Showing posts with label ucla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ucla. Show all posts

UCLA: 2026 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball National Champions


 

PHOENIX – The No. 1-seed UCLA women's basketball team defeated No. 1-seed South Carolina, 79-51, to win its first-ever NCAA Championship on Sunday afternoon before a capacity crowd at Mortgage Matchup Center.

 

UCLA: 2023 LA Bowl Champions


 

UCLA defeating Boise State in the LA Bowl was not just another win but maybe the hope the fanbase needed.

The UCLA fan base was for the most part not very thrilled with how the season ended. Yes, the Bruins defeated USC but they lost three of their last four regular season games and many alums and fans wanted a coaching change. However, the LA Bowl may have changed many fans minds and optimism and excitement may be back in Westwood.


To top things off, the UCLA basketball team lost another marquee game to Ohio State today. Then, the football team was down by double digits at the half. December 16th was not looking like a good day for Bruin fans but one individual would end up putting a smile on many UCLA fans faces with a remarkable second half performance.


Statically speaking, starting quarterback Colin Schlee was 11 for 16 for 78 yards and a touchdown completion. He also ran the ball seven times for 127 yards as well. However, Garbers came into the game in the third quarter and completed eight for eight passes for 112 yards and threw a touchdown. He also due to his accurate passing, opened up the UCLA running game allowing TJ Harden to run for two second-half touchdowns. Also, the Bruins' defense stepped up big time in the second half.


The Bruins defense did not have a great first half as the Broncos did not punt the ball one time prior to half time. In four possessions, Boise State had three field goals and a touchdown. In the second half, UCLA's defense really stepped up their game. The first four offensive possessions of the second half for Boise State lead to four straight punts. On their fifth offensive possession, Alex Johnson intercepted a pass by Broncos quarterback CJ Tiller that would lead to an UCLA touchdown on the following possession. It wasn't until late in the fourth quarter that Boise State would score again.


Garbers threw a 40 yard touchdown pass to J. Michael Sturdivant to give the Bruins a 35-16 lead. After a Boise State touchdown to cut the lead to 13, Garbers ran for 20 yards on a third and sixteen to put the icying on the cake to ensure a UCLA victory. The win for UCLA was needed as the Bruin fanbase has not had much to cheer for since the USC win.


The win for UCLA gives the Bruins their 8th win of season and winning the LA Bowl was a great way to give the seniors a lasting memory of winning their last game in a UCLA uniform.

U.C.L.A.’s Football Wins Can’t Mask Its Financial Woes



U.C.L.A.’s Football Wins Can’t Mask Its Financial Woes


The Bruins are having their best recent season on the field, yet attendance is falling rapidly. Free tickets haven’t helped, and the athletic department’s balance sheet has suffered.


By Billy Witz

Nov. 11, 2022


David Brownfield, who grew up a few bends in Sunset Boulevard from Westwood Village, could sing the U.C.L.A. fight song before he could shave. He graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1985 and has had football season tickets with friends ever since — even grudgingly paying what he calls the annual “extortion fee,” the $800 donation that was required for the privilege of buying his season tickets this year.


As a 60th birthday present to themselves, Brownfield and several pals traveled to Eugene, Ore., last month for the Bruins’ showdown with Oregon for first place in the Pac-12 Conference.


Even though the Ducks stomped U.C.L.A., Brownfield was gobsmacked by what he saw — the kinetic capacity crowd, which roared at each touchdown and during the ritualistic playing of “Shout” by the Isley Brothers at the start of the fourth quarter; the gleaming football facilities within walking distance of campus; the sense of community that enveloped the town on game day.


This, he thought, was a college football postcard come to life.


“It was an awesome experience,” Brownfield said. “But I walked away even more depressed because of what it’s like at our games.”


The loss to Oregon notwithstanding, U.C.L.A.’s long-awaited rebuild under Coach Chip Kelly has finally arrived this season. The Bruins (8-1) are off to their best start since 2005 and at the fringes of the chase for the four-team College Football Playoff at No. 12.


