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UCLA men’s basketball has had a unique year, boasting a midseason coaching change and multiple home losses to non-Power Five opponents. Daily Bruin Sports decided to take a look at this season by the numbers, comparing it to UCLA teams and star players of years past.
Ryan Smith
Sports editor
Prediction: UCLA 82, USC 70
I have been predicting UCLA will win in big games all year – regardless of the sport.
And despite the Bruins losing in each and every one of those games, I will continue to do the same.
UCLA needs to win for not only the sake of the rivalry and protecting home court, but also to keep its season alive. If the Bruins do not take care of business Thursday night, they won’t be getting a bye in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament.
Without a bye, UCLA would need four wins in four days at the conference tournament to get into the NCAA tournament. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, that probably isn’t going to happen – actually, we know that isn’t happening.
The Bruins need sophomore guard Jaylen Hands to stay hot after his 27-point second half outburst against Oregon on Saturday. He is undoubtedly the engine that makes UCLA go.
Freshman center Moses Brown will also have to show up after being invisible in the Bruins’ last meeting with the Trojans. The 7-footer only scored two points in that game while his matchup – Nick Rakocevic – scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.
If those two can get going for UCLA, I have no doubt they’ll be taking home a much needed victory with just a handful of games left to be played. Not to mention the crowd is going to be buzzing.
I can’t wait.
Sam Connon
Assistant Sports editor
Prediction: UCLA 88, USC 84
This season has been messy.
UCLA will go on a winning streak, then a losing streak – neither extending longer than three games. The highs this season have been insanely high and the lows have been embarrassingly low.
The first game against USC was probably the lowest of those lows.
As a result, I’m predicting a win for the Bruins. A fun, entertaining, high-scoring win.
The Trojans are more experienced, and that was definitely one of the deciding factors in the first matchup. But now, interim coach Murry Bartow has a better grip on lineups and substitution patterns, no longer feeling obligated to play Brown in crunch time or freshman guards Jules Bernard and David Singleton with the reserves.
With a more shooting-oriented lineup, UCLA will be able to overcome USC’s size and experience advantage down low. If they play like they did against Oregon and Oregon State – which is probably a stretch – the Bruins should be able to avoid getting swept by their crosstown rival.
Angie Forburger
Assistant Sports editor
Prediction: USC 78, UCLA 74
This season was over in December.
Despite Bartow leading the Bruins to three straight wins to start January, UCLA has lacked consistency since.
UCLA is coming off back-to-back wins over Oregon State and Oregon – including a game-high 27-point performance from Hands.
But UCLA’s last outing against USC showed that a high-scoring offense won’t be enough.
Hands, redshirt junior guard Prince Ali and sophomore guard Kris Wilkes each dropped 13 points or more for the Bruins at the Galen Center in January – but Rakocevic and forward Bennie Boatwright of the Trojans both notched 21 of their own.
UCLA and USC are tied for fifth in the conference standings, both fighting for a first-round bye in the conference tournament.
While that mindset may be enough to push the Bruins to one last win at Pauley Pavilion this season, they have already shown that we can’t rely on them to perform.
It’ll be the Trojans to lose.
Jack Perez
Sports staff writer
Prediction: USC 77, UCLA 72
The Bruins will keep the score respectable, but they are outmatched.
The Trojans have the edge in experience, and they have shown they can beat the Bruins this season. USC will be looking for redemption after last week’s loss to Oregon State and still has the chance to clinch a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament.
UCLA is coming off two big wins over the Oregon teams, and it is also on the outside looking in for a first-round bye. But the Bruins are a team in transition under Bartow.
Will we see the UCLA offense that put up 90 points on Oregon and Arizona in their wins? Or the one that scored 55 and 58 points against Washington and Liberty, respectively?
I think we’ll see a mix of the two. Brown will again be shut down by Rakocevic and Boatwright, and the Bruins will end their home schedule with a disappointing loss.
Will Bleveans
Opinion columnist
Prediction: USC 85, UCLA 80
Zion Williamson’s individual heroics notwithstanding, college basketball is a team sport.
Without rock-solid leadership and team cohesion, even the most talented teams will falter. To this point, UCLA’s season has proven this insight to be true, and – barring a miracle – that will not change by Thursday night’s game against USC.
