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:

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:

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.

Leave a comment