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  • Alexander: Chargers disappoint a crowd that was pretty much all theirs

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Charger fans cheer during the second half at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. The Houston Texans defeated the Chargers 20-16 in a National Football League (NFL) game. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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INGLEWOOD – Saturday’s game against the Houston Texans was the Chargers’ final home game of the 2025 regular season, and – belying the reputation attached to this franchise – the announced paid attendance of 73,066 represented a true home field advantage.

It didn’t help. And now the chances are that this might be the Chargers’ last SoFi Stadium appearance of the season.

Two quick strikes in the first six minutes of the game by Houston quarterback (and Rancho Cucamonga’s own) C.J. Stroud, touchdown plays of 75 and 43 yards to Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, put the home team on its back foot. And a myriad of miscues – including an uncharacteristic two missed kicks by the Chargers’ Cameron Dicker, on a 32-yard field goal try that went wide right near the end of the first half and an extra point that he doinked off the left goalpost – helped produce a 20-16 loss that put any chance for a division title out of reach.

At 11-5, they’re two games behind Denver with one left to play. And with the No. 7 spot in the AFC standings seemingly theirs unless they win at Denver next week and the Texans (also 11-5) stumble at Indianapolis, chances are their first playoff game will be at New England, 12-3 and facing the woeful Jets (3-12) Sunday on the road and Miami (6-9) next week at home.

In a word: B-r-r-r-r-r-r.  Have your parkas ready, guys.

It’s easy to be pessimistic and assume the Chargers’ story will be one-and-out, given the team’s history. It’s up to the current club, which had won seven of eight before Saturday, to change that narrative. Maybe next week’s regular season finale in Denver will turn out to be far more important than it seems at this moment.

And yes, the tone (and verbiage) in the locker room, as expressed by quarterback Justin Herbert, is what you might expect.

“It’s been a one-game season each week,” he said. “Every game is the most important, and you dive into it and you give it your all each week. And I’ve got no doubt that this team will do that again next week.”

And, when asked if the regular season finale is vital in regaining momentum to take into the postseason:

“Every game is important, especially that one, because it’s the next one. They’re a very good opponent. We know how good they are offensively, defensively and on special teams. And so it’s gonna take a good week of preparation for us. We gotta be on our stuff, dialed, locked in and have a good week of practice.”

The hometown crowd was boisterous as the afternoon began, hushed after those back-to-back daggers on the Texans’ first two series made it 14-0, and noisy again as the Chargers fought back to within 17-10 in the third quarter and trailed 20-16 with 3:37 left in the game on Omarion Hampton’s burst into the end zone, before Dicker’s doink put them out of range of a potential tying field goal.

Beyond those two defensive blemishes at the start, the Chargers were 2 for 5 in the red zone, The other touchdown was a 1-yard scoring reception by Oronde Gadsden in the third quarter, sort of atoning for the Herbert bullet that slipped through his hands and was picked off by Houston’s Azeez Al-Shaair at the Texans 1.

That pick was one of the three missed red zone opportunities. The others: Dicker’s made field goal early in the second quarter, settling for three rather than a chance at seven after the Chargers had gotten to the Houston 9, and that missed field goal at the very end of the first half, after Eric Molten had made up for Gadsden’s muff by intercepting Stroud at the Houston 32 with 45 seconds left in the half.

“We know what we’re capable of,” coach Jim Harbaugh said. “But yeah, things that were just off a little bit. (There’s) things to clean up and make us better going forward.”

Yeah, there was plenty to clean up.

Besides Dicker’s issues, punter JK Scott had an off day as well, a 38.4 average on seven punts including a 22-yard shank early in the third quarter, leading to a field goal that gave Houston a 17-3 lead. There was also a 34-yarder early in the fourth quarter, and after that one Scott heard some boos.

Saturday’s result, and the way it developed, “definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” safety Derwin James Jr. said. “But at the end of the day, our end goal’s still right there, winning that Super Bowl. So, just get better from it, look at the film, get better. You’re not going to beat nobody in this league spotting them 14, so you got to go out there and play hard.”

True progress will be determined from here on. And, as noted, in all likelihood it’ll take place away from SoFi.  But the crowd and atmosphere on this day suggested that the Chargers’ fan base need not apologize to anyone.

Fact is – and yes, this might hurt if you were a fan in San Diego and felt that the team was ripped away from you – if you squinted real hard Saturday it might have seemed like the atmosphere of the good old days at Qualcomm Stadium, right down to the navy blue throwbacks the home team wore.

This was so different from all those occasions the last few years when visiting fans have made the most noise in this building, both for the Chargers and for the Rams. That was, and is, the consequence of two decades without the NFL in this community.

“Thought it was awesome,” Herbert said, adding that with “the environment and how much the community has given us, I think it’s really cool to be able to see that from the fans. And I’m sorry that we didn’t get it done for them. We felt their support, felt their noise, but it was a cool experience to see so many Chargers fans.

“… It’s on us to be able to deliver and give them a performance that is worthy of their support.”