With all due respect to Bartow, the Bruins need someone to right the ship and change the culture. Assuming that athletic director Dan Guerrero is unable to sign Larry Brown or John Wooden’s ghost by tipoff, expect UCLA to play sloppily and lose by a narrow margin yet again.
The Bruins probably aren’t making it to the NCAA tournament.
However, a strong finish to conference play and a couple wins in the Pac-12 tournament could help UCLA men’s basketball secure an invite to the National Invitational Tournament – a competition comprised of the 32 schools who came closest to making the cut.
While it sounds like fun to be competing for something in March, UCLA should steer clear of the NIT if given the opportunity to participate.
The Bruins have only participated in the NIT twice, and haven’t been back since the 1985-1986 season in which they were ousted by UC Irvine in the opening round the tournament.
UCLA’s other appearance came the year before when former coach Walt Hazzard led the Bruins to a three-point victory over Indiana in the title game at Madison Square Garden in his first season with the program.
This season’s team has had to endure a year full of obstacles, including embarrassing home losses leading to the firing of former coach Steve Alford, as well as numerous injuries to players who were supposed to be key contributors – such as freshmen guard Tyger Campbell and forward Shareef O’Neal.
For those reasons, extending the season for as much as three weeks to play in a tournament that is mostly considered irrelevant, could end up being a mistake that costs the Bruins down the line.
First, it is no secret that interim coach Murry Bartow won’t be retained beyond this season, so why would UCLA want to delay the start of the searching process?
There is too much riding on the next coaching hire, and spending time in the NIT while other schools get a head start on their coaching searches is exactly what the Bruins can’t afford to let happen.
And although I’m sure Bartow would say he’d be excited to coach a few more games, it almost feels like a disservice to make a guy who was thrown into the fire midseason coach an extra tournament with little to no real significance.
The other key to this equation is the players.
Before the season, it was expected sophomore guards Jaylen Hands and Kris Wilkes would be headed to the NBA after their second year in Westwood. However, the lateral development of those two players could have them reconsidering the idea.
If that is the case, UCLA would be in line to have a much deeper and talented roster going into next season than it has had in the past two years. Rather than putting the players out on the floor for meaningless games and risking injury, the Bruins would be smart to let the season end and start looking forward to the next one.
It is also a possibility Hands and Wilkes would decide to sit out the NIT if they are still planning on leaving for the pros, which would leave UCLA with even fewer reasons to accept an invitation.
Don’t get me wrong, though. Player development and experience on the big stage is important, and the opportunities that would be created for guys like freshmen guards David Singleton and Jules Bernard should not be overlooked.
The players would most likely be excited to perform regardless of whether they play in the NCAA tournament or the NIT. The chance to play postseason competition only comes around so often and the players would embrace it.
However, if UCLA misses the NCAA tournament and all the chips fall in the right places, passing up on the NIT could be a game-changing move for the program in the long run.
The race is getting tighter in the Pac-12.
UCLA men’s basketball (15-13, 8-7 Pac-12) has won three of its last four games to vault back up into the thick of things within the conference standings, but its biggest game of the season to this point – a date with the crosstown rival USC (15-13, 8-7) – awaits Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.
“It’s a big game for us in terms of the Pac-12 standings, trying to get that bye, so it’s a big game, we’re practicing hard, we’re getting ready for it,” said sophomore guard Jaylen Hands. “We’re excited.”
The Trojans won the first meeting between the schools Jan. 19 with an 80-67 victory at the Galen Center behind a pair of 21-point performances by Bennie Boatwright and Nick Rakocevic.
Hands and redshirt junior guard Prince Ali each scored 15 points for UCLA while sophomore guard Kris Wilkes added another 13, but the trio finished as the only three players in double figures for the Bruins.
The contest was just UCLA’s fifth under interim coach Murry Bartow, and while the team had won three of those prior four games, redshirt junior forward Alex Olesinksi said the Bruins hadn’t yet settled in under Bartow and he expects Thursday night’s game to be different.
“I think we’re a little bit of a different team,” Olesinksi said. “We’re used to playing under (Bartow). We’re getting under ourselves a little bit more, we know what we want to do and our identity as a team.”
UCLA will also enter the contest riding the momentum of back-to-back home wins over Oregon and Oregon State that helped pull the Bruins from the bottom of the Pac-12 standings. Momentum or not, freshman guard Jules Bernard said the atmosphere of the UCLA-USC rivalry by itself will provide more than enough energy.
