UCLA gymnastics captures program’s first Big Ten title with record-setting performance

• March 23, 2025

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Top-seeded UCLA scored 198.450 at the Big Ten Gymnastics Championships to win its first Big Ten title and 21st conference championship overall. The Bruins, who won the regular-season title with a 9-0 conference record, became the first UCLA team to claim both the regular-season and championship titles in the Big Ten.

UCLA’s score of 198.450 is the highest in Big Ten Championship history. This year’s meet featured four perfect 10s, the most ever at the event. The Bruins became the first team to have three different gymnasts record perfect scores in the same Big Ten championship.

Chae Campbell won the all-around with a score of 39.725. Jordan Chiles and Brooklyn Moors each earned a perfect 10.0 to share the floor exercise title, and Ciena Alipio scored a perfect 10.0 to win on balance beam.

Head coach Janelle McDonald was voted Big Ten Coach of the Year.

Michigan State finished second with a score of 198.150. Minnesota was third at 197.425, and Michigan placed fourth with 197.325.

​ Orange County Register 

Fred Couples, Miguel Angel Jimenez lead 2nd round of Hoag Classic

• March 23, 2025

NEWPORT BEACH — In golf parlance, it’s a horse race going into Sunday’s final round of the 2025 Hoag Classic.

With perfect scoring conditions and very little wind on Saturday, a birdie-fest broke out at Newport Beach Country Club, featuring numerous players in the lead before hometown favorite Fred Couples and Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez emerged from the pack as 36-hole co-leaders at 11-under 131.

Couples, a two-time Hoag Classic champion bidding to become the first three-time winner of the tournament, shot a 7-under 64 – one shot lower than his age – and Jimenez matched him with a 64 playing in the same group. They will be in the final threesome on Sunday with Freddie Jacobson of Sweden, first-round co-leader and PGA Tour Champions rookie who is one shot back at 10-under after a 4-under 67 on Saturday.

Tour veteran Michael Allen is in fourth at 9-under after a second-round 68 that included a double-bogey on the 16th hole after incurring a two-shot penalty for hitting the wrong ball. The leaderboard logjam includes five players at 8-under, including 2024 Charles Schwab Cup winner Steven Alker, major winner Stewart Cink, and two-time Hoag champion Ernie Els, a World Golf of Famer with four PGA Tour majors on his resume.

That means there are nine players within three shots of the lead going into the final round, but it is unmistakable who the favorite is by the chants of “Fred-die! Fred-die! Fred-die!” reverberating throughout the large galleries.

Couples, 65, draws the biggest moving gallery in Newport Beach every year he plays because he is a resident of nearby Corona del Mar and is an honorary member at NBCC and at neighboring Big Canyon Country Club.

He’s also popular because he’s always in contention at the Hoag Classic when he’s healthy. He has won twice at NBCC (in 2010 and 2014), has two second-place finishes, six top-5s and has finished out of the top 10 only once at the Hoag Classic.

This week, he has been battling a head cold, but it hasn’t slowed him down, as attested by his eight birdies on Saturday.

“I’ve played a million rounds sick . . . I can get around,” Couples said, dismissing his symptoms as annoyances. “My head hurts a little bit, but the weather is perfect. I’m not sick-sick; it’s just all clogged up and I’m a little dizzy. I don’t even know what I shot.”

But he certainly heard the encouragement from the crowds following him.

“There’s always a lot of people here for this tournament; this is one of the top two or three (draws) on the Champions Tour. In Newport, they come out and they’re very vocal,” he said.

“People are rooting for him, but that doesn’t bother me,” said Jimenez, a 14-time winner on PGA Tour Champions, like Couples. “He’s from here.”

At one point on Saturday, there were five players tied for the lead – Jimenez, Cink, Y.E. Yang and Friday co-leaders Jacobson and Brendan Jones – with Hall of Famers Couples and Els among a group of six players just one shot back. The horse race was on.

After some struggles with distance control on his putting in the opening round, Couples solved that by hitting it a lot closer on Saturday, converting short birdie putts on No. 1, No. 3, No. 7 and No. 8 en route to a 6-under 30 on the front nine to tie for the lead.