They have one of the nation’s most prolific offenses, led by a defender-hurdling quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson; a tackle-busting running back, Zach Charbonnet; and a blink-and-you-miss-him dynamo at receiver, Kazmeir Allen.


This would seem to be enough to ignite a fan base.


And yet crowds have continued to be so barren at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., that U.C.L.A. has averaged only 36,241 fans in six home games, despite the university routinely giving away tens of thousands of tickets.


The embarrassment of so many empty seats has become so acute that six sections near each end zone are covered by powder-blue tarps, tightening the 91,136-person seating capacity by more than one-third.


The Bruins, who host Arizona (3-6) on Saturday night, may need a sellout against crosstown rival Southern California on Nov. 19 to avoid their lowest average attendance since moving to the venerable Rose Bowl 40 years ago.


“It feels like a high school environment to me,” Brownfield said. “You’re sitting there and sometimes it’s hard to feel like you’re playing big-time college football at all.”


This might be written off as another L.A. story — the umpteenth example of a sports enterprise not named “Lakers” or “Dodgers” struggling to generate buzz in an entertainment wonderland. (Exhibit A is the reigning Super Bowl champion Rams, whose home fans in Inglewood, Calif., are regularly drowned out by visitors — even during the playoffs.)


Or it might be yet another example of college football’s attendance swoon. Last year marked the seventh consecutive season attendance declined nationally.


But U.C.L.A.’s struggle for football relevance has had consequences far beyond crowd aesthetics.


As college athletics are increasingly driven by billions in football television rights, there may be no better example of how an athletic department’s health is tied to the fortunes of its football team.


Thus, even as U.C.L.A.’s storied men’s basketball team has returned to national prominence, and as a well rounded athletic program with 119 team national championships has continued its broad success, football’s shortcomings have torpedoed U.C.L.A.’s athletic finances. By the end of the 2021 fiscal year, its shortfall had exceeded $103.1 million, according to the school’s statement of revenues and expenses.


A $12 million buyout of the former football Coach Jim Mora’s contract, an apparel contract rift with Under Armour, and the cratering of football ticket revenue — set off by five consecutive losing seasons and exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — sent the athletic department so deeply into the red that last summer’s offer to join the Big Ten Conference was viewed as a financial lifeline.


“U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. made decisions in their football program and the rest of their athletic programs that have led to deficits and scandals and performance on the field that probably made the decision to join the Big Ten more attractive,” Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff said in an interview in Los Angeles in July.


(U.S.C., which is also experiencing a football rebirth this season, had suffered from declining attendance before it fired Coach Clay Helton last season. In 2019, U.S.C. coaches and administrators were embroiled in the “Operation Varsity Blues” admissions scandal.)


The financial fall for U.C.L.A. has been as swift as it has been steep.


Just eight years ago, with a top-10 preseason ranking and a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback, Brett Hundley, the Bruins set an attendance record, averaging 76,650 and selling a school-record 46,617 season tickets. This year, season tickets have fallen to 23,077, less than half that high-water mark.


Ticket revenue for football has also dived — falling from just under $20 million in 2014 to $9.2 million for the 2019 season. No fans were permitted in the 2020 season because of the pandemic and revenue figures for last season have not been reported.


Donations to the athletic program have declined for two consecutive years, falling to $8.4 million for the 2021 fiscal year, which included the 2020 football season. In the 2019 fiscal year, donations were $16.4 million.


Efforts in recent years to fill empty seats by giving away huge blocks of free tickets haven’t worked. According to data released through a public records request, the school gave away an average of nearly 25,000 free tickets per game in 2019 and 2021. When U.C.L.A. drew 52,578 fans against Oklahoma in 2019, it gave away 39,202 tickets for that game. And last season, when the Bruins upset Louisiana State before 68,123, it gave away 29,279 tickets.


Free Tickets, Low Attendance

U.C.L.A. struggled to fill seats in 2021 despite giving away thousands of free tickets.

Those free tickets show that even though U.C.L.A.’s attendance in 2019 and 2021 are the lowest since moving to the Rose Bowl, the bottom line has been even worse: Tickets sold accounted for less than 80 percent of the announced attendance in both seasons.