“Even as a young kid watching UCLA versus USC basketball games, like when I first came into the building, there was a different type of energy,” Bernard said. “And stepping onto the court, you can feel the crowd talking and stuff. Those are the types of games we all love to play in and I think Thursday is going to be a very exciting environment.”
The Bruins have beaten the Trojans in 10 of their last 15 meetings overall and in two straight at Pauley Pavilion. A UCLA win and a Utah loss to Colorado on Saturday would tie the Bruins and Utes in fourth place, however, Utah currently owns the tiebreaker thanks to its one-point victory over UCLA on Feb. 9.
If USC manages to steal one on the road, the Trojans will not only hold a one-game lead over the Bruins in the standings, but they will also own the tiebreaker.
With only two games remaining on UCLA’s schedule after Thursday’s game with USC, a loss could jeopardize the Bruins’ chances at earning that coveted first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament.
Without a bye and already minuscule odds at earning an automatic bid, UCLA’s only realistic shot at reaching the NCAA tournament would be by winning the Pac-12 tournament – which would entail the Bruins taking four games in as many days.
Tip-off on Thursday is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.
To get some inside information on the USC men’s basketball team, Daily Bruin Sports reached out to the Daily Trojan – USC’s student news publication – and asked its Sports editor Aidan Berg a few questions about the Trojans before their upcoming rivalry game against the Bruins on Thursday.
Daily Bruin: For those who may not be up to speed, where do the Trojans stand and how has their year gone so far?
Aidan Berg: This team is very similar to the football team in that it has a good amount of talent, but is just incredibly inconsistent. Just completely up and down throughout the season. It started out Pac-12 play good, then lost a few games and then had that stretch – including a win against UCLA at home – where they won a tough couple of games in a row. And since then, they’ve been kind of on the downslide. It’s a very inconsistent team and you don’t really know what you’re going to get from them on any given day.
DB: What has it been like for you and the (USC) fanbase to watch what’s happened with UCLA given its ups and downs this season?
AB: UCLA is historically, perhaps, the greatest college basketball program there is and it’s rare to see the Bruins being even a little bit on the downslide. Not even speaking to being buried by what they have been this year. And it’s kind of weird to empathize with UCLA as a USC student, but I think the Bruins have pretty similar problems (to the Trojans). Plenty of talent – guys like (sophomore guard) Jaylen Hands – but not really being able to put it all together for long stretches.
DB: Given UCLA and USC’s identical records, do you think there’s any added energy for USC knowing that they have to get that Pac-12 bye and last year UCLA sneaking into the tournament over them?
AB: From what I’ve seen from USC-UCLA basketball, they don’t really need a lot of motivation to have high energy games. Both of the games last year and the one earlier this season – it seemed like the teams really wanted it and played really hard. The standings are always going to matter a little bit in conference play, but I don’t think either team is really going to need energy to get up for this type of rivalry game.
DB: What matchups are you looking forward to most in Thursday night’s game?
AB: I’ll be interested to see how the (freshman center) Moses Brown and (Nick) Rakocevic matchup goes again. In the first game, Rakocevic really took it to Brown. Rakocevic went for 21 points, 12 rebounds, whereas Brown had two points and seven rebounds. Brown is a big presence and Rakocevic had kind of struggled with that earlier in the season, so I’d be interested to see if it goes the same way this time around.
DB: Score Prediction?
AB: The thing about USC that is important to know is that they are 2-5 in road games and 1-3 on neutral courts. They’re a lot better at home – 12-5 – so I don’t really see them necessarily being able to go into UCLA and taking it to them like they did in the last game. I think I’m probably going to go with UCLA in a close one. Let’s say it’s 77-73.
DB: Do you think either school has a chance to pull off an upset in the Pac-12 tournament and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament?
AB: I think they definitely could, just because of how the Pac-12 is so incredibly mediocre. That being said, I do expect Washington to end up being the tournament winner and the only bid in the tournament for the Pac-12. But UCLA and USC – I think I’d give them both a fair chance of making it to the conference championship game or as far as they can go before they end up playing Washington.
UCLA is a “basketball school,” USC is not.
Or at least, that’s been the narrative for the past 50 or so years.
