Bar Trivia Rules, and so does UCLA

Ah, bar trivia. Tonight, team "Naughty by Nature" - that'd be myself, Robert, and two other indispensable team members - was crowned trivia champions at one of the local dive bars. The prize? A 50 dollar bar tab. Come hang out with us, we have bar dollars.

The questions that put us over the top, you ask?

-What country is the leading exporter of olives? That would be Spain, not Greece. Hooray.

-What national chain store was the location of Shia Lebouf's recent arrest? Walgreen's.

We somehow got both of these right. Ah, the benefits of higher education.

Anyway, while this was going on, a TV in the background was showing the UCLA- Cal State San Bernardino game. A few things worth noting about this one:

-UCLA looks good. Real good. CSSB had something like 15 points at the half. Ben Howland has his boys playin some serious defense, but it's also worth noting that CSSB probably wouldn't beat my intramural team. I also still have a few doubts about whether or not these guys will be able to score with the likes of a UNC, but they're legit title contenders and they're built for the NCAA tournament, make no mistake.

-Got to see the much-hyped debut of Kevin Love. After hearing how he's the next basketball Jesus (thanks ESPN!), I was actually pretty impressed. He seems to be able to score in traffic, and he looked pretty good on the boards (again, consider the opponent). Perhaps the most hyped phase of his game, his Peyton Manning-like outlet passes, actually got him into trouble a few times. Every time Love brings down a defensive board, he's immediately looking down the court and has no qualms about chucking it deep. I think this worked once and the other times he overthrew his man, but I love the idea - he'll burn teams on these a few times a game, especially in a run and gun Pac 10.

-Kevin Love's facial hair. There was a year where Kris Lang attempted to grow the chin strap at UNC, and he looked like a beaver-lumberjack hybrid. Well, K-Love has brought the white-guy chin strap back, and he looks like... well... K-fed. Lose the lame facial hair buddy, you've been hanging out with Lorenzo Matta too much.

-Steve Lavin was announcing the game. The sound wasn't turned up so I didn't get to hear any of his gems, but I did notice them pull one of those borderline-asshole "Hey Steve Lavin, remember how awesome you used to be back when you coached at UCLA, and now you can't land a coaching job? Yeah!" highlight reels, where they then panned back to Lavin and you can tell he's calling producer an asshole under his breath..

-John Wooden looks old. He may be the only coach where everyone knows he blatantly cheated, but he gets a free pass because he's just an all-around great guy who everyone respects. In other words, the complete opposite of Coach K.

-Speaking of cheating, it seems like the Toledo Rockets play every fucking Tuesday night football game on ESPN. People wonder why Toledo got involved in a college gambling problem, and the answer is pretty obvious - they play every Tuesday/Wednesday night game on ESPN. These games are nationally televised. People bet on these games, just because, hey, its a Tuesday night football game. MAC teams and other non-BCS conference teams, fly under the radar a bit as far as NCAA sanctions go, because most of the 5-star recruits who people watch closely go to larger schools where it's much harder to get away with things like this. Thus, these MAC kids are more susceptible to point-shaving or something similar. Needless to say, they were playing Ball State or someone shitty tonight. I didn't pay attention to the score.

-UNC plays Davidson tonight at Bobcats arena. Look forward to seeing how we match up with Stephen Curry, one of the best scoring guards in the country. Which brings us to our Gardocki of the day: Did you know that Stephen Curry is the son of former Virginia Tech star and Charlottte Hornet Dell Curry, who was one of the greatest 3-point shooters to ever play the game? Over/under on how many times they mention this during the game tomorrow? I'd say 15. Seriously.

-NoNo