The number of free tickets given away this season is not available, according to a university spokesman.


U.C.L.A. had its two smallest crowds ever at the Rose Bowl this season, and when photos began circulating on social media of a nearly abandoned stadium, one of the program’s most decorated alums, Troy Aikman, took to Twitter to call it “an embarrassment.”


Aikman continues to agitate for an on-campus stadium, though he knows it’s all but impossible. Still, he calls the Rose Bowl, where he won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys and lost to U.S.C. in front of 100,741 fans, “a magical place.”


“It’s the greatest venue for a big game for football anywhere in the country,” Aikman said in a phone interview. “I wouldn’t trade my days there for anything. It’s just a hard place to fill.”


Attendance, and its impact on U.C.L.A.’s bottom line, is apparently a touchy subject in the athletic department. Martin Jarmond, the athletic director, has declined three interview requests from The New York Times in the last 15 months. In July, Jarmond declined an interview request to discuss the move to the Big Ten because an athletic department spokesman, Scott Markley, said he had already addressed the matter.


Jarmond, who makes $1.4 million per year, declined an interview request last week about football attendance because he was “not interested in rehashing old news,” Markley said in a email, adding, “perhaps we can make something happen later this winter.”


Markley also declined to make available athletic department marketing and ticketing officials for an interview.


Jarmond, who was hired as U.C.L.A.’s athletic director in May 2020, has been unable to reverse the slide he inherited from Dan Guerrero, who retired after 18 years running an athletic department that had balanced its books for 14 consecutive years until 2019.


Guerrero, though, had never been able to find a football coach who could make U.C.L.A. a consistent winner. For his final search, he enlisted Aikman as an adviser.


“We’ve had challenges over the years in getting candidates interested in the job,” Aikman said, ticking off reasons like high academic standards that hinder recruiting, salaries that did not account for the high cost of living, lack of an on-campus stadium and the bureaucracy of the sprawling University of California system. “Chip is the only one I can think of who has had other opportunities.”


Kelly, who is in his fifth season at U.C.L.A., has been painstakingly deliberate in building a winner. He shrugged as dozens of players left the program early on. And he did not waver in his insistence on recruiting earnest students and hard workers whom his coaches could develop into productive players, even if they were not highly rated by analysts.


His first season began with five consecutive losses. His second began with five losses in six games. Kelly’s flippant responses to questions about winning led some fans to an inevitable conclusion: If he doesn’t care, why should I?


Aikman, the longtime N.F.L. broadcaster who came to know Kelly when he was coaching the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, said he never discussed a timeline for a rebuild with Kelly, whose initial five-year contract was extended after last season. “It hasn’t been smooth. But it’s been exciting to see it all get put together,” Aikman said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had something to cheer about.”


Still, those first two seasons set the stage for U.C.L.A.’s financial calamity.


Then the pandemic struck. And Under Armour, in financial straits and not pleased with the early returns on a 15-year, $280 million apparel agreement — the richest deal in college sports — breached the contract, invoking a force majeure clause.


U.C.L.A. sued. Under Armour countersued.


In June, Under Armour agreed to pay U.C.L.A. $67 million — about half of what it would have paid over the remainder of the contract — to settle the claims. That erased a sizable chunk of U.C.L.A.’s deficit.


But the subsequent six-year deal that Jarmond finalized with Nike pays the university only $500,000 a year in cash, more than $10 million less per year than the Under Armour agreement. (Nike will provide about $7 million per year in athletic gear, about the same as the Under Armour agreement.)


That won’t put much of a dent in the deficit. And higher football ticket revenues are difficult to envision.


As iconic and idyllic as the Rose Bowl is, set in a ravine at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, its marriage with U.C.L.A. has been one of necessity.


U.C.L.A., as it struggled to escape the shadow of U.S.C. in the 1970s, grew tired of playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Trojans’ home field across the street from the U.S.C. campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles. But there were few options and U.C.L.A. could never muster the political will to fight Bel-Air homeowners to build an on-campus stadium. So in 1982 it called the Rose Bowl home.


Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl needed U.C.L.A. to remain viable — the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl stadiums eventually fell to the wrecking ball when their tenants left for new buildings. After efforts to land an N.F.L. team fizzled, the Rose Bowl underwent an approximately $200 million renovation a decade ago that is being paid for largely by revenue generated by U.C.L.A., which is under a contract to play at the stadium through 2042.


That the Rose Bowl is a grueling 27-mile drive from campus and the winding lanes leading into the Arroyo Seco are clogged with traffic has long been part of the bargain.


So, too, is seating that is comfortable only for Lilliputians, interminable concession lines and culinary options that struggle to rise above sustenance. Kickoff times are uncertain and inconvenient thanks to television dictates. Saturday’s Arizona game, for example, was announced as a 7:30 p.m. Pacific start just six days earlier and the season opener was played at 11:30 a.m. under 100-degree temperatures.


Unappealing opponents do not help — the Bruins’ nonconference home games this season were against Bowling Green, Alabama State and South Alabama. Next season is no more attractive: Coastal Carolina and North Carolina Central are the nonconference opponents scheduled to visit the Rose Bowl.


“We found ourselves going to less and less games, and paying for the entire season package on top of making a donation to the Wooden fund,” said David Senensieb, an alumnus who dropped his season tickets last year after 35 seasons. “With the team not doing well, it made it easy to say, ‘Let’s just buy tickets’ to the games we wanted to go to.’ We’re always able to find tickets.”


Over the years, U.C.L.A.’s marketing department has tried to retain fans like Senensieb and cultivate interest. One year, blue roses were sent to season-ticket holders. Another year, fans were sent a faux lottery ticket, which they could scratch off for a complimentary ticket to a particular game. In 2019, fans received robocalls with a recording from Aikman urging them to support the team.


It has provided free tickets to elementary schools, veterans organizations and charities over the years, hoping they will come back.


But if U.C.L.A. beats Arizona on Saturday night, it will mark only the fifth time since 1998 that the Bruins will have won nine games or more.


“It’s easier to keep somebody than it is to find somebody new,” said Scott Mitchell, the longtime marketing director who retired before the 2020 season. “There’s been a long time of not meeting the perception of what a U.C.L.A. fan would want — an exciting team, a fun team, a winning team.”


Now that the Bruins have that, fans may be gingerly getting back on the bandwagon, which — just like the Rose Bowl itself — has plenty of good seats available.

UCLA: 2015 Alamo Bowl Champions


SAN ANTONIO -- Even with a 31-6 halftime lead, UCLA coach Jim Mora knew the Bruins had a lot of work to do to finish off Kansas State in the Valero Alamo Bowl.
"We're playing the 11th-ranked team in the country, and it's not going to be easy," Mora said. "You know they're going to fight back. If they don't fight back, they don't deserve to be No. 11."
The No. 14 Bruins held on, beating the Wildcats 40-35 on Friday night.
Kansas State coach Bill Snyder bristled at the thought that TV broadcasters might say the same thing about his Wildcats that they did about Florida State in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual.
"We had a TV announcer indicate in another ballgame that a football team had quit, and that's the last thing in the world anybody wants to hear on national TV, I assure you," Snyder said. "I reminded our youngsters of it, that we weren't about to let somebody say that about us. And they didn't."
Kansas State (9-4) scored 22 of the first 25 points in the second half, cutting it to 34-28 on quarterback Jake Waters' 1-yard run with 4:54 left.
Paul Perkins countered for UCLA (10-3) with a 67-yard run with 2:20 to go.
"That hole was huge. Anybody could have run through it," said Perkins, who ran for 194 yards on 20 carries. "And on the kick, I just wanted to secure the ball and get us out of here with the win."
The Wildcats weren't finished.
Waters threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett with 1:21 left, but Perkins recovered the onside kick for UCLA and the Bruins ran out the clock.
"Our players didn't give in," Snyder said. "Fought back. It wasn't enough."
Mora and Snyder had an awkward exchange on the field after the game. Apparently upset that Kansas State took a timeout and hit Bruins quarterback Brett Hundley as he kneeled to down the ball on the final play, Mora quickly turned away from Snyder after barely shaking hands, then went back and got into an animated chat.
It has been a week of big comebacks at bowl games. Michigan State trailed Baylor by 20 in the fourth quarter at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic and won 42-41. Earlier Friday, Houston scored 29 points in the fourth quarter to beat Pittsburgh 35-34 in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl.
Waters was 31-of-48 for 338 yards but was sacked seven times -- twice by Butkus Award winnerEric Kendricks -- and threw two interceptions and lost a fumble.
Lockett had 13 catches for 164 yards for Kansas State.
Hundley ran for 96 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries, and passed for 136 yards. Mora has said Hundley is forgoing his senior season to enter the NFL draft.
UCLA raced to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter, with Hundley scoring on runs of 10 and 28 yards. The Bruins outgained Kansas State 218-4 and had a 9-1 edge in first downs in the quarter.
In the second quarter, Perkins had a 32-yard touchdown run and Hundley threw a 7-yard scoring pass to Devin Lucien. The Bruins sacked Waters five times in the half.
"By my count, we left 28 points on the field in the first half," Snyder said. "That's our fault."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