“Everyone’s aware that (the Trojans) have a great class coming in,” said Daily Trojan Sports writer Julia Poe. “We’re probably going to have the pieces to get back on the top of the Pac-12 in the next few years.”
While UCLA men’s basketball has been unable to recapture the national titles it monopolized in the John Wooden era , its crosstown rival USC has had no such expectations. The Trojans have never won an NCAA championship and they have only advanced past the Round of 64 six times in their 113-year history.
“For (USC) fans, it’s easier, because when you care less, it’s fun when you’re winning, and then you just don’t care when you’re losing,” Poe said. “For UCLA, if you aren’t doing well for a season, everyone’s mad and disappointed and upset. Whereas for us, it’s like, ‘Oh OK, we’ll just wait for the next football season.'”
Under coach Andy Enfield, USC has a record 109-89 and put together a three-year streak of 20-plus win seasons for just the second time in program history. UCLA, on the other hand, has been without a long-term solution for head coach since firing Steve Alford on Dec. 31.
The drama present during the end of the Alford era and the China incident under Alford’s watch hurt the Bruins’ recruiting outlook in the short term by demonstrating the instability of the program, said 247Sports.com national recruiting analyst Josh Gershon.
Meanwhile, USC is scheduled to reel in its best recruiting class in school history, boasting two five-stars and two four-stars after adding assistant coach Eric Mobley.
“USC’s been doing a good job recruiting in general under this staff,” Gershon said. “I mean, they weren’t recruiting to this same level, but I think in this instance, the Trojans were really aided by a strong assistant coach hire that kind of helps swing loyalty amongst any program towards them.”
Mobley was an assistant coach for a Los Angeles-area AAU team, the Compton Magic, before taking the job at USC and his son Isaiah Mobley is one of USC’s five-star commits. One of Isaiah Mobley’s close friends and teammates on the Magic, Onyeka Okongwu, was initially favored to go to UCLA due to his ties to the Ball family – he too went to Chino Hills High School.
But the Ball family cut ties with the Bruins following LiAngelo Ball’s suspension and eventual decision to drop out of school. And in April, UCLA fired assistant coach and former Magic coach David Grace, one of the program’s top recruiters.
Now, the five-star prospect Okongwu has signed his letter of intent to attend USC next year.
Solidifying a top-three recruiting class is rare for any program not named Duke, and it is even more surprising USC has done so amid an FBI investigation into their recruiting violations. However, Gershon said USC and fellow UCLA rival Arizona – which owns the No. 1 class in the country – must have proven to their targets that both Enfield and Wildcats coach Sean Miller will stick around despite the noise.
“Kids worry about stability more than anything else,” Gershon said. “I’m sure they’ve been reassured that (Enfield and Miller) have the full support of their universities. So when that’s no longer the case, of course recruiting is going to fall off. But if the perception is those guys are safe, I don’t think recruits are going to be too scared.”
Miller is the sixth-highest paid coach in the country, and even Enfield is making over $1 million per year. UCLA’s current head coach is interim coach Murry Bartow, and the future of the position is murky.
Two of the bigger names connected to the Bruins – Nevada coach Eric Musselman and former Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg – have a reputation of building their teams through graduate transfers and three-star recruits, but Gershon said that won’t be an issue if they end up in Westwood.
“Anyone is going to recruit well at UCLA because it’s UCLA,” Gershon said. “Are there some coaches that would probably recruit closer to the top-five range nationally? Sure. But I can’t imagine UCLA making a hire … that’s not capable of recruiting at a very high level.”
And while UCLA’s two biggest rivals continue to poach big names from the Bruins’ backyard, Gershon said the school’s coaching decision should not take into account anyone else’s payroll, staff or recruiting classes.
“I say this with no disrespect whatsoever for USC – I think if you’re UCLA, you’re hiring the very best coach possible,” Gershon said. “You’re trying to compete for championships every single year and I think that it doesn’t matter who USC’s head coach is or Arizona’s head coach is.”
The Trojans may be impressing on the recruiting trail, but on the other side of the aisle, members of the Bruin faithful aren’t buying in just yet.
“USC is a football school, UCLA is a basketball school – there are certain truths in this world,” said third-year political science student George Lasko. “(USC) will never be a basketball school. It doesn’t matter if you get one or two recruits a year, you need have a head coach who can recruit players every year.”
