Besides crowning a champion for Pac-10 men's basketball, this weekend's Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament also provided a unique opportunity to evaluate the talent on the baseline. In a surprising upset, UCLA has officially been crowned LAist's Pac-10 Cheerleader Champions for the 2007-2008 basketball season. Can we get an 8-clap? Or a phone number? While Oregon led in the hearts and (filthy) minds of most Pac-10 creepazoids observers this year, in person they just weren't......

The UCLA Bruins were gifted their third consecutive Pac-10 title by the referees in their game against the #7 Stanford Cardinal. With less than two seconds to go at the end of regulation Darren Collison drove to the basket and pulled up for a five-footer. Lawrence Hill went up and blocked the shot. Replays clearly showed that Hill got all ball and absolutely no body contact. So of course Hill got called for the......

#3 UCLA 77, #7 Stanford 67, OT - The Bruins clinched their third consecutive Pac-10 hoops crown with their victory over the Farm. It looked bleak for awhile, but they managed to come from behind. More from Jimmy later this morning. USC 93, Cal 89, OT - This game was tough for fans to watch. That's because it wasn't televised. And because USC blew a huge lead. It worked out OK in the end. We're......

Clippers 116, Kings 109, 2OT - Down by 17 points, it looked like Los Angeles was about to give Sacramento their first win this year against a Pacific rival. Anybody seen Sam Cassell. Two overtimes later, the Clips pulled off a wild victory and send the Kings to 0-9 in the division. LA led the entire second overtime. Al Thornton led the game with 27, Chris Kaman had 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Dan......

How does UCLA celebrate winning a tough game against the Washington State Cougars? By tanking it against the Washington Huskies. The Bruins played a tight game with the Cougars Thursday night eventually clamping down on in the last 10 minutes of the second half to go on to a 67-59 win. Even though the Cougars had lost their last two games against Stanford and Cal, they are still a tough team. On Wednesday night......

UCLA 67, Washington State 59 - The #5 Bruins returned a favor by knocking off the #17 Cougars on their home court. Darren Collison scored all 18 of his points in the second half and Kevin Love had 16 on 6-of-8 shooting from the field. UCLA improves to 21-2 overall, and at 9-1 in the Pac-10 hold on to first place by a game over Stanford. USC 73, Washington 59 - USC looked strong in......

Lakers 112, Pacers 96 - The purple and gold have won six of seven and 12 of their last 15 games. Against Indiana, several players had big nights. All five starters hit double-digits in scoring, including 26 from Kobe Bryant, 23 from Andrew Bynum, and 22 from Derek Fisher. The Pacers are 0-9 against the Lakers in Staples Center. Spurs 88, Clippers 82 - Manu Ginobili returned from an injury to his left hand and......

LNA was rained out this morning, but we're back with a quick update ... #5 UCLA 76, #24 Stanford 67 - The Bruins sent a clear message about who's atop the pecking order in the nation's toughest conference. Josh Ship led the way with 21, followed by Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook with 15 apiece. The Cardinal came into the game with a 7 game win streak. Cal 92, #22 USC 82 - The Trojans......

Ghostface Killah The Big Doe Rehab Def Jam December 4, 2007 "No time...there's never any time," cried a caffeine pill crazed Jesse Spano in that very special episode of "Saved by the Bell." Ghostface Killah laughs at you and your complaints, Spano. While you can't find the time to balance a geometry midterm, getting into Stanford and covering Pointer Sister tunes, Pretty Toney is having no trouble finding time to spit sick verses on 8......

I apologize for the lack of football recaps, but I found it very hard to write about college football this season. With all the upsets it just seemed like not even the college players were all that passionate about playing the game. Look at the following lists and you’ll see what I mean. This season seven #1 and #2 ranked teams have been defeated by unranked opponents. Compare that to last season when the......

LA Times staffer and Buzz Bands blogger Kevin Bronson's story "Taking the L.A. indie rock scene personally" hit stands last Thursday. By means of an intimate portrayal, Bronson set forth his pick of indie rock up-and-comers for L.A.'s indie rock scene in 2008. While I completely admire that he would put his neck out there for three rather small, entirely worthy bands (The Airborne Toxic Event, Castledoor, and The Deadly Syndrome) at the forefront of......

While the Great UCLA Versus USC Debate may never reach a resolution (those damn Trojans are too hard-headed and engorged with pride to recognize true superiority when they see it), all Californians can hold their heads up with pride thanks to our excellent universities. I don't know if you noticed the recent Washington Monthly ratings of the nation's top schools, but they're giving the U.S. News and World Report a run for their money.......

With just a little more than half of the college football season past us, it’s become evident that no team wants to play for the national championship. No, not even undefeated Ohio State whose non-conference schedule included illustrious teams such as Youngstown State, Akron and Kent State. As for the rest of college football, every other team that climbed atop of the corpses has subsequently fallen. See California and LSU last week and South......

After the Trojans' plummet in the polls following the loss to Stanford and the release of the first BCS poll, many thought the team couldn't or wouldn't drop any further. Not so, as the AP is reporting that a chartered plane with 82 players aboard, headed to Indiana for tomorrow's Notre Dame game experienced an extreme drop while flying through a severe thunderstorm. Weather was so bad that the pilot had to abandon his first......

If you're a local sports fan, hopefully you had Columbus Day (International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People, whatever) off to nurse a wicked hangover. In fact, maybe you should take tonight off from Sports Center, too. It's Leif Erikson day. Honest. Even George W. Bush knows that (and don't worry, he's probably not working today, either). Maybe it wasn't the worst, but it was up there. T.J. Simers hit the nail on the......

