UC Regents recap – Jan. 15-16

The governing board of the University of California met for the first two days of its January meeting at UC San Francisco on Tuesday and Wednesday. Regents discussed changes to the systemwide Title IX plan, improving conditions for student athletes and raising tuition for graduate professional degree programs.

Special Committee on Basic Needs

  • On Tuesday, Student Regent Devon Graves said the goal of the committee is to produce a report after two years that provides an overview of basic needs at UC campuses and discusses ways in which the campuses and the UC Office of the President are helping to solve these issues.

  • UCOP Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Jerlena Griffin-Desta said all UC campuses had established basic needs committees.

  • Student Regent-designate Hayley Weddle recommended the committee examine the intersection between federal and state policy and basic needs insecurity across the UC, consider what data is needed to properly understand and address food and housing insecurity, and explore long-term funding strategies to support basic needs resources.

Board of Regents

  • During public comments Wednesday, students from advocacy groups across the UC campuses made demands to UCOP, including that it stop the outsourcing of UC jobs and hire full-time career workers, terminate any ties to federal immigration agencies and divest from companies which students said they think are violating Palestinian human rights.

  • Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond introduced themselves to the board, adding that they are working to increase accessibility to public education and address food insecurity and labor issues.

  • UC President Janet Napolitano said California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has released a proposed budget which includes a $240 million increase in ongoing funds to the core education budget, along with a one-time fund of $153 million dollars for things such as maintenance. She added the budget includes increased funding for gun violence research, legal services for undocumented students and increased Cal Grant awards for students who are parents.

  • Robert May, chair of the UC Academic Senate, said negotiations over the UC’s contract with Elsevier, which owns more than 2,500 journals including Cell and The Lancet, have not been settled. The contract ended Dec. 31, and the UC has been negotiating a new contract with Elsevier for the past few months. The UC aims to lower subscription costs and make all of its research available for free to the public. The Academic Senate is committed to its open-access policy, May added.

Compliance and Audit Committee

  • Suzanne Taylor, the UCOP interim systemwide Title IX coordinator, gave a six-month update on UCOP’s implementation of recommendations from the California state audit of sexual harassment cases. Taylor said the audit recommendation focused on key areas such as ensuring timeliness of investigations and discipline, making sure that policies align with law and promoting consistency in training Title IX. Taylor added the UC president accepted all audit recommendations.

  • Taylor said the audit remediation plan does not address sexual harassment prevention. Taylor added changes to data collection methods based on the auditors’ recommendations will increase transparency about the Title IX system.

  • Taylor said auditors found that reports filed against faculty and staff during this audit increased compared to earlier audits and attributed it to positive measures at the UC such as increased outreach to students. She added Title IX informs complainants of their rights to go to law enforcement, and the Title IX office has confidential advocates that support complainants in their decisions.

Academic and Student Affairs Committee

  • Michael Brown, UC provost and UCOP executive vice president of Academic Affairs, gave an update on the UC Center Sacramento, a research and public service site in Sacramento operated by UC Davis. He said the goals of the center include increasing student internships in state and assembly offices, increasing student enrollment in the program and making faculty available to both students and Capitol staff. Brown added the center aims to increase student enrollment by 100 students per term in the next decade.

  • Thomas McMorrow, chair of the UCCS advisory board, said UCCS connects faculty with students and Capitol staff more effectively than the UC Washington Center program. The UCCS program hosts biweekly lectures attended by not only students but also the staff of the Capitol and government officials.

  • Griffin-Desta said female athletes graduate at an overall higher rate than male athletes. For example, athletes in NCAA Division I sports have a female graduation rate of 91 percent and a male graduation rate of 79 percent. Christina Rivera, senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at UCLA, said this is because male students have more opportunities to pursue careers in sports. Three student athletes at the committee shared their experiences and discussed ways to enhance student-athlete welfare.

