UCLA’s Emperor Love puts game against Chilly Willies in Fridge and Mata-Real ices it, 83-52
“Penguin” — Great Batman villian, good frozen-lake swimmers, bad frozen yogurt sellers, and even worse frozen-rope shooters. The Youngstown State Penguins laid an egg in Pauley on Monday night, getting blown away by a Bruin team still missing Darren Collison, Mike Roll, and James Keefe. Actually, the team with the less-than-ferocious nickname held their own against the #2 Bruins, and were still in the game well into the 2nd Half.
Thanks to the absence of ballhandling magician Collison, the Bruins had 10 turnovers in the first 20 minutes, allowing the Penguins to stick around. But the power of Kevin Love wore down Youngstown State. Love and Lorenzo Mata-Real controlled the interior, scoring 21 and 14 points (including a banked-in Free Throw) respectively, with Mata-Real adding 14 Rebounds. Lorenzo looked much more fluid on Offense than in the past, making a couple of nice scoring moves including a little hook shot. But Love is in another Universe, showing glimpses of why he was the #1 Player in the Country last year. It looked like he could score whenever he got the ball underneath. Against bigger teams, it won’t be as easy down there, but Love also showed that he can hit the 3 without hesitation. Love led the team early, and Mata came in and carried them a little later, as the Bruins extended their lead to a Wooden-Era 30+ points.
The Bruins were able to empty their bench, and it shouldn’t be the last time they can do that. Tonight, the Bruins face Cal State San Bernardino in the 2nd round of the CBE Classic. CSSB upset Weber State on Monday, but isn’t expected to block the Bruins from the glamor rounds of this Tourney.
And finally, a couple of superficial observations: The Cameroonians BOTH looked better than before. Luc’s shot was smoother, and Aboya looked more fundamentally sound. They will be important, as it appears that the Bruins will still sometimes have trouble figuring out how to attack a Zone Defense, especially without Collison at the controls.
Below, as promised, are SIX more Spirit Squad photos from Saturday. There will be dozens more coming over the next two weeks, and, in response to a recent letter, we will try to NOT neglect the CHEER Squad in favor of the Dance Team, and if we have in the past, it wasn’t by design. We adore them all — It’s just really difficult to get crisp shots of the Cheer Squad, because they are so often performing gymnastics and tumbling.
Now, as for neglecting the Male squadmembers in favor of the Female members…GUILTY as charged. [And don’t forget to mouse-over for captions, and click to ENLARGE.]
Comments
27 responses to “STARCH OF THE PENGUINS”
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. Our cheer leaders sure have nice legs.
This cropping really blows. Really, I don’t get it…
Dear Steve T. —
Allow us to explain:
We tried posting what we consider to be the stunningly beautiful UN-cropped shots, but the Squad officially asked us to stop. They said that the shots were “unflattering,” if not downright disrespectful to UCLA and the girls themselves. We don’t agree with this analysis, but we didn’t want to be the hated enemy of the Spirit Squad, so we reluctantly agreed to honor their wishes. All the hate mail and death threats from the Mega-Religious Anti-Pleasure Task Force Crusaders didn’t help either.
So here’s the dilemma: We have these shots which show their gorgeous faces, and illustrate their World-class limber-ness and precision timing, but we can’t post them, unless we crop. So are you saying that we should just not post them at all? Is the tease/frustration factor overwhelming the ability to enjoy just the top half of the pic?
Believe us — We UNDERSTAND, and sympathize. We have been getting this feedback for years, and our web-traffic would be 5 times higher if we didn’t do the cropping. All we can say is that we have no such “mutual understanding” with any other school’s Spirit Squads, so perhaps we’ll get some more photos of OPPOSING Cheerleaders that you will like more (check out the last two shots from the ASU game).
In closing: We respect you for saying what everyone else is thinking, and we are curious if this explanation is acceptable to you, or if you still feel like you “don’t get it.”
