UCLA men’s basketball checked in at No. 16 in the newly released AP poll ahead of its first exhibition game against Master’s University.
The Bruins, who are looking to rebound after last season’s 15-17 run, return four of their five starters and three of the top freshmen in the country.
Coach Steve Alford’s team is one of three Pac-12 teams ranked in the preseason poll behind Oregon and Arizona at No. 5 and 10 respectively.
Despite not cracking the top 25, Berkeley, Colorado and Washington also received early votes.
The Ducks and the Wildcats are just two of the top-25 opponents on deck for the Bruins who will also face the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats at Lexington, Kentucky as part of their out-of-season slate.
The AP poll is just the latest preseason honor for the Bruins who finished with a losing record for the first time since 2010.
UCLA was also picked to finish third in the conference behind Oregon and Arizona, the last two Pac-12 champions and came in at No. 20 in USA Today’s preseason Coaches Poll.
Individually, four Bruins racked up preseason watch lists honors.
Junior Thomas Welsh was one of 20 candidates named to the Abdul-Jabar watch list, given to the top centers in college basketball.
Welsh led the team with 8.5 rebounds in 31 games last year and was seventh overall in the Pac-12. The then-sophomore averaged 11.2 points a game and led the team with a 59 percent field goal percentage.
Fellow upperclassman Isaac Hamilton, the top returning scorer in the conference, is on the watch list for the top shooting guard in the country – the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award.
As a junior, Hamilton averaged 16.8 points per game, shooting 47.2 percent overall and 37.7 percent from beyond the arc.
Freshmen TJ Leaf and Lonzo Ball, members of the No. 5 recruiting class per ESPN, both earned nods on preseason watch lists.
Leaf was one of 20 players named to the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award, one of four from the Pac-12 alongside USC’s Bennie Boatwright, Berkeley’s Ivan Rabb and Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen.
Ball, one of the top freshmen in the country, was named to the 2017 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award.
The former five-star recruit is one of three guards from the conference to be named to the watch list along with Trojan Jordan McLaughlin and Washington Husky Markelle Fultz.
With the talent, experience and now the preseason honors, the Bruins will see if they can meet those expectations and put last year’s disappointment behind them.