  • Hailey Rittershofer, a student athlete at UC Davis, said as one of the first queer athletes at her school, she felt she did not know whether her teammates would accept her, and suggested increasing LGBTQ education among student athletes and supporting systems that allow athletes to explore their identities outside of sports and academics.

  • Evan Singletary, a student athlete at UC Irvine, said he hoped the University would provide more aid for student athletes. He initially lost his athletic scholarship due to injury. He had to work many jobs before earning back the scholarship his second year. However, Singletary said many of his former teammates without scholarships are still working jobs to make ends meet.

  • Brown said UCOP proposed a multiyear plan for charging supplemental tuition for two graduate professional degree programs at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. The Professional Degree Supplemental Tuition aims to offset reductions in state support for professional schools, according to the Regents’ website.

  • Rick Mintrop, the director of Leadership for Educational Equity Program at UC Berkeley, said the program has lacked resources in the past, and must increase tuition in order to remain sustainable. LEEP is a professional program for people with backgrounds in leading education organizations. LEEP students graduate with a doctorate of education.

  • Regent Eloy Ortiz Oakley said he does not want to place more financial burden on LEEP students, who are already working while attending the LEEP program. He added he does not support charging the supplemental tuition. Mintrop insisted the students are middle-class and able to take out loans to finance their tuition.

  • The committee tabled the motion to increase tuition through PDST for LEEP for further discussion in March.

  • Marilyn Walker, professor of computer science at UCSC, proposed a PDST of $20,000 for UCSC’s one-year program in natural language processing, which trains students to be engineers with expertise in NLP. The supplemental tuition revenue would be used to hire an executive director to work on outreach to the industry, and to hire graduate students who would serve as teaching assistants and peer mentors.

  • The committee passed the motion to charge supplemental tuition for UCSC’s NLP PDST program.

Finance and Capital Strategies Committee

  • Dan Russi, UCPath Center executive director, said UCOP is aware of the payroll issues UCPath has caused, and that it has caused hardships for students. He added the majority of errors stemmed from complexities such as multiple payment sources and data errors.

  • Mark Cianca, associate vice president of UCPath Operational Services, said UCPath implemented corrective measures such as notifying campus payroll teams in advance to finalize student pay and finding pay errors before checks are drafted. UCPath also adopted measures to prevent pay issues, such as implementing a team to address urgent pay issues and strengthening student outreach, Cianca said.

  • The UCPath leadership team decided to delay the final deployment from September to December 2019. UC Irvine also shifted its deployment from March to December 2019.

UCLA Housing app pilots feature allowing students to track meal swipe balance

Students can now check on their phones how many meal swipes they have left.

UCLA Housing piloted a feature on the UCLA Housing phone application Jan. 7 that lets dorm residents track their meal swipe balance, after surveying students and hosting a series of focus groups last quarter.

UCLA Housing developed the app with Modo Labs in 2018 after it conducted research that showed Hill residents get most of their information through mobile apps, said Barbara Wilson, director of UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services’ Rooms Division.

Once UCLA Housing determined that it should develop an app for students, it surveyed students about what they wanted included in the app.

“Meal plan balance came up as one of the top priorities for students on a housing app,” Wilson said.

The meal swipe balance feature is just a pilot program for now, but Wilson said UCLA Housing hopes it will become a permanent fixture once it can ensure the app will work as intended for a large scale of users. The app currently posts hourly, rather than live, updates because the BruinCard transaction software does not allow for instant updates, Wilson said.

UCLA Housing has also sought input from resident assistants, front desk and Access Control student workers and dining hall employees.

Emily Chen, a resident assistant and third-year sociology student, said she thought the interface of the app was clean overall and was mostly straightforward. Chen said she thinks the meal balance feature is helpful because students do not have to physically go to their residence hall’s front desk to check their swipe balance.

“I think the app could do a better job integrating the outside MyUCLA website since the login screen with the multifactor authentication makes the transition a bit clunky,” Chen said.

Neida Sandoval-Lopez, a front desk student worker and second-year sociology student, said she thinks the app sounds convenient and useful, although she has not downloaded the app and used the new feature herself.