Aggressive with his driver all day – “I swung as hard as I could all day with the driver,” he said – he crushed his tee shot on the 333-yard, par-4 first hole into the throat of the fairway, between the two greenside bunkers, and chipped his second shot close for a tap-in birdie. He added a two-putt birdie on the par-5 third, then rolled in a 15-footer from the right side of No. 5, and pitched it close for another tap-in on No. 7.

In retrospect, equally important as his fast start was Couples’ scrambling ability when his tee shots strayed right and left from the ninth through the 14th holes – “pulled a few, pushed a few” is how he described it. But he was able to save par after wild tee shots on the ninth hole (where he got a free drop from hospitality tents on the right), 10th hole (in the trees left) and 12th hole (trees left).

Interestingly, after Couples’ three-putt bogey from the fringe on No. 14, the only blemish on his scorecard, he moved back into a share of the lead with a birdie on the par-5 15th after Cink, Jacobson and Jones all missed short putts behind him.

That was the first of three consecutive birdies by Couples – including a 30-footer on No. 16 and a 20-footer on the par-3 17th – that temporarily gave him sole possession of the lead at 11-under until Jimenez birdied the 18th.

Couples has won only one Champions Tour event since 2017, so he is looking forward to another opportunity on Sunday.

“It’s going to be a battle tomorrow with Miguel and whoever finishes up there with us, but I have a good shot,” Couples said.

​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Tennessee proves too much for UCLA in NCAA Tournament

• March 23, 2025

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Maybe this was a microcosm of UCLA’s men’s basketball season. Impressively good at some points, frighteningly bad at others.

For around 14½ minutes Saturday night, the Bruins went toe-to-toe with the Tennessee Volunteers, the No. 7 seed in the Midwest Regional slugging it out with No. 2 in what was very much a road game in the heart of Southeastern Conference country.

It was 23-21 UCLA, after a 3-pointer by freshman Trent Perry, who was in the game largely because Eric Dailey Jr. and Skyy Clark both had two fouls a little over three minutes into the game. But the Bruins were staying with the Vols. And then they weren’t.

Tennessee outscored UCLA 11-2 in the final 3:46 of the half, blitzed the Bruins early in the second half with a slew of 3-pointers, many of them wide open, and cruised to a 67-58 victory – made that close only because of a late Bruins’ flurry – that sent them to Indianapolis and the Sweet 16, to the soundtrack of repeated renditions of “Rocky Top.”

At full volume.

This maybe shouldn’t have been totally unexpected. The Bruins (23-11) were a No. 7 seed for a reason. Throughout the season they could be impressive, sublime even, at some points, ragged and inconsistent and sometimes sputtering at others. Their misfortune Saturday night may have been to draw a really impressive Tennessee team, now 29-7, composed of experienced players who could attach the defensive clamps … and could make wide open shots.

“I think it was the press that got it started,” Clark said. “I think that killed us. With some turnovers and just some fouls, gave them easy points at the free-throw line, especially fouling the wrong person.”

Former Etiwanda High star Jahmai Mashack said the press and trapping weren’t necessarily in the original game plan.

“I think going in we have a lot of things built in but honestly we’re a team of adjustments,” he said. “So we know how to adjust. We don’t want to give every team our first look. We see how the game is flowing and how they’re handling the ball, and see if their passes are a little long or short or whatever the case may be.

“But we’re pretty good at adjusting to the situation, so it wasn’t a planned thing. You just go out and do it and try to execute perfectly.”

And once they started trapping and saw that the Bruins were a little rattled, maybe they smelled blood.

“We went into the locker room with a lot of energy,” Tennessee guard Zakai Ziegler said. “Because we knew it was going to be a dogfight going into the game, you knew it was going to be a lot of ups and downs, but the last couple of minutes in the first half we had a lot of energy. Getting turnovers and those loud plays, it really picked us up.”