That process starts now, even if it figures to be from long distance.

jalexander@scng.com

Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: An impressive performance in many ways puts Chargers at 3-0

    INGLEWOOD – So, what was the most impressive aspect of the Chargers’ 23-20 victory over Denver Sunday? There were plenty of candidates.

    • They saved their best for the end, rallying from deficits of 17-10 and 20-13 and winning on Cameron Dicker’s 43-yard field goal as time expired.

    • Keenan Allen, back with the franchise with which he made his NFL reputation, provided the tying score by outdueling Denver’s Riley Moss in the end zone on a second-and-6 play with 2:31 left, setting up that game-winning scenario.

    • Justin Herbert – who fired that touchdown pass and said he never saw the outcome because he was on the ground – spent his afternoon either getting hit or throwing on the run and still threw for 300 yards despite being sacked five times.

    • The Chargers won despite sustaining more hits, with running back Najee Harris helped off the field late in the first half with what was later described by coach Jim Harbaugh as an Achilles injury. Also, right guard Mekhi Becton Sr. went off with a concussion, further scrambling an offensive line that lost Pro Bowl left tackle Rashawn Slater to a season-ending patellar tendon injury in training camp.

    Then again, there’s the 3-0 start, their first since 2002 in San Diego. Is it that, or the way this particular 3-0 has been achieved?

    Those ’02 Chargers, in Marty Schottenheimer’s first season as coach, started 4-0 and were 6-1 but ended up 8-8 and out of the playoffs. These Chargers have gone 3-0 against Kansas City, Las Vegas and Denver – which means, for the moment, they’re kings of the AFC West. That doesn’t mean a division championship or even a postseason berth is a lock, not with just three weeks gone in an 18-week grind.

    “You can’t go 4-0 unless you go 3-0,” Harbaugh said.

    But they have a leg up in the division, and that could be meaningful by season’s end. And the reverberations might be felt most in their own locker room, as a still-developing team processes the lessons it’s learning along the way.

    “You know, not all games are going to be easy,” Herbert said. “I think we stuck through it and understood the situation: ‘You know, we’re losing at the current moment. But this time down is an opportunity for us to get back out there.’ And the offense took the field, and we knew that we have one job – to go move the ball and go score. And that’s exactly what we did. Defense got the ball back, and they came up with some huge stops all day. And then special teams closed it out.”

    All three phases, right?

    Bottom line: As long as there are ticks left on the clock and a manageable deficit, it’s never too late. Consider: After Denver went ahead 20-13 with 12:21 left in the game on Wil Lutz’s chip-shot field goal, the Chargers’ defense held the Broncos to 19 yards on their last two possessions. Their offense punted on its first possession after the field goal, but drove 76 yards in seven plays to Allen’s touchdown and 43 yards in eight plays and 1:43 to Dicker’s final field goal.

    “Just kept running,” Allen said. “O-line stepped up big time. The young guys, OG (Oronde Gadsden, a tight end who had two of his five catches to start the last drive), Omarion (Hampton,  a rookie running back who had 70 rushing yards on the day and two key carries in that drive) coming through, Ladd (McConkey) coming through with the catch (a 12-yard gain on second-and-13) at the end.

    “Just keep playing. I think that’s what it came down to. Keep on fighting. Didn’t flinch, didn’t lay down. And, you know, we feel like we still had a chance to win.”

    That was Allen’s personal thought process, as well. Early on Sunday, he said, “I just felt like it just wasn’t happening. He was throwing it to me, (but) for whatever reason, we just wasn’t completing the pass. But I just kept telling myself to stay in the game. You know, don’t get frustrated. Just keep fighting. Keep going. And when it’s time, show up.”

    He did. Six of his seven receptions on the day came in the fourth quarter, three on the touchdown drive and another where he gained nine yards and got out of bounds to stop the clock with 53 seconds left en route to the winning field goal.

    The touchdown play was an indisputable highlight. Herbert was scrambling again, evading defensive end Zach Allen and slinging it right-handed from the 25-yard line while running to his left, just before linebacker Nik Bonitto drove him to the ground. Allen caught it while diving to his right, away from Moss.

    “I’d love to go see it on film,” McConkey said. “But from my angle, I mean, not many people can do that. Great catch, great throw, scrambling. It was an all-around great play.”

    And maybe it’s poetic justice for Allen to again be a hero in Charger blue. He broke in with San Diego in 2013, was one of Philip Rivers’ favorite targets for a long time and then Herbert’s, and after Sunday’s performance, his numbers as a Charger read 923 catches, 10,724 yards and 62 touchdowns in 11 full seasons plus the first three games of this one.

    Allen was traded to Chicago last season in a salary cap-related move. Bringing him back this year on a one-year contract could turn out to be an inspired decision.

    “He’s one of the best ever to do it,” Herbert said. “And we’re so lucky to have him on our team, as a leader, as a teammate and as a receiver. He finds a way to get open, and you know that’s what he’s done over his career. You know especially (Sunday), it’s tough coverage. They played really well. They have a really good defense. We had to pick our battles, and Keenan just kept making plays when we needed them.”