I was wondering on the un-cropped pictures…. where can we see these un seen pictures??… they must be that good, that it got that kind of attention
Dear Jon,
Yeah, they’re real, and they are spectacular [That’s a “Seinfeld” reference, for the baby boomers]. Yes, Jon, there are photos that are SO amazing, that they can’t be shared. We are not trying to be mysterious — They are exactly what you are imagining, in stunningly-high definition. Unfortunately for you and for the thousands of EXTRA people that came to this site for them originally, we made a promise to a group of REALLY SWEET girls, and to the very special human being who leads them, and we have NO INTENTION of breaking that promise. The only hope is that we might get some shots of OPPOSING Cheerleaders for you — Those CAN be shared, uncropped. Of course, you could just go to Google Images and find the same thing — To us, it’s all about the UCLA girls, who are SO much more attractive than ANY other group.
Again, we’re sorry that not everyone shares our opinion of what is or isn’t disrespectful. And just out of curiosity — Do you think that we shouldn’t even bother posting the ones that have to be cropped?
I’ve had it up to here with this crop–
ladies, if you don’t want men to ogle, don’t KICK…
and if you don’t want men to fantasize, wear a BIRKA
Enough censorship…let’s play ball!
We “get” it, but we shouldn’t even post your comment — We would never want to discourage the Kicks. Just because we pledged to play nice on this site, why would we want to deprive all the fans who attend the games? The girls understand that they are the object of Fantasy, but would just prefer that certain angles be restricted to split-second, fleeting views, and not frozen and permanently displayed in cyberspace. We “get” THAT too.
WOW, I am speechless about the pictures.. It sucks that we can’t see them..
but think about it. You made a promise to them, but it’s not like they check out this site… well I don’t really know if they do..
anyways.. you should put them into a photobucket album..
Would you be breaking your “promise” if you pixelated the offending portion of the cropped picture (presumably the crotch area) and showed it uncropped?
Steve —
Yeah, we thought about that too. We even considered using the infamous “black bar” of censorship. But both of those “solutions” will still just get people all worked up… in a bad way. Readers would still complain, the same way they do about the cropped shots. One time we tried SHRINKING the photo down so that you couldn’t really see “details,” but the Squad Leader said that she didn’t like that either, because people can enlarge them manually. You see? We are REALLY trying hard to appease everyone, but there is just no Happy Ending in sight.
And thank you very much for re-responding. We didn’t think that you’d ever even see our reply to you.
Dear Jon–
Actually, the girls check out this site all the time. They know that they are featured here, so they come to “monitor” the shot selection, and just to see how they look. They occasionally send us feedback, and ONE time, someone asked for one shot to be removed (but not for the reasons that we’ve been discussing here).
As for posting the uncropped shots on Photobucket, that would still be pretty sleazy and disingenuous, don’t you think?
Hey Admin,
Since you’re “In” with the Spirit Squad, maybe you can ask them to have videos on youtube of all their dance routines (like “mighty bruins”, “word up”, etc.) online and provide the links here?
I don’t get to go to games that much anymore and I’d love to see them perform, as I’m sure a lot of visitors here do also. And maybe you can even do some articles, like Q&A of a different girl from time to time during the school year. Lol. I just can’t get enough of these gorgeous ladies. Haha.
But good job on the site.
JP–
First of all, WE don’t have to tell them — You just did. They check this site frequently, especially with this topic being discussed, so it’s guaranteed that they will see your request. AND… You’ll be happy to know that the Squad already has their OWN website, with photos, VIDEOS, BIO’S, and more. In other words, you don’t need YouTube. As for doing a Q & A, that’s a pretty neat idea. One thing’s for sure: If we didn’t crop those shots, they certainly wouldn’t cooperate with anything like a Q & A.
Do you have any questions you’d like answered? We’ll at least post them here, and hope for a response. It may not be an official Q & A, but it’s a start!
[To find their site, go to uclabruins.com, click on “Get Involved,” and then on “Spirit.”]
