It must feel good to live in California this week.
Sean Lampley lives in California, and he just became the California Golden Bears’ all-time leading scorer this weekend. Oh, and his team is virtually a lock to play in the NCAA Tournament in a few weeks.
Mike Montgomery lives in California, and he has his Stanford Cardinal just four wins from a one-loss season. Barring a major mishap, the top-ranked Cardinal will be a No. 1 seed in March Madness for the second year in a row.
David Bluthenthal lives in California, and he scored 29 points to lead his Southern California team to a crucial road win over Oregon Saturday night. The victory moved the Trojans one step closer to being the Pacific-10 Conference’s fifth representative in the NCAA Tournament.
Steve Lavin lives in California, and despite some recent controversy, he has coached his UCLA team from a poor preseason record to the 12th spot in the latest Associated Press poll. The Bruins are the only team to beat Stanford this season and will get another crack at the Cardinal this week at Pauley Pavilion.
Oh, and it’s probably 80 degrees in parts of California as you’re reading this.

Can’t stop Sean from scoring
Cal’s Lampley needed to score 25 points Saturday against Washington State to break the Golden Bears’ all-time scoring record.
He scored 29.
Lampley moved past Lamond Murray as the all-time leading scorer in Cal history, with 1,693 career points. The record earned Lampley Pac-10 Player of the Week honors for the third time in five weeks.
Lampley went on a barn-burning mission to break the venerable record this weekend in front of the Bears’ home crowd. The senior scored 58 points against the Washington schools, shooting 64.5 percent from the field and grabbing 25 rebounds along the way.
Lampley became the first player this season to be recognized as Pac-10 Player of the Week three times. Arizona’s Gilbert Arenas has received the award twice.

Lavin cuts his throat
Too bad UCLA head coach Steve Lavin hates officials so much.
After getting slapped with a technical foul last Thursday against Oregon, Lavin was slapped with a little more than that for his immature behavior toward officials during UCLA’s overtime victory over Oregon State Saturday.
Lavin was put on probation by the Pac-10 for the remainder of the season after he made throat-cutting gestures toward official Craig Grismore Saturday night. The Bruins’ coach also repeatedly shouted at Lou Campanelli — the Pac-10’s director of officiating — to “get [Grismore] out of here.” Campanelli was sitting nine rows behind the scorer’s table at OSU’s Gill Coliseum.
“Coach Lavin’s conduct, when he gestured and shouted at Mr. Campanelli during the game, was unacceptable, and violative of Pac-10 rules requiring conduct reflecting credit on his institution and the conference,” Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said in a statement. “Further, his comments about the officials were prohibited by conference rules and inappropriate. The officials worked a fine game.”
Lavin issued a formal apology Monday morning.
“I am sorry the incident happened, and I will do my best to learn from this experience,” Lavin said. “I set a poor example for my players, and my actions did not reflect well on the Pac-10 Conference, the university and our basketball program.”