    Their hope? There’s more where that came from.

    jalexander@scng.com

    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: It’s a long, hard road back for UCLA football

    Alexander: It’s a long, hard road back for UCLA football

    PASADENA – Do you get the sense that there are times when UCLA’s athletic administrators ask each other, “What on earth did we get ourselves into?”

    Maybe that moment actually arrived Saturday night at the Rose Bowl.

    Rebuilds are hard. Rebuilds when embarking on a transition to another, seemingly more rugged conference, can be excruciating. And UCLA football is not only in a rebuild, but it may have to hit bottom before starting upward.

    Let’s see: The Bruins began the DeShaun Foster era by barely beating Hawaii, getting routed by new conference foe Indiana – which is, incidentally, now 5-0 and shares the Big Ten lead with Michigan at 2-0 –and incurring one of those valiant, gutty lil’ Bruin-type losses at Louisiana State, against a team that’s now 4-1 and ranked 14th.

    Saturday night they faced No. 8 Oregon, an old/new conference foe, and the Bruins’ first Big Ten After Dark experience went pretty much as expected. The Ducks were favored over UCLA by 25½, had a 28-3 lead with 2:25 before halftime and cruised from there to a methodical 34-13 victory. Big Ten, Pac-12, what’s the difference?

    Worse, the fans voted with their feet Saturday night. Large numbers of fans had lost interest in UCLA football under Chip Kelly, and the program had enjoyed an early resurgence of interest under Foster. But the huge tarps still cover six large sections of seats at each end of the Rose Bowl. Saturday night’s attendance was announced as 43,051, and most of the uncovered seats were at least full at the beginning of the night.

    But by the time the second half began more than half of those seats had been vacated. The new student seats, the standing safe sections located behind the visitor’s bench that were supposed to provide the Bruins a home field edge, were full at the start – for the first home game since classes resumed – but largely empty by the fourth quarter.

    And how many of those fans walked away muttering “Same old Bruins?”

    Quarterback Ethan Garbers threw for only 118 yards, had two interceptions and four sacks, and came out with a little more than nine minutes to play after taking a hard hit and sitting up holding the back of his head.

    “I saw him in the locker room after the game, and I told him that as the leader of the offensive line, we need to figure this out,” guard Josh Carlin said. “We need to keep him up. We failed on that, miserably. And we got to start taking pride and not let him get hurt and not let him get touched so he can operate this offense … We just need to continue to get better and, figure out, as soon as possible what we need to do to protect Garbs.”

    While the Bruins offensive line couldn’t protect its quarterback, the Bruins’ defense couldn’t get to the other guys’ quarterback. Dillon Gabriel, the latest Ducks’ transfer quarterback – or, if you will, hired gun – threw for 280 yards and three touchdowns, including a 52-yard scoring strike to Taz Johnson to make it 25-3 in the second quarter.

    Oregon outgained UCLA 433-172, and that’s a pretty accurate picture of the evening.

    Will it get better? Not for a while. Next week UCLA (1-3, 0-2 in conference) plays at No. 9 Penn State (4-0, 1-0) in State College, Pa. The week after, Minnesota (2-3, 0-2) comes to the Rose Bowl, and that could be the Bruins’ best shot at a victory the rest of the way. From there, they play at Rutgers (4-0, 1-0), at Nebraska (4-1, 1-1), at home against Iowa (3-1, 1-0), at Washington (3-2, 1-1), and then No. 13 USC (3-1, 1-1) and Fresno State (3-2, 1-1) in the Rose Bowl. By the time the Bulldogs from the Mountain West (and soon the reconstituted Pac-12) get to Pasadena, these Bruins may be throughly beaten down.

    Just imagine if they’d had Michigan or Ohio State on their initial Big Ten schedule.

    Right now Foster’s biggest chore may be to keep his players believing that times will get better. The most dynamic Bruins plays of the night were one that counted and one that didn’t. Bryan Addison returned an interception 94 yards for a touchdown right before halftime to cut Oregon’s lead to 28-10, while Oluwafemi Oladejo’s 72-yard runback of a fumble recovery early in the fourth quarter was wiped out when Kain Medrano was penalized for a horse collar tackle.

    Three plays later, Gabriel threw his third touchdown pass of the night, and his second to Johnson.

    “We’re gonna learn from these losses,” Foster said. “I know I see it. I know ya’ll see it. Some of you choose not to, but they’re improving. We’re just going to continue to improve, and to work hard … I mean, they should be down. Nobody should be excited about what happened. The fact that they’re still out there playing, when (the score’s) a little bit lopsided and they’re still out there playing hard, that just shows their character. We got some good dudes.

    “Eventually this is gonna turn around.”

    But it’s going to take a while.

    jalexander@scng.com

    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: Will standing pat be enough for Lakers?

    Alexander: Will standing pat be enough for Lakers?