NOTE: FROM NOW ON, INSTEAD OF USING “ADMIN,” WE’LL SIGN OUR POSTS WITH “T-H.”
I understand… it’s all good
Maybe you could put the uncropped photos on a CD, sell them, and then donate the some of the profits to the CL team?
But you definitly dont want to make them mad. This is a great site!!
Dear Big10 –
We like the way you think. If we did that, we would make a fortune. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to spend it, because we’d be in jail. It is illegal for us to make a commercial profit off of the UCLA girls. First of all, the UCLA logo is copyrighted, and second of all, the squad would go ballistic. They would not condone a CD like that, even if they made millions off it (which they undoubtedly could. These photos are phenomenal). So, thank you for the idea, and thanks for acknowledging that showing some integrity would not be a total waste of our time.
Ooops. Don’t want any legal troubles for sure! See, that is why I don’t run things like this. Thanks again for the site!
You men are dirty creeps. If you want to look at [shots like that] you should just go to a porno site. These ladies are classy – Stop disrespecting them.
[Editors’ Note: The above comment is paraphrased, as the original was accidentally lost. We have tried to re-create it in its entirety, with only one word altered. Sorry to Darren, if we misrepresented your view in the process, and we thank you for backing up our decision to be loyal to the Bruin girls. However, if you are implying that any man who enjoys pornography is a “dirty creep,” then that is where we part ways, and where you would be severely out of touch with mainstream society.]
I caught your last few updates. I am amazed by how people out there just have that “gimme” attitude. I supposed they’re used to it in the day and age of the internet but come on.
You have answered their questions/requests perfectly, it just doesn’t sink in I guess.
People are just lazy really. Years ago I wanted to freeze a couple of those moments to look back at them later so I went and bought a camera.
Oh well, can’t expect everyone to put forth the effort I guess.
Take it easy.
so what are you gonna do with those private pictures??? you gonna delete em?
I understand that you can’t put them up, cause you made a promise to those beautiful girls, but come on now what’s gonna happen to them?
this site Rocks
Dear Josh —
EXCELLENT question! There is NO WAY IN HELL that we would EVER delete the Private Stock. We made a promise to NOT POST them; No one ever asked for the photos to be destroyed. After all, in OUR opinion, they are still the most beautiful and flattering pics that we have. Not only that, but it’s NOT EASY to get a crystal clear shot of a leg-kick that’s moving at lightspeed. The timing is usually off, or they come out blurry. To actually get a good one is a photographic achievement worth saving.
But most importantly: Maybe someday. as society progresses, and as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Jenna Jameson make people see how INNOCUOUS a simple kick shot is, we will finally be able to share them with the waiting World.
that’s cool, very understandable..
so is there a stack of USC song girls anywhere?? 😉
not that they’re hotter then our Bruin girls.. no chance of that
Dear Josh —
Why yes, there is! But since we don’t have an understanding with them, we’ve already posted them. Maybe we’ll re-post them one day, or maybe we’ll get more at the game next month. We would send them to your e-mail address, but you’d probably be disappointed — They aren’t very cute, they wear unattractive, panelled nylons, and they aren’t nearly as limber or FIT as the Bruin girls.
Josh,
Like I said before, the USC Song girls are waaaaaaay overrated. Check out their girls this year at their website. If you think the USC basketball team is overrated, check out the USC song girls, LOL. They aren’t the smartest bunch either (remember the 2 fiascos where they keep cheering for the wrong team).
The UCLA Dance girls this year and the past few years have been gorgeous…Chelsea, Whitney, Kylene, Katie, Elise, Brianna, etc…(sad that I know their names haha)…they are just jaw-dropping beautiful!
I’m glad this site exists as a record for posterity of how we have the best girls in the land. Lol.
email them to me (if you don’t mind). It never hurts to check the pictures out…. I’ve seen the song girls before; I’m not gonna say they’re fugly, because they get some good lookin’ ones, every few years…
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