That outburst at the end of the first half gave Tennessee a 32-25 lead at intermission. Clark’s 3-pointer cut Tennessee’s lead to 37-31 with 17:44 left in the game, but Chaz Lanier hit a trey from the right wing. Moments later, Jordan Gainey made a 3-pointer after a kickout pass from Ziegler, after a UCLA shot clock violation. Then Lanier made another three. Nine unanswered points in 1:53, and if it wasn’t the end, you could see it from there.

That started a 21-8 Vols run, which included additional 3-pointers by Mashack and Gainey again, for a 58-39 lead.

“The fouls, then rebounding, too,” UCLA’s Tyler Bilodeau said. “We got outrebounded and I think we didn’t stop Chaz Lanier as good as we should have. He got hot there, hit some big threes for them. But, yeah, I would say those are some of the other things.”

And then there’s this.

“Look, they’re a hell of a team,” coach Mick Cronin said. “There was a time they were No. 1 in the country, I think. (Forward Igor) Milicic’s a fourth or fifth-year guy, Lanier is a fourth or fifth-year guy, Zakai is a four-year starter, Mashack is a senior, Gainey is a senior, (Darlinstone) Dubar is a senior, Okpara is a hell of a junior.

“… We got off to a terrible start (on the glass). We were stopping them and I don’t have the first half stats but I think they had nine or ten offensive rebounds at halftime. (It was nine.) Our defense couldn’t have been much better early, but we didn’t do a good job on the glass in the first half for sure. Second half was even but the first half – it was 9-0 second-chance points at halftime. I told our guys this game was going to be won by other things: Who gets the ball when it comes off the rim, who is strong with the ball.

“They screened better than we screened.”

Maybe this was predictable as well: When you have two defensive-minded teams, led by two defensive-minded coaches, every point matters.

“Guys, they only scored 67,” Cronin said. “It’s not like we gave up 97, they scored 67. Not going to win many games (when) you get 58.”

Bruin fans can say that it’s a disappointment, and certainly the players’ demeanor in the locker room afterward confirmed that. Some players had stunned looks on their faces. Kobe Johnson, one of two seniors in the Bruins’ regular rotation, had his head in his hands and at one point put a towel over his head, discouraging any conversation.

In another sense, while losing in the second round of the tournament is not up to the program’s traditional standards, at least the Bruins got back to the tournament this year, after missing it altogether a season ago.

And while Cronin wasn’t yet ready to talk about the future,  or even to disclose when he might start thinking about next season – “Not next year; not right now, guys,” he said when I asked – he gently contested the idea that the team fell short.

“Look, we restored us back to where we need to be, in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “We had the (No.) 4 seed in the Big Ten Tournament out of 18 teams. After having almost no NIL (money) and having to go to Europe to try to find cheap players … (last season’s 16-17 finish)  put us a year behind, okay?

“So I thought this group of guys did as good as they could do … You have a team where literally your four most important players are transfers. They came together and had a heck of a year.”

That brings us to how the new rhythms of college basketball affect the future. No longer can a coach or a team bank on having a certain number of returning players or a group of seniors that has built continuity. Instead, the question in the locker room tends to be, “Are you going to be back next year?”

So maybe Cronin had it right when he said this (even though he said he wasn’t going to discuss the future yet):

“Continuity is irrelevant if you don’t have talent.”

jalexander@scng.com

​ Orange County Register 

Replenished Lakers give up season-high in points, fall to Bulls

• March 23, 2025

LOS ANGELES — JJ Redick knew that the Lakers were unlikely to immediately recapture the rhythm they were playing with from a few weeks ago.

Even with the excitement of, hopefully, having their full rotation available for the last three weeks of the regular season, Redick is aware that it’s going to take time to build chemistry and familiarity after having just a handful of games with Luka Doncic at the helm before multiple starters missed time with injuries.

Saturday’s homestand-ending 146-115 loss to the Chicago Bulls showcased the strides the Lakers are going to have to make during the season’s final stretch – and old issues appearing for at least one night.

“The disposition and the mentality, I don’t know if we assume because we had everybody back that it was just gonna be like it was three weeks ago, and that’s just not the way this works,” Redick said. “The guys know that. And I’m not saying that’s what they assumed.

