Sports: The gutty little Bruins are the banged up Bruins

Unfortunately, the Bruins have had the injury bug bite yet again.

Two players were injured in practice. Excerpt:

Ryan Hollins suffered a a contusion to his right knee, just above the kneecap, in a collision with teammate Alfred Aboya during practice today.

"We started to ice it, and he did not practice the rest of the time." Howland said. "He has swelling there and will not participate in shoot around."

When asked what treatment Hollins will undergo before tomorrow's game against LSU, Howland said, "He's going to be with our trainer, Tony Spino, all night. He'll be hooked up to a Stim machine, and be 'stimmed', iced, they'll be massaging it."

[snip]

In other injury news, Lorenzo Mata who broke his nose on practice on Wednesday had a CAT scan done on the injury.

"Our trainer did a good job of snapping it right back into place. The doctors looked at it and were impressed," Howland said.

"Lorenzo practiced today with his mask on. Hopefully he can stay healthy here the rest of the way." Howland quipped.

Howland will have to quickly determine how effective Mata and Hollins are today in battling with the LSU frontline. If UCLA has to play Ryan Wright and Michael Fey significant minutes they will be in huge trouble unless those two play the best games of their lives to keep UCLA in the game.

In 1997's regional finals against Minnesota, UCLA's biggies, McCoy was hampered by injury and Henderson picked up an early fourth foul leaving the frontcourt depleted and UCLA lost that contest.

Here's hoping the banged up Bruins will be able to keep the game close down to the end when anything can happen.

GO BRUINS!