Hit by injuries before the opening tipoff, the Bruins’ roster already looks different than people expected.
As has become tradition under coach Steve Alford, UCLA men’s basketball has several big-name freshmen primed to make an impact on the court from day one. But with guard Tyger Campbell and forward Shareef O’Neal already out for the season, Alford has had to get creative with the young players.
Campbell was expected to be the Bruins’ only ball handler off the bench, but after he tore his ACL last week, Alford gave the backup point duties to sophomore guard Chris Smith.
“It’s been a learning curve,” Smith said. “I’ve just been trying to … keep my turnovers down and be simple, don’t try to do anything extra, get into the plays and make sure everybody’s doing the right thing.”
Smith got the eighth-most minutes as a freshman last season, but he averaged 3.5 turnovers per 40 minutes – good for second-highest on the team.
The heir-apparent to guard Aaron Holiday, who left for the NBA last season, is sophomore guard Jaylen Hands. Now a second-year starter, Hands said he has taken on a different role in the locker room and that the team’s dynamic is much different from what it was last season.
“I think this year is different because we’re all like one big unit, one big family because we’re more closer in age,” Hands said. “(Freshman center) Moses (Brown) is athletic around the rim, dunking. (Freshman guard) Jules (Bernard) is aggressive, scoring. (Freshman guard) David (Singleton) shoots it, screens really good. … (Freshman forward Kenneth Nwuba), he rebounds and finishes well. … I think everyone’s doing really well.”
The freshmen that Hands praised were part of Alford’s recruiting class that ranked No. 6 in the country. The headliner of the group was Brown, who was a five-star recruit and ranked No. 27 overall.
Brown was a 7-footer who had a reputation for being on the skinny side, coming out of high school at 210 pounds, but he said that he has already done his best to shed that reputation.
“They feed us here after practice, they make sure we get our meals in,” Brown said. “I’ve been weighing 250 ever since, so this is really a good place for me to grow and experiment.”
And now standing tall at 7 feet, 1 inch, Brown has already experienced his fair share of stares when he walks around campus.
“A lot of people want to take pictures of me,” Brown said. “Every time I walk in class, the first person they always see is me. The teacher always wants to pick on me, ‘Hey, how tall are you?’ I’m the first one to introduce myself in front of the class.”
Alford has taken notice of Brown’s size as well, as the coach said he thinks he found a defensive anchor for this year’s squad.
“(Brown) really runs the floor well, and for a guy that big, how he handles the ball and those type of things inside have been really impressive,” Alford said. “We haven’t had an elite shot blocker – I think he is that.”
But behind UCLA’s young guns stand Hands and sophomore guard Kris Wilkes.
Hands was named to the 2019 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award watch list for the nation’s best point guard, while Wilkes was added to the 2019 Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award watch list for the top small forward. The two combined for 23.6 points, 4.3 assists and 8.9 rebounds per game on 36.1 percent 3-point shooting last season, but Alford said he was looking for growth on the other side of the ball this year.
“(Hands) has been tremendous to this point,” Alford said. “We want him scoring because he’s a very good scorer, but I think the other end is where we’re really focused with him and that’s defensively. He never engaged himself defensively last year and we’re seeing that now this year. He’s being much more physical, taking more pride at that end.”
Wilkes, while also receiving praise as a top scorer, was not spared from Alford’s defensive criticisms.
“I think he’s one of the best guards in the country,” Alford said. “He’s got to prove it defensively and really be a prolific scorer for us – he’s got to be a big-time scorer for us.”
The two returning Bruins with the most minutes played last season will be Hands and Wilkes, who are both only sophomores.
With a young roster and young leaders, Alford said that preseason work and exhibitions will be crucial in building a successful season.
“We have eight guys who haven’t played a second of college basketball,” Alford said. “That exhibition game, that’s the first time that eight of them have even done that. So it’s something that we need to work on with them on a daily basis to just get as much experience as we can here early in the season.”
UCLA will get its first competitive action against the New York Institute of Technology in a preseason exhibition on Oct. 27 in Pauley Pavilion.