    The Lakers stood pat roster-wise this summer, bringing back the group that had to come out of the play-in round again last spring and then got bounced in the first round by Denver.

    Is this wise? (Fans, don’t all shout “NO!” at once.)

    Vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka is essentially gambling that a new coaching staff and heightened player development emphasis will lift a team that hasn’t finished above seventh in the Western Conference the last four years and hasn’t reached 50 victories since the championship season of 2019-20.

    He’s assuming, basically, that the run to the conference finals two years ago was an indicator and not an outlier, and that this roster is better than play-in level.

    Oh, and LeBron James turns 40 at the end of December.

    Is this “sustainable Lakers excellence?” That’s the term Pelinka used during his media availability with new coach JJ Redick last week, supposedly the base line – or, if you prefer, buzz words – for achievement in an organization that won its 17th title in ’20 but has spent a good portion of the last three seasons on the edges of the wilderness.

    And by the way, their historic rivals in Boston will hang banner No. 18 in a few weeks. The pursuit of the guys in green, which has characterized much of this franchise’s 64-season existence in Los Angeles, is back on.

    The pressure, from a fan base accustomed to superstars and championships and memorable moments? That never went away.

    This summer’s major overhaul is on the sideline, and it remains to be seen how the switch from Darvin Ham to Redick, a first-time coach, impacts winning and losing. The new guy will have two former NBA head coaches beside him, which should help: Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks, along with Bob Beyer, an NBA assistant for 17 seasons (including stints in Orlando and New Orleans when Redick played for those teams).

    The other assistants all have extensive player development backgrounds, and that should be a clue as to where this project is headed. They include Greg St. Jean, who was on Frank Vogel’s staff here and more recently on Vogel’s staff in Phoenix; former WNBA player Lindsey Harding, the Lakers’ first female coach (and the G League Coach of the Year last year as head coach of the Sacramento Kings’ affiliate in Stockton); and Beau Levesque, who was on the Clippers’ staff the past four years as a player development coordinator.

    Zach Guthrie was hired to coach the G League’s South Bay Lakers, and Redick considers him “an extension of our coaching staff” and is anticipating closer integration between the teams that share a practice facility. Ty Abbott, who crossed paths with Redick in Philly in 2018-19, was hired in August as the lead player development coach.

    For the record, Abbott most recently was in Chicago, where he worked with the Bulls’ Zach LaVine, the former UCLA Bruin who just happens to be the subject of trade rumors involving the Lakers – or at least trade fantasies from some Laker fans.

    And no, before you say it or even think it, all of those player development coaches won’t necessarily be ganging up on Bronny James. Not all at once, anyway.

    But this does signal a serious Lakers commitment to developing their own, which makes sense with a roster led by LeBron and Anthony Davis, who turns 32 in March. Who, if any, from among the group of young hopefuls (Bronny, Max Christie, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Dalton Knecht, Maxwell Lewis, Colin Castleton, etc.) will step forward?

    “I think to win now, in today’s NBA, you need seven or eight players that really impact winning – and it doesn’t mean seven or eight superstars that need the ball in their hands,” Redick said Wednesday, going on to mention Christie, a third-year player from Michigan State, and Hood-Schifino, a second-year guy from Indiana, as potentially part of that mix eventually.

    Remember, though, Hood-Schifino was drafted 17th in 2023 and played 21 games for the big Lakers and 15 for South Bay before back surgery ended his season. The players drafted right after him, UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. by Miami and Santa Clara’s Brandin Podziemski by Golden State, had immediate NBA impacts.

    Pelinka, during Wednesday’s press conference, noted that “every GM has made a trade that they say, ‘Ah, maybe that one wasn’t ideal.” That applies to draft picks, too. For his sake, 2024 first-rounder Knecht had better be more productive.

    Right now, if you had to pick Redick’s “seven or eight” players who need to impact winning, start with LeBron and A.D. and add Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura, Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent. Vanderbilt provided defense and rebounding at power forward after the Lakers got him at the trade deadline in 2023, but he was limited last year because of injuries to both feet. He had procedures done on both during the summer, and he will not be active at the start of training camp.

    Vincent, the former UC Santa Barbara star signed last summer from the Heat, played just 11 games before knee surgery. He’ll be ready for camp this week, as will Hood-Schifino and Hachimura (a calf injury, suffered while playing for Japan at the Paris Olympics). Christian Wood will miss the start of camp recovering from a cleanup procedure on his knee.

    Pelinka’s reasoning for not making any major moves was that this was the nucleus of the team that rallied from a 2-10 start to get to the 2023 conference finals. What he didn’t say, but what we all see, is (a) that team had to go 18-7 from Feb. 15 on just to get into the play-in round, and (b) the key parts of that roster are two years older, with the wear and tear that goes with it.

    That “sustainable Lakers excellence” line was what Pelinka came up with when asked what it would take to part with the team’s two biggest trade chips, first-round picks in 2029 and either ’30 or ’31. He said he would use one of those picks “to make a marginal upgrade if we felt like it was the right thing to do.”

