From Steve Galluzzo: One team was coming off its highest high, the other off its lowest low, but recent history matters little whenever UCLA and USC meet.
Tuesday night’s matchup inside Pauley Pavilion was no exception, as the men’s basketball programs faced off in the first of two key Big Ten clashes in 11 days and the host Bruins sent their blue-clad fans home happy with an 81-62 victory.
Donovan Dent led the charge with 30 points and seven assists, Trent Perry had 13 points and four assists, Xavier Booker had 11 points and three blocks and forward Tyler Bilodeau added 13 points and nine rebounds as the Bruins (19-9 overall, 11-6 in the Big Ten) improved to 15-1 on Wooden Court and stayed in seventh place in conference play with three games remaining in the regular season.
“It took us a while to pull away from a very athletic team but I’m proud of the guys, we got the job done and stayed healthy,” said UCLA head coach Mick Cronin, who evened his record to 7-7 versus USC since he took over in Westwood in 2019. “When you hold a team to 62 it’s hard to lose.”
Lakers fall to Magic
From Broderick Turner: The eight-game homestand the Lakers played over three weeks because of the weeklong All-Star break was an opportunity for them to develop a connectivity that would push L.A. in the right direction.
Instead, the Lakers floundered in those games at Crypto.com Arena, playing .500 basketball (4-4), dropping a 110-109 game to the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night when Luka Doncic passed up a shot and made a hurried pass to LeBron James, who missed a buzzer-beater.
The Lakers (34-23) have not been a great team at home all season, their record now standing at 16-12 in Los Angeles. And because they lost for the second straight game at home, they are now in sixth place in the competitive Western Conference.
James finished with 21 points on eight-for-13 shooting. He also had six rebounds and four assists. After the game, he was asked why the Lakers haven’t been so good at home this season.
“I don’t know,” James said. “Just haven’t been a good home team.”
Coach JJ Redick was asked for his assessment on why his team hasn’t been better at home.
“We’re a work in progress,” Redick said.
Freddie Freeman is ready for the season
From Jack Vita: For the first time since he grounded out to end the 11th inning in Game 7 of the World Series, Freddie Freeman stepped into the batter’s box in the first inning Tuesday against the Cleveland Guardians at Camelback Ranch. Freeman was met with cheers by the thousands of Dodgers fans in attendance.
After popping out to third in his first at-bat, Freeman laced a double to left-center to drive in two runs in the third inning before he was lifted from the Dodgers’ 11-3 victory.
Freeman, who last season battled the lingering effects of a right ankle injury he suffered late in the 2024 season, said having a more typical offseason was crucial to regaining his fitness.
“It’s been in a good spot since I started hitting this offseason,” Freeman said of his swing. “Nice to be able to hit a ball to left-center already, that’s a good sign. … I hadn’t swung a bat till a day before FanFest last year. A normal offseason definitely helps.”
Sacramento State wants to play USC
From Bill Shaikin: The USC football schedule this year starts with a vacancy. The Trojans plan to welcome an opponent to be determined to the Coliseum on Aug. 29, and Sacramento State would love to be that opponent.
“We’re trying,” Sacramento State President Luke Wood said Monday.
Wood announced last week that the Hornets had jumped into the Football Bowl Subdivision, the upper tier of NCAA Division I football, and what more glamorous way to make an FBS debut than against the most storied team in California?
Wood called the Hornets’ move to join the Mid-American Conference in football “a calculated business decision that would provide our university with the greatest possible exposure.”
LAFC drew a big crowd. Here’s why
From Kevin Baxter: More than 75,000 people packed the Coliseum for a soccer game Saturday night.
LAFC hosted the largest crowd for a soccer game in the world last weekend, the largest crowd for an MLS season-opening game and the second-largest in league history.
MLS moved the game from cozy BMO Stadium, LAFC’s regular home, a few hundred feet west to the cavernous 77,000-seat Coliseum because Lionel Messi, arguably the best to ever play the sport, would be there. It worked: The crowd was the largest at the Coliseum for any event in more than six years.
But the people didn’t come to see Messi or his team, Inter Miami, the reigning MLS champion. The crowd was not dressed in Miami pink but in the black and gold of LAFC, which won 3-0.
This day in sports history
1940 — The first telecast of an American hockey game is transmitted over station W2XBS in New York. The viewing audience watches the New York Rangers battle the Montreal Canadiens at Madison Square Garden.
1957 — The United States Supreme Court rules that pro football, unlike pro baseball, is subject to the anti-trust laws of the United States. The court decides 6-3 that baseball is only anti-trust exempt pro sport.
1961 — Niagara ends St. Bonaventure’s 99-game winning streak at home with an 87-77 victory over the Bonnies.
1962 — Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points, but New York’s Richie Guerin scores 50 to lead the Knicks to a 149-135 victory.
1964 — Cassius Clay wins the world heavyweight title when Sonny Liston is unable to answer the bell for the seventh round at Convention Hall in Miami Beach, Fla.
1977 — Pete Maravich of the New Orleans Jazz scores 68 points, the most by an NBA guard, in a 124-107 victory over the New York Knicks. Only Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor had scored more points in an NBA game.
1987 — The Southern Methodist football team is suspended for the 1987 season after investigations reveal that players received $61,000 from a booster slush fund.
1994 — Oksana Baiul of Ukraine wins the figure skating gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and Nancy Kerrigan, who was whacked on the knee 2½ months earlier, wins the silver. Tonya Harding, later convicted of hindering prosecution in the Kerrigan attack, finishes eighth.
2001 — In the largest playoff in PGA Tour history, Robert Allenby wins the Nissan Open on the first extra hole against five other players. It’s Allenby’s third PGA Tour victory, all of them won in playoffs.
2010 — In Vancouver, the Canadian women defeat the United States 2-0 for their third straight Olympic hockey title. Americans Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane finish 1-2 in a Nordic combined race. They are the first American medalists in a sport that’s been part of the Winter Olympics since 1924.
2017 — Marit Bjoergen wins a record 15th world championship gold medal in cross-country skiing with victory in a 15-kilometer skiathlon. The 36-year-old Bjoergen has more gold medals than any other cross-country skier — male or female — in world championship history, having previously shared the record of 14 gold medals with retired Russian Yelena Valbe.
2017 — Kelsey Plum surpasses Jackie Stiles to become the NCAA’s all-time scoring leader with a career-best 57 points in the final regular season game of her career, leading No. 11 Washington past Utah 84-77. Plum passes Stiles’ mark of 3,393 points midway through the fourth quarter.
2018 — Kirill Kaprizov scores a power-play goal in overtime to lift the Russians to the gold medal in men’s hockey with a 4-3 win over Germany at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
2018 — Norway’s Marit Bjoergen closes out a remarkable Olympic career, winning the gold medal in the women’s 30-kilometer mass start at the Pyeongchang Games. The 37-year-old Bjoergen is the only Olympian to win five medals at these Games and finishes her career with 15 medals. She leaves as the most decorated athlete in Winter Olympic history.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.