“The thing that we have talked about all season long, though, is grace. And so the group inherently gets some grace for what this last three weeks has looked like. And it’s not an excuse. It’s just the nature of where a group felt very connected and then you lose some games on the road, you have some injuries, all that stuff.”

With LeBron James and Rui Hachimura returning to the floor after being sidelined for seven and 12 games, respectively, the Lakers (43-27) played with a disjointedness of a team battling with unfamiliarity.

Even with great shotmaking from Doncic (34 points, eight rebounds and six assists) and Austin Reaves (25 points, five assists), with the duo combining for 19-of-31 shooting from the field and 11 for 20 on 3-pointers, the Lakers struggled to find their offensive flow.

They turned the ball over frequently (21 giveaways for 27 Bulls’ points).

And their transition defense was well below their standard, with the Bulls (31-40) finishing with 30 fastbreak points after they consistently got to the rim or the shots they wanted with ease in the open floor.

The Bulls’ scoring total was not only the most points the Lakers allowed in a game this season, but were tied for the most they’ve allowed a non-overtime home game, according to the Associated Press.

“We gave em a little bit of everything,” James said. “Gave ’em points in the paint. We gave ’em fast break points and we gave ’em 3s. We can’t give everything.”

And once the Bulls found their rhythm from beyond the arc in the second half, making 14 of their 19 3-point attempts (73.9%) in the final two quarters, the Lakers didn’t stand a chance, dropping their second consecutive home game after previously winning nine straight.

“That’s the word that we’ve used a lot is edge, and you gotta play with an edge,” Redick said. “I told them this just and I don’t think this is like a secret, so I’m comfortable sharing this. But our success this season, since January, has been based on our defensive disposition, our ability to defend as a team, our individual pride on the ball and our individual pride in doing your job with whatever it may require.

“A low man, a box out, a gang rebound, whatever it may require. That’s gonna determine our success for the next three weeks. And that’s gonna determine our success if we are able to secure a postseason berth.”

James finished with 17 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 31 minutes in his first game since March 8 because of a strained left groin.

“ A little rusty,” James said, “but I was happy to get back out there.”

When asked whether he feels confident about the groin injury being behind him, James responded: “I just take it day by day. I can’t worry about what can happen in the future, but, I got through [Saturday.]”

He added: “I’m obviously, get some work on it [on Sunday], hopefully a little bit on the plane. It’s a long flight to Orlando. And then once we get to Orlando and get ready for Monday. So I hope it’s behind, but I don’t wanna go too far in the future.”

Doncic had seven turnovers while James finished with five.

Hachimura had five points and two rebounds in 18 minutes off the bench in his first game since Feb. 27 because of left patellar tendinopathy. He said postgame that he feels his knee is about 70-80%.

“My knee is going to be like that for a while,” Hachimura added. “I can’t really get back to 100% right away. I got to rest for a long time to get back to normal. But I don’t think we have that, so we just got to maintain and manage it. We got to do it.”

Coby White led the Bulls with a game-best 36 points, while rookie wing Matas Buzelis finished with a career-high 31 points.

Josh Giddey nearly finished with a quadruple-double, recording 15 points, 17 assists, 10 rebounds and eight steals.

The Lakers will kick off a four-game road trip against the Orlando Magic on Monday.

“You gotta get reconnected,” Redick said. “And that’s where our group. We’ll get there. We, however, don’t have a lot of time to do that. And it’s gotta be now. It can’t be in a week. It can’t be in two weeks. It’s it’s gotta be now.”

​ Orange County Register 

Atitlan, Hector Berrios win San Luis Rey at 9-1

• March 23, 2025

Atitlan continued his improvement by swooping from near the back of the pack with Hector Berrios to score a 9-1 upset in the $100,000, Grade III San Luis Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday.

A 4-year-old who was the youngest horse in the 1 1/2-mile turf race for 4-year-olds and up, Atitlan ($20.20) won for the first time in four starts since the Grade II Twilight Derby last October.

John Shirreffs trains the son of The Factor.