    True, it is harder to upgrade because of the league’s more restrictive salary cap system. The Lakers are right up against it, some $61.9 million over the cap according to Spotrac and $45,001 under the second apron maximum.

    But while standing pat might have been their best (or only) option right now, it doesn’t pacify a demanding public. It certainly doesn’t set up any sustained excellence, especially as LeBron’s career winds down and A.D.’s is on the back side.

    Mainly, Pelinka is betting on health. I think we’ve seen in another Los Angeles sports venue how perilous that can be. And given that he has two years remaining on his own contract, that’s an awfully gutsy risk.

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    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: Will Padres series prepare Dodgers for what’s to come?

    Alexander: Will Padres series prepare Dodgers for what’s to come?

    Or are they setting themselves up for another October fall after dropping the opener of a three-game showdown against a Padres team that looked spirited, energetic and younger?

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    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: Dodgers are rolling again, but it’s all about October

    Alexander: Dodgers are rolling again, but it’s all about October

    LOS ANGELES — Last weekend’s series at Yankee Stadium featured a playoff atmosphere, and the Dodgers responded with playoff intensity and won two out of three from the team with baseball’s best record.

    And I’m sure, Dodger fans, that plenty of you watched that series and asked yourselves, “Where was that the last couple of Octobers?”

    That is the irritant among the fan base, and that discomfort will remain until it’s eradicated by a full-season championship. And so Manager Dave Roberts was asked Tuesday if those type of performances – and, not incidentally, that type of mental edge – could be sustainable beyond one weekend in the Bronx.

    “You know, I think you can,” Roberts said. “But it’s just not going to show every night. Baseball is so difficult and so up and down. So the hope is that you can. But looking at however many more games we have, there’s going to be some duds in there. And that’s just inevitable for any ballclub.”

    The trick is to keep the duds to a minimum. Even so, I’m not sure that’s the answer the public wants to hear, as truthful and logical as it is. Baseball people understand that it’s a long season, and the object is to handle the grind, put themselves in position for the postseason and reach a crescendo when they get there.

    The fan, more often than not, lives day to day. Slumps such as the couple the Dodgers have already faced this year – seven losses in nine games in April, when they averaged just under four runs per game, and a five-game losing streak in late May when they scored 2.2 runs per game – lead to near-panic among those who care, along with shouts of “Do something!”

    It’s a baseball truism. When a team isn’t hitting, it looks like it lacks energy.

    “I know, it’s like kind of cliché, but it’s ebbs and flows of the season,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said Tuesday night after the Dodgers had pummeled the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers, 15-2, hitting four homers and scoring seven times in the sixth inning.

    “We’re going to go through stretches where you just don’t get the hits when you need to. And, the last few weeks we’ve been getting the hits. I’m sure you might ask us (about generating runs) here in a month again. You know, that’s just kind of how it goes throughout the course of the year. But in Pittsburgh (mid-week last week), you could see … just better at-bats, quality at-bats. And for about 10 to 12 days now we’ve been putting together good at-bats, and it kind of carries over to hits.”

    It’s possible to limit those dry spells, Roberts said, “by just competing.” He pointed to Gavin Lux, who came into Tuesday night’s game hitting .216 with a .560 OPS but had two hits, a grounder off the first base bag in the fourth after fouling off three two-strike pitches, and an RBI single in the fifth.

    “I thought he competed tonight and he got results,” Roberts said. “But there’s some at-bats, I just don’t see our guys competing the way they’re capable of doing. You’re not going to have your ‘A’ swing every night. But you should have compete. And I saw that tonight. And I’ve seen that the last four or five games.”

    And so we go back to the last two Octobers. In 2022 San Diego upended the 111-win Dodgers in four games in a National League Division Series. Last year, the Dodgers won 100 games in the regular season and were swept by Arizona, scoring six runs in three games.

    (Again: When you have trouble scoring, you look anemic, period.)

    You think the rest of baseball doesn’t love it? Consider the reaction of one anonymous player to a survey by The Athletic, on the question of whether the Dodgers’ offseason spending spree was good or bad for the sport.

    “That’s what makes baseball beautiful. Those guys spend $1 billion and will still get swept in the first round.”

    Ouch.

    While today’s Dodgers are again comfortably ahead in the NL West, with a 7½-game lead going into Wednesday’s play, they’re also a flawed team, benefiting from a mediocre division and, to be honest, a National League with only five teams over .500.

    The Dodgers’ batting order is top-heavy, the six through nine slots have often been unproductive this season, and Chris Taylor (.102 batting average) and Kiké Hernandez (.207) have been drags on the lineup.

    The Mookie Betts shortstop experiment has had its shaky moments, and Freeman saved Betts from another throwing error Tuesday night on Adolis Garcia’s first-inning grounder. Max Muncy’s oblique injury has removed a potent bat, which has had an effect on the bottom of the lineup, and there remains no timetable as to his return.

