Pau Gasol’s return should help Lakers soar

As amusing as it was seeing Pau Gasol on “CSI: Miami,” it was better seeing him back on the court Thursday night. . . .

The Lakers should soar now. . . .

With Kobe Bryant leading the NBA in scoring and the Kings’ Anze Kopitar leading the NHL, it’s notable that in no season has one city produced both league scoring champions. . . .

Memo to Pete Carroll: After John McKay suffered the most humiliating loss of his USC coaching career, a 51-0 pasting by Notre Dame in 1966, the Trojans lost only once in McKay’s last nine games against the Irish, compiling a 6-1-2 record. . . .

In 1967, led by O.J. Simpson, USC won the first of three national championships in eight seasons. . . .

Years later, McKay told his biographer, Jim Perry, “It took a year -- until we beat Notre Dame in 1967 -- before I could go to sleep without thinking of that game.” . . .

In this week’s head-scratching Sagarin college basketball computer ratings, as published in USA Today, UCLA is ranked eighth while Cal State Fullerton, a double-overtime winner over the Bruins on Monday, is ranked 138th. . . .

Stranger still, Monday’s result was taken into account. . . .

Sports Illustrated’s projected 65-team field for the NCAA tournament excludes UCLA, further evidence that Ben Howland and the Bruins have generated surprisingly little momentum from three consecutive appearances in the Final Four. . . .

The New Jersey Nets’ 0-12 start might remind Southland NBA fans of the 1998-99 Clippers of Lamond Murray and Maurice Taylor, who lost their first 17 games. . . .

Or perhaps it reminds them of the 1994-95 Clippers of Murray and Loy Vaught, who lost their first 16. . . .

Chris Kaman and the 2009-10 Clippers, by comparison, are off to a flying start. . . .

In his 55-point coming-out party Saturday, Milwaukee Bucks rookie and former Compton Dominguez High star Brandon Jennings failed to score in the first quarter. . . .

Yankee Stadium seems a suitably venerable setting for a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight, but staging it almost anywhere would be fine with most boxing fans. . . .

“Blood Equity,” a documentary exploring the dark side of the NFL and opening today at Laemmle Sunset 5, was produced by former UCLA and NFL linebacker Roman Phifer. . . .

USC’s Taylor Mays and Stanley Havili are projected as first-round picks in a Sporting News NFL mock draft. . . .

Attention Arte Moreno: “A Map of Los Angeles,” a six-movement classical work conceived by David O in the parking lot at Angel Stadium and partially written by the composer under the giant cap outside the main entrance, will be performed Sunday by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall. . . .

Dodgers Spanish-language announcer Jaime Jarrin returned to his homeland last weekend to hand-deliver a $60,000 donation to help build a baseball academy in Duran, Ecuador. . . .

Former Angels second baseman Bobby Grich is assembling a 13-and-under travel baseball team and has enlisted Maury Wills, Wally Joyner and Bill Russell to help him coach it. . . .

Information: [email protected]. . . .

Reader Johnny Magnus of Burbank e-mails to note that Hank Aaron, who wore No. 44, four times hit 44 home runs. . . .

Try saying that 10 times fast. . . .

This may have been a forgettable season for USC’s beleaguered backup quarterback, Aaron Corp, but his younger sister, Lauren, helped St. Mary’s win its first West Coast Conference women’s volleyball championship last weekend. . . .

Daniel Dworsky, a former Michigan linebacker from Sioux Falls, S.D., who won an American Institute of Architects award for designing UCLA’s Drake Stadium, played one season for the Los Angeles Dons of the short-lived All-America Football Conference before pursuing a career in architecture. . . .

Like Michelle Wie, who broke through last weekend, Tiger Woods was 20 years old when he notched his first professional victory -- at Las Vegas in 1996. . . .

Incredulous that an anonymous caller had labeled Kareem Abdul-Jabbar “overrated,” reader Doug Thompson of West Los Angeles e-mails to suggest, “It must have been a really long-distance call; Leonard Tose died 6 1/2 years ago.” . . .

Reader Steve Vanderpool of Pasadena, borrowing a line from “Airplane!” suggests that the caller “drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.”

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