If you heard the hysterical sounds of laughter coming from the Los Feliz, Little Armenia, Thai Town and East Hollywood section of Los Angeles Saturday night, it was me. First of all the UCLA Bruins lost to Notre Dame? The fact that Ben Olson got injured in the first quarter and they brought out walk-on quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson to replace him shows something fundamentally wrong with this Bruin program. When Patrick Cowan went down......

Yesterday was one of the toughest days in Los Angeles sports: - USC loses to Stanford 24-23. Yes, Stanford. The school with a tree mascot. The same school who went 1-11 last year, and lost their starting quarterback earlier in the week. Their coach, Jim Harbaugh, proclaimed that USC was the best team in college football history, getting some snickers from Pete Carroll throughout the week. The question before the game was whether Carroll......

The LA County Board of Supervisors and the City Council are set to vote today on a "Lights Out Los Angeles" proposal, which would encourage all city employees to "voluntarily turn off all non-essential lights between 8 and 9 p.m. on Oct. 20, replace at least one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb and pledge their participation on www.lightsoffla.org." Mirthala Salinas didn't show up to work today at her new gig......

For this belated Season Preview of the USC football team I haven’t concerned myself with typical journalistic staples like accuracy, objectivity, or integrity. I am not a sports writer or blogger (I’ll leave the heavy lifting to guys like Scott Wolf and Ben Malcolmson). What I am is a USC graduate with an extremely biased view of Trojan football and semi-regular Internet access. In the exhaustive research I put into writing this, I have......

In one of the last college football games last season, the Boise State Broncos upset the Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 in overtime in the Fiesta Bowl. It was perhaps the biggest upset ever seen in college football at that point. This first week of the college football season gave us the biggest upset almost no one saw. Saturday afternoon two-time defending Division I-AA champions Appalachian State upset #5 Michigan 34-32 in front of 109,000 Wolverine......

Historically the first week of the college football season is filled with boring tune-up games from the powerhouses. Take tomorrow’s matchups between Idaho at USC, Youngstown State at Ohio State and Arkansas State at Texas. BOR-ING! However here are three games that should be quite compelling to watch. UCLA at Stanford. This is probably most compelling for local reasons, but I really want to see how UCLA’s offense operates. From all accounts the offense......

According to the Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Fund (DSRTF) website, about one in every 800 American babies is born with Down syndrome and approximately 350,000 people in the U.S. have this condition today. Down syndrome is caused when a child is born with an extra chromosome, more specifically an extra copy of chromosome 21. The genes are all normal, but having an extra throws the delicate balance of the body off, which leads......

Lest we forget. 13 reasons to love the season. PRIDE. TRADITION. UCLA. Bruin football has started practicing for the coming season this week. The opener will be at Stanford on September 1st, just four weeks away (FSN). The first at-home game will be against BYU on September 8th. The Bruins clock in as the most experienced team in the PAC-10 (25 seniors) including 10 returning starters. Bruin defense was shown to be a powerhouse......

Marlins 6, Dodgers 5 - The Dodgers could only briefly enjoy their five run inning. After erasing a 3-0 deficit with two out in the fifth, the Blue Crew eventually turned into the Blew Crew. Takashi Saito botched just his second save of the year, and Florida scored the winning run in the top of the 10th. The Dodgers loaded 'em up in the bottom half of the frame, but couldn't get anybody home. Yankees......

The Long Beach teenager who became the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits after she mounted Everest last month, says that even though she fell into a frozen lake, waiting for the weather to break was the hardest part of her climb. Samantha Larson, 18, graduated Long Beach Polytechnic High School early so she could take a year off before entering Stanford. Instead of hanging out in her parent's house or interning at......

Can I get an 8-Clap please? We are talking about the most accomplished athletic program in NCAA history. UCLA Women's Water Polo won a 5-4 victory over Stanford last Sunday afternoon to capture the 100th NCAA Championship title for the school. The women's team has taken home the top honor 3 years in a row with an astonishing three-season record of 90-6. Bravo ladies. Photo by philroeder via Flickr.......

It's been a good year for the UCLA Bruins. Not only did they beat crosstown rival USC on the gridiron (and spoil the Trojan's national championship bid in the process), they reached the final four in men's basketball and soccer, women's volleyball and soccer, and placed fourth in women's gymnastics. But there was something bigger bruin' in Westwood. UCLA won a national championship title in women's water polo with a 5-4 victory over Stanford......

Yes, that's Alex Trebek. No, he hasn't lost it. The Jeopardy! College Championships are going down at the University of Southern California and it looks like he's feeling the Spirit of Troy. College students could always use some extra cash, so one smart-Alex is going to walk away with $100,000 to pay for books and Ramen a new plasma TV and Trump steaks. A potpourri of California schools have been represented on the program this......

When Tribune Corp was met with two similar offers for its media conglomerate that includes the LA Times, the Chicago-based company decided that it felt better selling to a fellow Chicagoian, real estate billionaire Sam Zell than to a group of billionaires living here in LA. Although Zell will be ponying up just $300 million of the $8.2 billion deal, he will be calling the shots. And on his radar, incredibly is Google, and......

Will someone please start putting some cameras in the LA Times building? It wouldn't be much different than The Real World meets Survivor, with people having to live with each other even though they don't want to, and either quitting or getting fired in very bizarre power plays. Today episode involves the Times Ed Page editor Andrés Martinez, who resigned today out of protest when the paper announced that it would not run the special......