Divin Propos finished second, Gold Phoenix third in his 7-year-old debut, favorite Easter fourth in the field of eight.

Sunday, Casalu (Flavien Prat riding) will try to become the first three-time stakes winner at the nearly three-month-old Santa Anita meet when she faces Will Then (Umberto Rispoli) and three others in the $100,000 China Doll Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 1 mile on turf.

​ Orange County Register 

LeBron James, Rui Hachimura making return in Lakers’ home game vs. Bulls

• March 23, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Starting forwards LeBron James and Rui Hachimura will return to the floor tonight against the Chicago Bulls.

LeBron James remained a gametime decision as of an hour before tipoff before being upgraded to available.

The 40-year-old four-time MVP missed the previous seven games because of a strained left groin injury he suffered late in the March 8 road loss to the Boston Celtics.

James averaged 25 points (51.7% from the field, 38.4% on 3-pointers), 8.5 assists and 8.2 rebounds in 58 games of 62 games before missing time because of the groin ailment.

He and Denver Nuggets reigning MVP center Nikola Jokic are the only players averaging at least 25 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.

James was also consistently playing high-level defense before suffering the groin injury.

“And LeBron with his, I literally said to him during the San Antonio game [on Monday] during a timeout, I said, ‘you know what we miss? We miss your voice on the defensive end,’” Coach JJ Redick said of Wednesday’s home loss to the Denver Nuggets. “Our communication level has gone down significantly and talk is a contagious thing. And when one guy is consistently talking, it forces everybody else to.”

Hachimura missed 12 consecutive games of left patellar tendinopathy.

He hasn’t played since the Feb. 27 home win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Hachimura averaged 13.3 points (50.6% from the field, 41% on 3s) and 5.2 rebounds in 50 games (all starts).

“We missed him on both sides of the ball,” Redick said of Hachimura. “You can’t just pinpoint one thing. He’s a connective glue for our team on both sides, and a lot of that is because of his size, his switchability, his cutting, his spacing. He’s been one of our best guys, just in terms of getting out in transition and the beneficiary of our throw-aheads.”

The Lakers went 7-5 without Hachimura and 3-4 without James.

This included a 3-3 stretch of six games in eight days that concluded with Thursday’s blowout loss to the Milwaukee Bucks – a game Luka Doncic (sprained right ankle), Austin Reaves (sprained right ankle), Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle injury management) and Jarred Vanderbilt (strained right groin) also were unavailable for.

The Lakers entered the weekend No. 3 in the Western Conference standings, percentage points ahead of the No. 4 Denver Nuggets after their road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday.

“It says a lot about the culture we’ve created as a group and the spirit of competition,” Redick said. “The response that we got after going 0-4 on the road trip, to come back home and win three very tough games in a very condensed stretch, just our culture is solid right now.

“And culture is a fickle thing and you got to water it every day and pay attention to it. But it says a lot about the group that they were able to just get through this, plow through this and compete at a high level.”

Doncic, Reaves, Finney-Smith and Vanderbilt were available against the Bulls after being listed as probable for the matchup, which is the final game of a five-game homestand before a four-game trip that starts against the Orlando Magic on Monday.

The Lakers started Doncic, Reaves, Finney-Smith, James and Jaxson Hayes against the Bulls.

Hachimura, who was on a playing time restriction of around 20-24 minutes, came off the bench for the first time this season.

The Lakers had their full rotation available for the first time since Feb. 27 win over the Timberwolves – the game Hachimura left nearly midway through because of the knee ailment.

“We just haven’t had a lot of time with our full team available,” Redick said pregame. “We’ve had to manage this all season long no matter which iteration of this team it’s been. So I’m excited for these last 13 games to build some continuity, build some chemistry, and hopefully the way we were playing prior to the Boston game, we can kind of get back to that.

“It may not be [Saturday], it may not be Monday, but we’re a good basketball team if we’re playing the way we played for that six, seven week stretch.”

​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: Aaliyah Gayles’ iconic contribution to USC’s first-round victory

• March 23, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Things that were iconic Saturday at Galen Center:

JuJu’s bun.

