Feeling lucky, huh, Bruins? UCLA path still wide open

PHOENIX -– Get-well cards and those cheer-up Mylar balloons can be sent to Donald Sloan at the College Station Medical Center.

Get the cards that play a song when you open them. He likes those. Mickey Mouse too, on the balloons, assuming the Texas A&M guard is able to make out shapes and colors by now.

The Bruins will need players like Russell Westbrook to step up earlier in games. (Getty Images)

If you need to check on his condition, call the hospital. If not, rest assured Sloan should come out of it any day now. Thank goodness, it looks like he's going to be OK.

That's a slight exaggeration but Sloan's well being wasn't an issue five days ago when the Texas A&M guard was mugged in his team's second-round game against top seed UCLA. Some accounts said Sloan's potential game-tying shot in the lane was "blocked."

Your shot would be blocked too if a limb was being ripped from your body.

"I felt like my whole arm was pulled down," Sloan said. "But obviously no foul was called. I was shocked that nothing was called."

By now you've seen the pictures of Sloan being given the William Wallace treatment by UCLA's Darren Collison and Josh Shipp. The pics are the biggest Internet sensation since that dancing baby. What the television replays couldn't show you, stop-action photography did.

UCLA is lucky to be here.

Before Bruin Nation freaks, a quick disclaimer: Collison is one of the nation's best point guards. Kevin Love is an All-American. Ben Howland is one of the game's great coaches. You can't argue with consecutive Final Fours.

I am not a hater.

Now back to a reasoned discussion of the state of UCLA basketball as it heads to a Sweet 16 West Regional semifinal here Thursday against Western Kentucky.

1) If not for favorable officiating, the Bruins might not be two games away from their third consecutive Final Four. 2) That fortunate officiating is helping mask just how much UCLA is struggling because 3) the Bruins are beat up and sick.

Point 1: The Stanford and Cal games are now lore, if not a sports bar subject that will last a couple of orders of nachos. The Cardinal's Lawrence Hill may or may not have fouled Collison on March 6 at Pauley in a game UCLA eventually won in overtime. The point is, you don't make that call when Hill (who was called for a foul) goes straight up and the contact, if any, is so minimal. Reward the defense for good play.