Along with new faces, new classes and new opportunities, the start of the school year brings about the beginning of Division I athletics. This year’s Daily Bruin Sports editors will square off to state their case on which team they’re the most hyped about for this upcoming year. This is the Battle of the Editors.
Men’s Basketball – TuAnh Dam, Sports editor
No team has as much hype this season as the men’s basketball team. Part of that is because it really can’t get much worse than last season.
UCLA started with a statement win over then-No.1 and undefeated Kentucky before finishing the season 15-17 overall and 6-12 in conference play. It was left out of the postseason for the first time under coach Steve Alford, after reaching the Sweet 16 in 2014 and 2015.
The bigger part of the hype is the arrival of the No. 9 recruiting class in the country. Recruits Lonzo Ball, T.J. Leaf and Ike Anigbogu are arguably the most talented group since Shabazz Muhammad, Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams and recent graduate Tony Parker came to Westwood in 2012.
Ball, one of three brothers to commit to the Bruins, led Chino Hills High School to section, state and national titles while accumulating multiple Player of the Year awards as a senior. Power forward Leaf decommitted from Pac-12 rival Arizona last August before joining Ball and signing with UCLA three months later. Ball and Leaf both got significant playing time on the Bruins’ Australian tour in August, but it was fellow freshman Anigbogu who had the strongest showing in Australia. The center averaged 10.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in just 15.3 minutes over three games.
Jonah Bolden turned professional in July, but the Bruins return last year’s starters in senior guards Isaac Hamilton and Bryce Alford. With dangerous shooters and electric play-making freshmen, UCLA fans should be excited for basketball season to start in November.
Women’s volleyball – David Gottlieb, assistant Sports editor
Don’t look now, but this No. 11 UCLA women’s volleyball team is no joke.
The Bruins put on a performance that made every minute of traffic on Sunset Boulevard worth it, defeating the then-No.1 Trojans in five sets and proving that they could hang with any team in the country.
UCLA only made it to the round of 16 last year, but here’s the catch.
Everybody’s coming back!
Every attacker from the 2015 squad is back for another year and as of now it doesn’t look like these hitters will have to deal with some of the major issues that plagued the team last year.
The 2015 season threw a curveball at the Bruins when starting setter Ryann Chandler went up for a block and came down with a concussion. The then-redshirt sophomore junior would not be healthy enough to get back on the court until the postseason, leaving coach Michael Sealy with a difficult choice: stick with then-freshman setter Zana Muno, or go back to his original starter.
Both saw time in the playoffs, but neither could stabilize the offense well enough to push UCLA past the first three rounds.
When it came to the attacking, Jordan Anderson brought fire to the pins, but all flames burn out. The then-junior transfer led the team in kills all year long, but started to feel the physical burden of taking so many swings as the season wore on.
A healthy Chandler fixes both problems.
Chandler has been playing with senior middle blocker Jennie Frager and junior outside hitter Reily Buechler since Frager was nine and Buechler was 12, giving her the comfort to spread the ball more evenly among her attackers.
The 2016 season is young, but with Chandler at the helm, Frager has already taken home Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week honors once. Buechler leads the team in kills and kills per set, edging Anderson for the first time since Anderson joined the team last year.
[Related: UCLA women’s volleyball rebounds from its first loss of the season]
Oh, and when your offense is that polished it helps to have some defense. Good thing the Bruins have the reigning Pac-12 libero of the year in senior Taylor Formico and last year’s starting setter in Muno – now a defensive specialist – to ensure the ball gets to Chandler’s hands.
So, needless to say, watch out for women’s volleyball this year. You heard it here first.
Women’s water polo – Michael Hull, assistant Sports editor
Water polo will be huge this year, and not just for the men.
The women’s team returns nearly everyone as well, from six of its top seven scorers in 2016 – among them attacker Devin Grab, utility Mackenzie Barr and attacker Lizette Rozeboom, who all posted 40 or more goals – to rising sophomore goalie Carlee Kapana who split time with the now-graduated Alex Musselman.
Experienced presence on offense from India Forster and Charlotte Pratt will be missed, but what will define the Bruins this year is not what’s gone but what’s coming in and what’s returning.
The No. 1 recruit in the nation, Musselman’s younger sister Maddie, will join her gold-medal teammate attacker Rachel Fattal as she and two other Bruins – attacker Kodi Hill and defender Alys Williams – return from taking a redshirt year in order to train with the senior national team.
Fattal scored 56 goals in 2015 before leaving to join the Olympic roster, where she was the opening sprinter for Adam Krikorian in nearly every quarter of the 2016 Olympic Games. She was the only one out of the three to make it onto the Rio team, but Williams had 38 goals and Hill added 29 in their junior year before taking their hiatuses.
With Musselman coming in as well, there’s going to be major firepower to coach Brandon Brooks’ team, whose season scoring total actually went up last year despite the redshirts.
And with the added insult of USC going undefeated last year – nobody on that team redshirted for the Olympics – who knows, if things go well this fall with the men, UCLA water polo fans may have to wait until fall of 2017 to taste a loss.
Men’s volleyball – Grant Sugimura, assistant Sports editor
The one sport I’m really, truly, excited for this upcoming year is men’s volleyball.
After a 25-7 record and a trip to the final four, what reason is there to not be excited for the 2016-2017 season?
The Bruins will be nearly exactly the same team, with not a single starter having graduated.
It’s the culmination of years of recruiting and growth finally coming together. Senior leaders such as middle blocker Mitch Stahl and setter Hagen Smith are both entering their final year on the collegiate court while UCLA’s young, dynamic core of players can add one more adjective to their resumes – experienced.
Of course the fans will be looking out for sophomore setter Micah Ma’a, with his SportsCenter top-10 plays, and junior outside hitters Jake Arnitz and JT Hatch for the enormous amounts of offense they bring to the table.
Long story short: This season looks to be even more intriguing than last as the powerhouses – BYU, Ohio State and Long Beach State – have only gotten better.
Despite this, UCLA has the rare opportunity to really see all of its combined efforts come together to form something truly special. And hopefully, that something will be a national championship.
Football – Hanson Wang, assistant Sports editor
Count me in on the Josh Rosen and friends bandwagon this season. The sophomore quarterback is arguably the most NFL-ready passer in the NCAA and despite a suboptimal game against Texas A&M – on the road against probably the best defense the Bruins will face this year – not all hope is lost.
Just take a look at the rest of UCLA’s schedule.
No Washington and no Oregon – two Pac-12 North heavyweights – should induce a sigh of relief for Bruin fans. NorCal rival Stanford visits Pasadena on Sept. 24, which would be the third career start and first on the road for the Cardinal’s senior quarterback Ryan Burns.
But the biggest reason for optimism this year is still Rosen.
Chosen Rosen showed us last year that after disappointing performances against BYU and Stanford, he can bounce back in a big way. Even in the A&M game, the star sophomore led UCLA to a 15-point fourth quarter comeback to the brink of victory. And although his detractors bash his “entitled” attitude, Rosen took responsibility for his game-one play and vowed it would never happen again.
The other side of the ball is even better.
On defense, the Bruins return redshirt junior defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes and redshirt senior defensive back Fabian Moreau from injuries as well as five other senior starters. They showed spurts of dominance against the Aggies and can take advantage of the Pac-12’s lack of elite, experienced offenses the rest of the season.
So even if last year’s Foster Farms Bowl left a nasty taste in UCLA’s mouth, rest assured: the Bruins have all the ingredients for a New Year’s Six bowl.