Prospective students come to UCLA after constantly being told how open and welcoming the campus is to students with different backgrounds. Building a community, we’re told, is as simple as banding together with like-minded people your age.
Too bad it’s a group of elitist clubs if you’re interested in consulting or finance.
Students eager to break into business or finance can pad their resumes with membership in pre-professional groups, such as Bruin Consulting, Bruin Asset Management and UConsulting. These groups can allow students to improve their knowledge of the industry and gain experience working with club members to solve real clients’ problems.
These career-developing clubs recruit twice a year, during which interested students can apply by submitting their resume through the clubs’ websites. If the clubs like what they see, the applicant is invited to a coffee chat, which can be followed by one or more interview rounds.
Analytical skills, leadership skills and personal qualities like ambition are often taken into account. Bruin Consulting’s website, for example, offers a vague description that applies to most UCLA students – which is made evident by the high volume of applicants.
“We look for candidates who are enthusiastic and tenacious about solving puzzles, who yearn to succeed as individuals and as part of a team,” the site reads.
Unfortunately, these finance and business clubs often split hairs between who gets in and who doesn’t based on who they know and whether they appear career ready. This discourages perfectly qualified and interested students from joining the field and gaining valuable experience in the process.
The clubs’ lack of transparency in what they are looking for in applicants breeds a culture of exclusivity among finance- and business-interested students. Membership in these clubs almost seems to boil down to who you know and what you can offer their existing cultures, not your capacity to grow or your skillset. While this behavior might mimic the network-heavy emphasis of the business world, we should expect better from campus student groups.
Students applying to clubs like UConsulting are evaluated on hard factors, such as GPA and analytical skills, but also on soft skills, such as how well they fit within a group’s culture, their ability to take initiative and their enthusiasm. However, students do not have many opportunities to showcase this, given there is only one information session per quarter – which often overlaps with other business clubs’ information sessions.
Katherine Zhu, a third-year cognitive science and economics student, said she applied to Bruin Consulting twice but didn’t get accepted, despite getting a consulting internship at Deloitte. In other words, she scored an internship with a “Big Four” firm, but not even a coffee chat from a club that prides itself on having a connection with that firm.
“At UCLA, these kinds of business clubs should prepare students to better their opportunity to find work in the future – not just shut the door in their face, make them feel bad about themselves and lose confidence in pursuing a career in it,” Zhu said.
She added since it’s a student club, many applicants might not think there’s a need for heavy networking as if it were a job.
In reality, these clubs function as pre-screening for job recruiters, doing most of the work for actual consulting firms by selecting students they think are most likely to succeed in the business world.
James Lo, UConsulting’s president and a third-year business economics and statistics student, said that in narrowing down 200 applicants to 15, the club selects based on “culture fit.” Members of the club interview applicants and deliberate on who they liked best.
“If (a club member) really wants someone in the club, they’re almost certain to get in,” Lo said.
He added nearly all members of UConsulting end up with job offers. Bruin Consulting, BAM and UConsulting readily use their websites to showcase where their members end up – putting flashy company logos like Goldman Sachs, Bain and Deloitte front and center.
“(Recruiters) don’t necessarily want to spend all their resources, time and money to find the talent, so having this concentration of talent and seeing this brand approval attracts them to recruit from UCLA,” Lo said.
But these clubs devote less than a sentence on their sites to explaining their selection criteria. And students who get rejected before the coffee chat aren’t even notified, or simply receive a standard email that doesn’t explain what they did wrong.
The finance industry can be cutthroat, but if these clubs are holding their applicants to high standards, the least they should do is make clear what those standards are.
The problem isn’t that these clubs are selective. But the level of selectivity is exaggerated in these business and finance groups, to the extent that it’s almost comical how tough – and seemingly arbitrary – it is to get in.
“It’s kind of silly. From what I hear from people who work at Deloitte and McKinsey, some people get (into the firm) from good networking skills, but they’re not actually good at doing the work,” Zhu said.
Certainly, these pre-professional business clubs are in their right to be hyper-selective. But the apparent who-knows-who selection process of these groups sends a message – at its nicest – that you’re only worth these groups’ time if you come in with connections and can fit with their supposed cultures.
That’s a discouraging way to filter out qualified applicants and foster interest in business and finance.
It’s also a lousy way to build community in a campus of 45,000.
