The most decorated program in college basketball history, No. 22 UCLA, looks to begin a rebound from a disappointing conclusion to its final Pac-12 Conference season when it begins a new era on Monday in Los Angeles against visiting Rider.
UCLA, a winner of 38 regular-season conference championships, ended its time in the league with an unceremonious 16-17 overall finish a season ago. The Bruins embark on their first season of Big Ten Conference membership with a revamped roster and renewed expectations under sixth-year head coach Mick Cronin.
“When you take the job at UCLA, my job is to try to compete for national championships,” Cronin said at Big Ten media days, referring to the program’s 11 national titles. “I ran towards that, and I continued to do so.”
The Bruins advanced to the Sweet 16 or further in three of Cronin’s first four seasons at the helm, the lone exception being the 2019-20 season when the NCAA Tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic. UCLA is heading into 2024-25 coming off not only the worst season of Cronin’s tenure, but also just the program’s third losing season in the last 20.
Cronin and his staff addressed the disappointment of a season ago by bringing in a variety of transfers, including lockdown defender Kobe Johnson from crosstown rival Southern California; Eric Dailey Jr. from Oklahoma State; Skyy Clark from Louisville; and forward Tyler Bilodeau from Oregon State.
“We needed to get older and we needed a leader,” Cronin said of the decisions to bring in the newcomers. “Kobe Johnson is a huge addition for us. I’ll be shocked if he’s not an (All-Big Ten) player when it matters in the postseason.”
Johnson and co. join a returning corps led by Dylan Andrews, a breakout star in the latter half of the 2023-24 season en route to scoring a team-leading 12.9 points per game. He scored 21-plus points in four of the final six games.
UCLA also returns Sebastian Mack, who averaged 12.1 points per game as a freshman, and Lazar Stefanovic, who posted 11.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
The new-look Bruins will try to make a strong first impression against Rider, a program that has never faced UCLA. The Broncs visit Los Angeles as part of a season-opening, two-game swing through California that also takes them to the University of San Diego on Nov. 6.
Rider opens the season with its own noteworthy transfer addition setting the foundation, swingman Zion Cruz. A four-star recruit and top-100 prospect in the 2022 signing class per 247Sports.com, Cruz landed at Rider after spending one unremarkable season at DePaul and playing last season at Pratt Community College in Kansas.
Cruz averaged 14.6 points per game in the junior college ranks. He will be part of the contingent looking to fill the scoring void left by Mervin James, last season’s pacesetter. James averaged 18.9 points per game for the 15-17 Broncs.
“This is going to be a team effort. It’s not as much as one individual,” Rider coach Kevin Baggett told the Rider News. “It’s going to be all the individuals trying to get the new guys to understand our concepts, our language and what it is to play hard.”
–Field Level Media
