Here's todays sports stories...

Here's todays sports news...

-Sharks finally come home after a long road trip to play the first team in their division and their arch-nemesis, the Ducks, and lose. Ann Killion says the Sharks aren't making it any easier on themselves. -Scott Ostler has a new "Knucklehead of the Day" bit on the Sports Columnist blog on SFGate. His latest two knuckleheads are Peter Magowan for positioning Brian Sabaen in just the right way to be thrown off the......

It may have been a tough football season, but they were dancing down on The Farm last night.

In fact, they might still be dancing at center court in Maples Pavilion, savoring the Cardinal's 75-68 upset of third-ranked UCLA.

Despite not being ranked, the Cardinal have been lurking in the weeds all season, and Sunday night they reared up and took a bite out of the Bruins. The way that they won it was especially startling: rallying back from a 17-point first-half deficit to cut the lead to seven in the second half, then going on a 15-0 run over the next three and one-half minutes to take the lead for good. They shot 70 percent from the floor in the second half! Stanford coach Trent Johnson showed great coaching chops by moving swingman Lawrence Hill to power forward in the second half to negate UCLA's quickness, and Hill responded with 22 points.

We told you, Colts vs. Bears in the Super Bowl. Man, we knew we should have gone to Vegas. Anyways, we're happy with the game, not necessarily because it'll be a good game, but because it's two of the original NFL teams with great traditions and great, traditional uniforms. How could you not love a game that harkens back to the 50's and 60's? ...

-Barry Z meets the press while Barry B is still unsigned. Scott Ostler is looking forward to the Z and B show and actually, he has a point-- the Giants are now lead by two people who are about as different as different could be. Over in Oakland, Monte Pool says flaky Barry Z could be a perfect fit for flaky SF ...

-The Warriors finally won on the road, beating the Boston Celtics 96-95 with some great last minute D that shut down Paul Pierce with about twenty seconds left. It's only their second road win this season and yes, it's a huge win. ...

-Warriors beat Hornets giving Don Nelson his 1,2000th victory. Could Allen Iverson play for the Warriors? But do they really need him? -We have to give the Chron headline guy credit for this one: "Two for Cheechoo in Sharks' Win." -Scott Ostler wonders why the Giants outbid themselves for Bonds while Ray Ratto says both the Giants and A's are hampered by the lack of young prospects out there to try and wrangle up. -Cal......

Let's take a look at the reaction to the Bonds' signing, shall we? Ray Ratto calls out Magowan for whimping out and Scott Ostler makes a bunch of jokes that all imply he's not a big fan of the dude. Glenn Dickey, however, is. Over at the Mercury, Tim Kawakami says the Giants make lousy poker players and Sabean should quit. Ouch. ...

Lot of sports to talk about, so let's get r' done. -Cal beats Stanford to win the Axe. See what happens when you don't let the Stanford band play? Anyways, Cal played just enough to win and Stanford played well enough to win, but Cal still won. As for Stanford, the Walt Harris death watch begins. ...

-Experienced climber dies in fall at Yosemite. -Bevan and Alix have a debate....

Yesterday, the Chron bid adieu to football columnist Ira Miller as he wrote his last column. Miller, who has been covering football for the Sporting Green for twenty-nine years, is retiring (bought out in a cost-cutting move). He plans on playing a lot of golf and writing the occasional column on AOL. ...

Local sportswriters are abandoning the A's bandwagon this season like it was, well, a sinking ship. In February, Ray Ratto predicted a 60-win season on ESPNews (later, he amended that to 65. Thanks, Ray). Then, Bruce Jenkins rhapsodized about intelligent baseball, threw up his hands and conceded the AL West. We can never tell what the hell Scott Ostler is talking about, but we're pretty sure this, which includes the season's first lazy connection......

After this weekend, it's going to get harder for us Giants' fans to try and live in our shiny, happy denial land in regards to Barry Bonds and this whole BALCO mess. While most of the Chronicle's stories claiming that Barry was taking steroids were "leaked" documents from a supposedly leak-proof Grand Jury, Saturday's Chron blared out to the world that they actually have a tape from 2003 purportedly of Barry's trainer and friend,......