Things are fairly calm at the RCA Dome with a half-hour still to go before tipoff between UCLA and Florida. No tornado watches or thunderstorm warnings, so outside the Dome, there's none of the excitement that there was last night, when a vicious storm blew through the state and shook up a lot of people and places downtown.

At my hotel, a bunch of us (including dozens of UCLA boosters and, as mentioned previously, the 1966 Texas Western team) stood in the lobby looking out the front door, unable to see across the street because the rain was blowing sideways - until a policeman rolled up and requested that we all GO TO THE BASEMENT. I didn't even know the hotel had a basement. We stayed there for about 20 minutes before the all-clear was given, and we went back upstairs.

But downtown was a mess. The sign in front of the Hyatt Regency (where the coaches' convention attendees were staying) was blown half off. So were the letters on the marquee for the mall movie theater. Debris and standing water was all over the street. But apparently, nobody was seriously hurt, and no tornado actually touched down.

However, my colleague, Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post Dispatch (and DuVal High in P.G. County) was on his way to the same function I was, from the opposite direction, when the storm hit. He lived not only to tell about it, but write about it.

So much for that. As of a half-hour ago, no big UCLA alumni were present in the stands, although they were likely going to be there by tipoff. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and Reggie Miller were present for the semifinal win.

Not here, as expected, is John Wooden. And a report on him just popped up on ESPN.com about five minutes ago: he's in an L.A. hospital. Word is just getting around in the press work room, so there's little doubt that it's made it to the UCLA rooting section, if not the team itself.