UCLA Basketball: Shabazz Muhammad links

The Internet traffic-fest and months-long wait to see where All-World wing Shabazz Muhammad would play his one year of college ball is now over. We’re stoked as hell to see this dude open up things at Pauley Pavilion, and we better get it packed as a “thank you” for our boys, ‘Bazz, Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams.

Either way, there’s a ton of cool stuff people have been tweeting, blogging and Facebooking since Shabazz Muhammad sent in his National Letter of Intent. Here are some links around the UCLA blogosphere and Twittersphere.

The Mighty Bruins. Such an awesome video of UCLA’s staff going nuts when ‘Bazz committed, but come on. That’s it? “Heeeeeyyy!” I was at Ackerman Union, watching the announcement on ESPN U, and the crowd of around 15 got way louder than those guys did. Seriously. About five of us got up, and gave each other high-fives, screamed, the works. And all we got from Howland was a “Heeeeeeyyy!” Could’ve been worse. We also like the part where ‘Bazz is all, “Yeah, they sucked for two years” and Howland’s like, “Hahahahaha, this guy.”

ESPN: 

Good stuff, although I’m going to contest that and say Shabazz is ranked as the No. 1 recruit on other sites like Scout, Rivals.

UCLABruins.com (H/T: The Mighty Bruins). Look at this beauty of a homepage:

The future is here.

Twitter.

I don’t know who this lady is, but we’re getting a little crazy with comparison. Let’s wait ’til AFTER Ben Howland shapes him into the next prodigal son of the NBA, OK?

CBS Sports. Here we go. Cynicism. This form might be warranted, though, considering it’s been happening for a while. Hopefully, ‘Bazz picked UCLA for the hot women and not adidas. Here’s a little tid-bit/flavor for you:

"The only thing that makes this situation any different from many situations is that it features a so-called adidas school benefiting from a so-called adidas kid as opposed to a so-called Nike school benefitting from a so-called Nike kid … and that John Calipari was on the wrong end of a decision. Besides that, this was par for the college-basketball course — just business as usual in the high-stakes game of high-level recruiting.Which is not to suggest Fran and Jeff (and everybody else) were wrong.They were absolutely right.Because though UCLA is UCLA, Pauley Pavilion is renovated and Ben Howland’s track record for putting prospects in the NBA and making them stick is well-documented, it would be naive for anybody to suggest the financial relationship adidas has with people around Muhammad didn’t factor into his decision to attend a Pac-12 school coming off a disappointing season highlighted by controversy. I mean, adidas has sponsored Muhammad’s summer team (Dream Vision) for years, and his tennis-playing sister (Asia Muhammad) has an adidas contract even though she’s ranked outside the top 375 in the world. This stuff has to matter on some level, you know?"

Still, let’s pretend this didn’t exist, because UCLA fans are euphoric right now. Including yours truly.

Twitter.

It’s true: UNLV fans hate Shabazz. I spoke to an old friend from forever ago from when I grew up there, and he had no problem hating Shabazz’s guts, calling him a “b*tch” non-stop. U MAD, BRO?