USC’s fight song, “Fight On.”

And Aaliyah freakin’ Gayles.

Real ones in the USC women’s basketball team’s growing and devoted fan base know.

“I don’t feel like no one else is doing this,” said Gayles, who played her first NCAA Tournament minutes, coming on with 5:23 to go and scoring a nifty bucket – to rousing cheers – in the No. 1 Trojans’ 71-25 victory over No. 16 UNC Greensboro in the first round NCAA Tournament.

“Just being able to overcome adversity and being able to take that next step, I feel like it’s great,” she said. “I feel like I’m a superhero in people’s eyes.”

A real-life superhero, this young woman.

That’s because when Gayles was 18 years old, she was shot nine times. Or maybe 10. So many times doctors had trouble determining the exact number, though – as ESPN reported – they counted 18 holes where bullets pierced her arms and legs, shattering bones and bursting a blood vessel and leaving the promising basketball star unable to walk or grip a pencil or even brush her own teeth.

She was among the top prospects in her class of 2022, right up there on ESPN’s HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings with UCLA’s Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice and Janiah Barker. Gayles was a McDonald’s All-American and USC commit who averaged 13.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.5 steals and 3.3 assists to lead Las Vegas’ Spring Valley High School to the Class 5A state tournament.

On April 16, 2022, a night after she played in the Jordan Brand Classic, Gayles went to a party where an unknown assailant opened fire, hitting Gayles and three others. She was lucky to survive. And she was, doctors said, unlikely to play ball again.

In the days after the shooting, Sparks Dearica Hamby and Kelsey Plum – then members of the Las Vegas Aces – donated and promoted a fundraiser to assist the 5-foot-9 guard: “We’re here for her,” Hamby said.

And Lindsay Gottlieb – then USC’s coach for less than a year – offered this: “Aaliyah is one of the strongest, most resilient young people I have ever known.”

Gottlieb got that right.

Gayles spent painstaking months rehabbing and rekindling her hoop dreams until she was cleared to play again ahead of last season, making her college debut on Nov. 10, 2023, in a non-conference game against Florida Gulf Coast.

And then last summer in the Drew League, Gayles – who’s originally from Compton – earned championship MVP honors after scoring 14 points to lead her squad, GAGE, to a 50-46 victory.

And now, as a redshirt sophomore on this season’s star-studded Trojans team, she’s the player sharpening her and her teammates’ games behind the scenes, regularly cast as the opponent’s best player or lead guard on the scout team – a role she said she relishes.

“I take that personal,” Gayles, 21, said. “My job is to push them, talk (trash) to them and get them fired up so when they do come to … bigger games, they already know that feeling, ‘cause they got me on the court.”

And there’s obviously no challenge she’s backing down from – including taking on sophomore sensation JuJu Watkins: “I tell her every time, ‘You can’t guard me!’ ‘I’m locking this up!’ ‘I’m forcing you left!’ All that.”

“She’s a critical part of our team,” Gottlieb said Saturday, after Gayles logged five productive minutes as USC’s lead guard, running the offense, making one of her two shots and grabbing a rebound.

“I always talk to her about every step in her journey is not the last one, it’s just another one. So to see her in good health and wearing a USC jersey playing an NCAA Tournament game for our team, it’s really significant on so many levels.

“And it’s not the end of her story by any means, but it’s always good to recognize a step and say how cool it is of a point we’re at right now.”

Gayles’ very important role on this team that’s now 29-3 and marching forward in pursuit of a national championship – “a natty,” she called it – is significant and so, so cool and it does feel, well, “iconic,” to use her word.

“Many, many steps that I did have to overcome, ’cause of what I went through,” Gayles said. “(Gottlieb) told me, ‘Take it step by step, brick by brick, day by day.’ … and all the hard work, the first steps I took, the crying, ‘Oh I can’t do this’ – all that, it’s crazy, just being able to say I did it and to keep going, too.

“It is worth it, for sure.”

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County softball standings: Saturday, March 22

• March 23, 2025

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Orange County high school softball standings through Friday, March 21.

​ Orange County Register