AM with a USC student who suggested that at .23 Danelo wasn't very drunk and that the limit for driving is very low.

AP photo by Gregory Smith.