The UCLA Bruins.   It was guaranteed as the first game of the day pitted UCLA and UAB to play – and it was the Bruins taking care of business running away

Just to give everyone a reminder – here is the reaction of the press to the selection committee choosing UCLA.

Myron Medcalf – Selection Committee just gave UCLA a slot for trying hard.  Hand them a blue ribbon, too.

Dana O’Neil – UCLA…   I’m just so confused.

Eamonn Brennan – Apparently all that matters is that you play a tough nonconference schedule, even if you score 7 points in a first half.

Joe Lunardi – First thoughts: I missed on Indiana; they missed on UCLA.

Jeff Borzello – So the committee really put UCLA’s resume, Temple’s resume and Colorado State’s resume side-by-side-by-side and chose UCLA? Hahaha. OK.

Doug Gottlieb (on the actual selection show) – UCLA safely in is a joke to me.  It makes no sense.

Doug Gottlieb (also on the show) – There’s not a reasonable person in the country who believes UCLA belongs in the 68-team field.

In fact, Gottlieb actually felt it necessary three separate times throughout the show to state how bad of a decision it was to include UCLA – including his only question to the Selection Committee chair – and I use question loosely – it was more of a statement of how wrong the committee was followed by a request for the chair to comment.

Well – the first team to the Sweet 16 is the team that everyone said doesn’t belong in the tournament.  Somewhere, Selection Committee Chair Scott Barnes and the rest of the committee are smiling – the Bruins have validated their choice.   UCLA was definitely worthy of making the Tournament – and the Bruins will still be playing next week.