Trouble Was Bruin

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There's a couple of photos for the Chico State-UCLA men's basketball exhibition Monday, a 93-55 loss for the Wildcats, that showed how the game went.
For the first one, if you have children, this is the time to have them leave the room:

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Associated Press

That's the Bruins' Russell Westbrook attempting a very high-percentage shot (he made it) over Ryan Smith, who at 6'2", 180 lbs. is actually smaller than the sports writer writing this. Talk about the difference between Division I and Division II, right? But here's the thing: with Smith being right in the middle of that photo, it's a bit of a characteristic photo of how Chico State wants to play — it's the scrappy bulldog attitude that coach Puck Smith loves.

You'd have a lot of trouble telling me, for instance, that Rod Hawkins didn't get a pat on the back or two for this hustle against Nikola Dragovic:

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Associated Press

So, no, the score wasn't close, and yes, Pauley Pavilion — which, I might add, actually does not contain the word "historic" in the proper title, despite the virtually knee-jerk tendency of most media outlets to throw it in there — got to see its Bruins thump. But Chico State will probably benefit, at least a little bit, from showing that it can hustle against one of the best college programs in the country. And for teams under Puck Smith, hustle is everything.

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Travis Souders

About Me: Travis Souders is the Chico State beat writer for the Enterprise-Record. He can be reached at tsouders -at - chicoer.com.

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This page contains a single entry by Travis Souders published on November 6, 2007 4:45 PM.

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