Clouds of disappointment may have cast shadows over the UCLA men’s basketball team in the last calendar year, but there remains a great patch of clear blue in the skies above freshman Tyler Honeycutt.
Over the course of the past season, the athletic freshman forward blossomed into the team’s best rebounder, as well as one of its most gifted passers and defenders. Honeycutt would join classmate Reeves Nelson as a selection for the Pac-10’s All-Freshman Team, which only validated his claim as one of the conference’s most promising young players.
“He does a little bit of everything,” said senior captain Mike Roll.
Despite missing the first six games of the year, Honeycutt led the Bruins in total rebounds (169) and total steals (39), while still averaging 7.2 points and 2.7 assists per contest.
Many considered Honeycutt the top recruit of UCLA’s heralded class of 2009. So when injuries hampered his incoming summer and delayed his official on-court debut to December, they increased the feeling of woe that surrounded the Bruins’ early season struggles.
Once he joined the team, however, Honeycutt had little trouble making up for lost time.
In his first start of the season, he had a game-high 10 rebounds in an important road matchup against eventual conference champion California in Berkeley. Although Roll owned the most memorable moment of the night, sinking a 15-foot jumper to win the game in overtime, Honeycutt’s response to his new promotion was phenomenal.
From there on out, the Sylmar High School product never gave up his spot in the starting rotation, soon becoming the team’s most consistent threat on the boards.
“Tyler’s a very good rebounder,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “He goes and gets it with two hands and he’s quick to the ball.”
Howland even compared Honeycutt’s prodigious play to that of another big-man passer in Los Angeles basketball history, Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.
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