    So for a team with a $308 million Opening Day payroll, they’ve got quite the shopping list leading up to the July 30 trade deadline. Among the targets: Another bat to shore up the bottom of the lineup, one or more bullpen arms and maybe another starting pitcher, and quite possibly a shortstop to allow Betts to at least move to second.

    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: There is closure, but Shohei Ohtani never acted distracted

    Alexander: There is closure, but Shohei Ohtani never acted distracted

    LOS ANGELES — It’s overly simplistic to talk about “distractions” in discussing sports, and wins and losses, and individual performance. Yet we do it all the time.

    So, under the circumstances of the last three weeks, when the stresses already inherent in Shohei Ohtani’s debut with the Dodgers, with a big contract and high expectations, were overlaid with a sports betting scandal involving his interpreter … oh, my, did us amateur psychologists have a field day.

    There’s a reason we’re amateur psychologists.

    Thursday provided some closure, when federal investigators unveiled the case against Ippei Mizuhara, revealing that the man Ohtani trusted so intimately allegedly stole him blind, to the tune of $16 million, to handle his own gambling losses with an illegal bookmaker. Not only was Ohtani not involved in gambling, but the unsealed indictment revealed that between 2021 and ’23 Mizuhara controlled the bank account into which Ohtani’s Angels salary was directly deposited, and Ohtani’s agent and financial people had no access and apparently no knowledge of what was happening.

    How many of us could handle such revelations? Basically, Ohtani was revealed in the indictment as merely being way too trusting, and the early reports that he was a victim of “massive fraud,” shortly after the story broke when the team was in South Korea to open the season, were backed up when the feds revealed the details.

    Wouldn’t being scammed – which is basically what this was – throw you off your game?

    But here’s the thing: It didn’t throw Ohtani off his. He might have gotten off to a slow start, by his standards, but if there was any indication that he has risen above whatever the outside world might throw at him, consider this most recent stretch of games.

    In Friday night’s 8-7, 11-inning loss to San Diego, Ohtani was 3 for 5 with two doubles and a massive home run in his first at-bat, a 403-foot, 107.3 mph missile deep into the left field pavilion that tied Hideki Matsui’s MLB record for Japanese-born players (175). That continued a stretch of seven games of Hall of Fame-caliber hitting dating to the end of the previous homestand and his first home run as a Dodger on April 3 against San Francisco: A .457 batting average, eight runs scored, four RBIs, four homers, five doubles, a 1.057 slugging percentage and a 1.620 OPS.

    For the season through Friday, he’d raised his OPS to .979. His first eight games weren’t so much a slump as, well, slightly under Ohtanian expectations.

    But it wasn’t like he’d suddenly snapped to attention and realized that he’d better focus. He does nothing but focus when he’s on the field, with maybe the odd exception when he’s running the bases.

    He does not play like a distracted player. By all appearances, he does not allow himself to be distracted, which is why he parries the questions about the firestorm involving his now former interpreter. He answered a question from the Los Angeles Times before Friday night’s game that ended with the words, “I’d like to focus on baseball.” And when another interviewer after the game brought up the subject of the charges against Mizuhara, current interpreter Will Ireton said, “We’re (only) talking about baseball.”

    His manager, Dave Roberts – whose Dodgers franchise record for home runs by a Japanese-born player, seven, should fall to Ohtani some time in the coming weeks, and at this rate maybe the next couple of days – is impressed by the emotional consistency of his new superstar.

    “Unflappable,” is how Roberts described it. “He’s just very stoic. You don’t know his emotions He just kind of comes in every day the same, and you’d never know if things are good or things are bad or stuff (is) on his mind. He’s a pro. He just wants to play baseball.”

    And, Roberts added after Friday’s game, “He’s playing great baseball. He’s got that look in his eye, like he wants to be at the plate. And he’s just taking really good swings, hitting everything hard … I just marvel at what he’s done each day in his preparation, and just the talent is something that’s pretty remarkable.”

    Under the circumstances, remarkable may not even be an adequate description.

    “He’s handled it with flying colors,” Roberts said. “He’s done a great job of just focusing on baseball and not letting it be a distraction for him. And our guys, as well, have handled it really well as far as that noise and not letting it affect their play. … Guys are pretty in tune with what’s going on, but it hasn’t affected the clubhouse or how we play.”

    It has been a hallmark of these Dodger teams, particularly since Roberts became manager in 2016, that the clubhouse is unified and inclusive, with a number of strong veteran leaders setting the tone. When those leaders depart for whatever reason, others take up the mantle.

    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: JuJu Watkins will lead the next generation of women’s basketball

    Alexander: JuJu Watkins will lead the next generation of women’s basketball

    LOS ANGELES — To really understand the impact JuJu Watkins has had on USC women’s basketball in just a few short months, consider the concession stands.

    No, seriously.

    A year ago, the Women of Troy played and defeated Oregon at home on a mid-February Friday night – a T-shirt giveaway, no less – and drew 1,126 fans, and my search for an open snack bar at the Galen Center was truly a search – one on the lower level just happened to be open. Smaller crowds, fewer concession staffers needed, right?

