Tuning Out What Might Have Been Wizard Year in Westwood

After watching the UCLA-Kansas game, I would like to dedicate this song to the Bruin brain trust (to the tune of “If I Only Had a Brain” from “The Wizard of Oz”):

In his princely Westwood palace,

We would like to thank Pete Dalis

for snuffing out our dream.

We were top 10 in preseason,

now we hardly have a reason.

If we only had a team.

Harrick lied and King Chuck acted,

Now the Bruins are distracted,

and Lavin could just scream.

We were on a Final Four run,

Now the program is a poor one.

If we only had a team.

BILL BURKHARDT

Northridge

*

I was hoping to see Pete Dalis and Charles Young suit up for the humiliating loss to Kansas. Like the rest of the team, they may not be much on defense, but they’re certainly offensive.

PAUL STRANGE

Santa Barbara

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Now that the Bruin basketball team has once again been hammered, further proving that they are an underachieving, overrated group of pampered athletes, can we please stop hearing about what talent they have?

Look at the success of Edney, O’Bannon, Trevor Wilson, Tracy Murray, Don MacLean, George Zidek, etc., in the NBA. They are all a bunch of busts because they were never taught the game, the same way that Bailey, McCoy, etc., are not being properly taught. They like to talk and dunk but don’t know the fundamentals.

JAMES BLACKMAN

Glendale

*

Anyone who believes the Bruins’ hilariously bad play is the result of Jim Harrick’s firing must be willfully blind. Just compare the tape of last year’s Kansas debacle with this year’s Kansas debacle. Same players, same dumb pickup style of play.

Cameron Dollar finally let the cat out of the bag when he said, “We’ve never really learned how to play that way [organized], we’ve never really practiced that. . . . We’ve always mostly got our offense out of transition, just running up the floor.” He then went on to confirm what many of us had already figured out--that it was Ed and Tyus, stupid. The championship year was the exception that proved the rule.

CHARLES CHICCOA

Reseda