UCLA: 2013-14 Pac-12 Men's Basketball Champions



LAS VEGAS -- UCLA went into the season with the uncertainty that comes with a new coach. The Bruins suffered their share of setbacks, a notable one just a week earlier.
Once the Pac-12 tournament got rolling, the Bruins took off.
Now, after trading body blows with one of the nation's best defensive teams, UCLA takes home a Pac-12 championship in its first season under Steve Alford.
Outlasting one of the best closing teams in basketball, UCLA knocked off No. 4 Arizona 75-71 in the conference tournament final on Saturday.
"We've got an edge to us now, it's a lot of fun," Alford said. "To win a championship means a lot to us."
They definitely earned this one, emerging from a battle of the Pac-12's best teams that featured big plays, big blows and floor burns.
The Wildcats locked UCLA down in the second half after an offensive show in the first.
The Bruins (26-8) countered by doing the same thing to Arizona down the stretch, and then made the big plays against the big-play Wildcats to finish it off.
UCLA point guard Kyle Anderson was at his all-around best, finishing with 21 points, 15 rebounds and five assists. Jordan Adams made a big 3-pointer with 45 seconds left and scored 19 points. Norman Powell scored 15 points and combined with David Wear to hit four free throws in the final five seconds.
After three games in three days, the Bruins are Pac-12 champions and on a big roll headed into the NCAA tournament.
"This gives us the confidence that we not only play with anybody, but beat anybody," Alford said. "But you've got to get hot and stay hot."
Arizona (30-4) started flat defensively, clawed back behind its offense and shut down the Bruins through most of the second half.
The Wildcats were unable to finish it off for one of the rare times this season, hurt by 10 missed free throws and questionable shot selection down the stretch.
Nick Johnson led Arizona with 22 points and Kaleb Tarczewski added 12. Aaron Gordon had 11 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Wildcats, who may have lost out on a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament with the loss.
"We lost a game we could have won," Arizona coach Sean Miller said. "Jordan Adams hit a great shot and I believe some of the things we learned in today's game will better serve us for the biggest prize, why we all do this, and that's to hopefully advance next week in the NCAA tournament."
After 10 games in three days, the Pac-12 tournament came down to UCLA and Arizona, the top two seeds, on a big roll since arriving in Sin City.
Arizona, the conference's regular-season champion, overwhelmed its first two opponents with its don't-let-them-breathe defense. The Wildcats raced into the tournament record books with their 32-point win over Utah in the quarterfinals and cranked up the highlight reel in the second half of its semifinal rout over Colorado, allowing 82 combined points in the two games.
UCLA swamped Oregon in its opener, turning what was supposed to be a track meet into a stomping. The Bruins did the same thing to Stanford in the semifinals, all but putting the game out of reach in the opening five minutes.
These teams met once during the regular season, Jan. 9 in Westwood. Arizona ended a three-game losing streak to the Bruins in that one, escaping with a 79-75 win despite 17 turnovers and blowing a 13-point lead in the final 6 1/2 minutes.
UCLA had the advantage early in the rematch by doing what two previous tournament opponents couldn't: Score on the Wildcats.
Pushing the pace at every turn, the Bruins got shots seemingly wherever and whenever they wanted.
UCLA used a 12-0 run to go up 14-3 and kept pouring `em in against one of the nation's best defenses. The Bruins hit 18 of 31 shots and scored 43 points in the first half -- more than Utah did the entire game against Arizona and matching Colorado's total.
"They came out and punched us in the mouth," Johnson said.
The Wildcats kicked their offense into gear to get back in it, shaking off some questionable shots in the opening minutes with a string of 3-pointers, including three by Gabe York. Arizona shot 16 of 30, including 5 of 8 from the arc, to close to 43-40 at the half.
The game turned from an offensive show to a defensive shutdown in the second, every possession a struggle to get off a pass, much less a good shot.
Travis Wear and Gordon typified the effort of the entire game late in the half, sprinting from beyond midcourt, simultaneously diving and skidding across the floor for a loose ball.
Wear came up with the ball and the Bruins the win, giving them a big notch on the belt in their first season under Alford.