    Sunday afternoon, when USC played Utah – and Watkins broke the school record for 30-point games in a 74-68 loss to the Utes – there were 7,129 in the house, food stands were fully stocked and staffed … and lots of those in attendance were little girls waving signs, boys and girls – and adults – wearing JuJu jerseys, and certified basketball royalty in the courtside seats.

    Yes, Cheryl Miller has four season tickets directly across from the USC bench. The fulcrum of the school’s two NCAA championship teams in 1983 and ’84 – and indisputably the greatest player of her era – is prominent in her presence and one of a number of program alumni encouraged to come back by head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and lead assistant Beth Burns.

    They may have been attracted because they’re loyal alums, but they’re mainly there because of JuJu.

    This is a prime era for women’s college basketball, with more televised games, more attention, and as Gottlieb noted in a phone conversation this week, more investment in the women’s game than ever before. On the other side of the country, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has set the NCAA Division I women’s career scoring record and is creating a nice living for scalpers wherever the Hawkeyes go. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and LSU’s Angel Reese are among others who have taken advantage of the attention.

    But JuJu is the vanguard of the next generation of superstars. More significantly, she’s an L.A. kid who, rather than migrating to one of the sport’s established powers to chase a championship, opted to stay home and help build something.

    The amazing thing is that for all of the attention she gets here – including the throngs of well-wishers and autograph seekers who wait for her to come out of the Galen Center after home games – she’s a well-kept secret nationally so far. USC has played only two national TV games this season and most of its exposure has come from the Pac-12 Network, meaning a large swath of the country only sees JuJu highlights on SportsCenter or YouTube.

    There are plenty of highlights. Going into USC’s Thursday night game at Arizona, she has a school-record 12 30-point games (eclipsing Miller’s 10 in a season), a single-game school record 51 points in a victory at Stanford, three Pac-12 Player of the Week awards and 13 conference Freshman of the Week honors.

    Watkins leads the Pac-12 in scoring (28.2) and is 10th in rebounding (7.0), third in free-throw percentage (.861), third in steals per game (2.64), seventh in blocked shots (1.64) and seventh in minutes played (34.01). Nationally, she’s second in scoring to Iowa’s Clark (at 32.1 a game) and is 35th in free-throw percentage and 27th in steals per game.

    She is a 94-foot player, a potential difference maker at both ends of the floor with a significant skill set.

    “It’s been fun to watch JuJu,” Elise Woodward, a former player at Washington and now a broadcaster for ESPN and the Pac-12 Network, messaged on the Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.

    “JuJu has elite body control that is world class. The way she can elevate so quickly to get her jump shot off even with the defender close is special. The ability to change pace and tempo to freeze defenders, even when they have good position, and then explode by them, allows her to get easier looks in the paint than most other players. And when she misses, she pursues her own rebounds with a vengeance and her body control allows her to grab rebounds in tight spaces without fouling.

    “She is a shot maker at all three levels, with the height of a forward but the skills of a point guard.”

    And she seems to have accepted the responsibility of lifting the performances of those around her.

    “We have a really good team and we have other good players around her, but she was put in a situation where she’s had to shoulder the load from Day One, whereas some of those other players walk onto a top 10 team, a top 15 team,” Gottlieb said. “She’s all over the floor impacting the game in a lot of different ways. … I think the threat of her being able to drop 40 at any time affects game plans, which opens things up for other people.

    “She raises the level of play of those around her. I mean, she’s a complete player that most importantly has impacted winning. And I think for a young player to come in and have individual success, but more importantly lift the team is, I think, her greatest accomplishment.”

    The legend and the up-and-comer haven’t interacted a lot – “maybe 10 minutes, max,” Miller said – but there’s a link, given the expectations when Cheryl arrived at USC. The legend’s advice: Give JuJu time.

    “You know, Caitlin wasn’t Caitlin until her last two seasons,” Miller said. “Everything looks great on paper. Everything looks great for right now. But let’s see where she elevates her team. … Her junior and senior years, she’ll pretty much have it figured out. But right now a lot of that falls on Lindsay’s shoulders. You want JuJu to be JuJu, and that’s a fine line. Lindsay’s got to say, ‘Hey I’ve got to keep those reins a little tight. I’ll have them a little loose. But I have to be able to reel her in.’”

    The parallels? When Miller got to USC, she had a respected coach in Linda Sharp – “Anything she told me to do, I never rolled my eyes because I knew she had my best interests at heart,” she said – and two strong veteran teammates in twins Pam and Paula McGee. If she strayed, she heard about it.

    “I needed that, too,” she said, “because you can’t help when you’re coming in with all of that attention and all of the accolades to somehow think, yeah, you are the center of the universe. And then you find out very quickly you’re not.”

    It is a different environment now, of course.

    Miller said she’s impressed that JuJu understands that all of those little girls are looking up to her and that she has an opportunity, and responsibility, to set an example, be it in interviews, one-on-one interactions or social media posts.

    “She has an incredible following,” Gottlieb said. “I think the diversity of it is really interesting. It’s boys. It’s girls. It’s older, it’s younger. It’s just – it’s cool to have a JuJu jersey. It’s cool to be a fan here now. But also I think it speaks to JuJu and her family understanding the bigger picture. … it’s JuJu who wants to spend the time and interact with people. And I think she understands her place in all of this, you know, maybe beyond her years.”

    Gottlieb mentioned a road game at Colorado where the players were already on the bus, ready to leave for the airport, when an assistant coach saw a little girl waiting for Watkins.

    “He came on the bus and said, ‘Hey, JuJu, would you come out and sign for her?’ ” Gottlieb said. “And she said of course. She comes out, and as soon as she’s signing for the one kid, 50 other people started running down a hill to come to her. And we’re like, ‘Oh, man, we didn’t know we were opening her up to that.’

    “But this is what we’re starting to see, and I only think it’s going to grow from here.”

    If the JuJu Phenomenon does become the hottest ticket from coast to coast, it will only be positive for a sport that is beginning to hit its stride in the public consciousness – and, with the success of USC and UCLA, establishing a beachhead in the nation’s second-largest market.

    For years, the star stories have been concentrated in Storrs, Conn., Knoxville, Tenn., and more recently in such far-flung outposts as Eugene, Iowa City and Baton Rouge.

    “People used L.A. in some ways as a negative, like, ‘Oh, you know, women’s college basketball can’t be big in L.A. because there’s too many other things going on,’” Gottlieb said. “Or, historically, the L.A. schools haven’t drawn crowds. And I think she’s turned that narrative on its head, because L.A. loves winners and L.A. loves a show, and there’s no bigger winner or no bigger show than JuJu right now.”

    Jim Alexander

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  • Alexander: UCLA ‘humbled’ by USC, but will it matter?

    Alexander: UCLA ‘humbled’ by USC, but will it matter?

    LOS ANGELES – It is hard to imagine a team not showing up energized and focused for a rivalry game. Especially a team that had more to play for.

    But that six-game winning streak UCLA compiled before losing at the buzzer to Utah last week? That’s old news, getting smaller in the rear view mirror.

    The chance of getting back to the NCAA Tournament, and giving Mick Cronin his 12th straight trip to March Madness (if you forgive 2020, when there was no tournament because of COVID-19)? It’s hanging by the skinniest of threads. USC, which played its way out of contention for an at-large bid weeks ago, likely extinguished it’s rival’s at-large hopes as well Saturday night with a 62-56 decision at Pauley Pavilion that was a lot more convincing than the final score looked.

    “There’s only one way we can make the tournament,” he said. “You gotta win the conference tournament, by my math.”

    But that might have been the least of his worries, following a discouraging loss and the attitudes during the week of practice that led up to it.

    “It’s a simple game – the team that plays harder usually wins,” Cronin said. “They played much harder than us. They were more physical. They had humility. They came in here looking for redemption. We had no humility. Show me somebody that’s not humble, and I’ll show you somebody getting ready to get humbled.

    “We had our worst week of practice of the season. I failed miserably to get my team ready for the fight that was coming today. And I’m thoroughly embarrassed. I apologize to the people wearing the four letters. Yes, we really struggled making open shots, but that has nothing to do with all the stuff I talked about. The team that wins the fight usually wins the game, and they won the fight in every way. We were awful.”

    Exhibit A: Cronin noted that the top priority listed on the locker room board before the game was to put the clamps on the Trojans’ Boogie Ellis.

    “Do not let him shoot,” Cronin said. “Make somebody else beat us. How’d that work?”

    Ellis had 18 points at halftime, on 6-for-10 shooting and 3 for 5 from 3-point country. He finished with 24. Meanwhile, UCLA’s guards were 5 for 17 from the field in the first half, 7 for 35 for the game with 11 turnovers. And after using a 15-1 run at the end of the first half to tie the game 34-34, UCLA didn’t score a point for the first 7:15 of the second half to fall back again.

    “We missed our first five shots (after halftime), so we just came out flat with no energy,” Adem Bona said.

    The 15-1 run was, Cronin said, the only time during the game he felt his team played hard. Otherwise, “We let them run whatever they wanted to run. We took nothing away from them.”

    The signs evidently were there in the days leading up to the game, and Cronin seemed befuddled that he had to “put guys on the treadmill, yell and scream and run my team the day before you’re playing your rival in front of your biggest crowd of the season … I should have to calm them down.”

    Would this be the sort of experience that might get his players’ attention for the final four regular season games and the conference tournament? Maybe. Maybe not.

    “You would assume they’re extremely humble” after a loss like that, Cronin said, adding that he didn’t expect them to take it as hard as he did.

    “I’m not going to talk to anybody tonight,” he said. “I’m going to hate myself, the job I did. The only person I’m talking to tonight is my dog, okay? And that’s it. I have a recruit in town, so somehow I have to rally tomorrow.

    Jim Alexander

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