UCLA: 2013 Sun Bowl Champions



EL PASO — That, as the folks in the industry say, is a wrap. UCLA labored, even struggled at times, but in the end the Bruins had a glitzy Hollywood ending for the 2013 season.
Quarterback Brett Hundley dipped and dodged on the field and off, leaving defenders in his wake along with the idea that he just might hop, skip and jump into the NFL draft.
Linebacker Jordan Zumwalt appeared to be auditioning for the lead in the next Incredible Hulk movie. Zumwalt Smash?
Linebacker Myles Jack scored another touchdown, this time while playing defense.
And a 42-12 victory over Virginia Tech on Tuesday in the Hyundai Sun Bowl left the Bruins (10-3) with their first 10-win season since 2005.
The sequel, the Bruins think, could be better.
"To see what we did this year, with 10 victories playing the schedule we had, it's scary to think we can be a lot better next year," Hundley said.
The Bruins announced their 2014 intentions with four touchdowns in the fourth quarter to break open the game after leading 14-7 through three quarters.
Where this will lead is open for interpretation. The consensus among the Bruins was that they were headed in an upward direction. UCLA fans will certainly demand that.
"I think the expectations that matter are our own," UCLA Coach Jim Mora said.
Which are?
"We need to get to a Rose Bowl," Mora said. "We need to get to and win a Rose Bowl."
Others were reaching even higher.
"I don't think there is a bar for us," receiver Devin Lucien said. "We've got to continue what we started this season. The national title is our motivation."
That is certainly part of Hundley's checklist.
"When you think of a legacy, you think about Super Bowls and national championships, Rose Bowls, something where you put your stamp on the program," Hundley said.
Whether this was Hundley's final stamp remains to be seen. A redshirt sophomore, he is eligible to declare for the NFL draft, a decision he will make in the coming days or weeks.
The Bruins could start the season as a top-10 team and go from there . . . if Hundley returns.
"That speaks for itself," Lucien said.
Anyone who says otherwise needs only to look at the statistics sheet from Tuesday. Hundley accounted for 387 of UCLA's 447 yards — 161 rushing and 226 passing — against a defense that ranked in the national top 10 in nearly every category.


UCLA got cuffed by U-Dub Saturday.


Louie Louie, oh no, said me gotta go.
Louie Louie, oh baby, said me gotta go.

A fine little girl, she waits for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone.
I never think I'll make it home.

Louie Louie, oh no, say me gotta go, oh no,
Louie Louie, oh baby, said me gotta go.

Three nights and days I sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.

Louie Louie, oh no, I said me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Louie Louie, oh baby, said me gotta go.
(Okay, let's give it to them right now!)

Me see Jamaican moon above.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I'll never leave again.

Louie Louie, oh no, I said me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Louie Louie, oh baby, said me gotta go.

I said we gotta go now...
Let's go!



Got yours, Westwood scum? I need ganja wit me apfel.