“I know a bunch of students constantly worry about whether or not they can eat for the meal period, day, or rest of the week,” Sandoval-Lopez said. “They have to walk either all the way to a front desk or ask at a dining hall, which can sometimes be a burden because you could be in the middle of doing homework. But now, you can just check on your phone.”

Wilson said UCLA Housing aims to publicize the meal-swipe-balance feature through word of mouth and posters displayed on the Hill. Fewer than 2,000 users have downloaded the app since the feature was released.

She added UCLA Housing will start to bring back focus groups and send out surveys for feedback during the first week of February.

Study finds connection between effects of exercise, levels of particular protein

UCLA researchers uncovered a link between mitochondrial health and exercise, offering a new explanation for the causes of some metabolic disorders.

In a study published in December, UCLA researchers in the lab of Andrea Hevener, a professor of medicine, characterized how mitochondria change in response to both short- and long-term exercise. Researchers found that mitochondrial health is mediated by the protein Drp1, which is deficient in some men with metabolic disorders. The study is the first to track changes in mitochondrial health over time in response to exercise.

Mitochondria are structures within a cell that convert food into energy that cells can use. They play an important role in exercise and cell health, but no study has looked at the relationship between exercise and mitochondrial health, said Timothy Moore, a University of Southern California graduate student who works in Hevener’s lab.

The researchers began by exercising mice for 90 minutes on a treadmill and comparing the muscles of exercised mice to those of sedentary mice. They found that mice who exercised developed an increase in the expression of genes involved in forming new mitochondria and destroying old and broken mitochondria.

Moore said one protein in particular, Drp1, stood out because its RNA levels increased immediately after exercise but decreased afterward. Drp1 is a protein involved in mitochondrial fission, the process by which one mitochondrion divides into two, said Whitaker Cohn, a co-author of the study and graduate student at UCLA.

This rise and dip in Drp1 RNA levels suggests that mitochondria fusion and fission play an important role in the body’s response to exercise, said Lorraine Turcotte, a professor of biological sciences at USC and a collaborator on the study. She said she thinks Drp1 RNA levels increase immediately in response to exercise in order to pinch off and destroy old mitochondria.

“Mitochondrial fission is important for your ability to exercise,” Turcotte said. “First, you have to clean up the mitochondria that aren’t so good.”

To study the importance of Drp1, the researchers genetically engineered mice to have less Drp1. Even though the Drp1-deficient mice weighed the same as normal mice and had the same amount of muscle, Drp1-deficient mice had more difficulty exercising, Moore said.

“(Drp1-deficient mice) are pretty fine under normal conditions, but if you exercised them, they didn’t perform as well as a normal mouse,” he said.

Drp1-deficient mice had lower maximum running speeds and ran shorter distances compared to normal mice, according to the study.

They also did not benefit as much from exercise as normal mice. While both normal and Drp1-deficient mice developed increased muscle endurance after a 30-day exercise regimen, the Drp1-deficient mice developed a smaller increase in muscle endurance than normal mice.

The muscles of Drp1-deficient mice also showed increased levels of stress, Moore said. He added that these results led him to believe that Drp1 mediates the health benefits of exercise and that mitochondrial health changes rapidly in response to both short- and long-term exercise.

To test how these results applied to humans, the researchers looked at dysglycemic men, men with higher or lower levels of blood sugar than average, and normoglycemic men, or men with average blood sugar. The researchers found that the dysglycemic men had lower overall levels of Drp1 RNA.

This lack of Drp1 may be a cause of their metabolic disorders, Turcotte said. She added without enough Drp1, the dysglycemic men may have never cleared the unhealthy mitochondria within their muscle cells, contributing to their poorer metabolic condition.

Moore said he is expanding his research to see how mice from various genetic backgrounds respond to exercise. He said his future work will try to answer why people respond differently to exercise and how genetic backgrounds cause some to benefit more from exercise than others.

“(We want to understand why) you and I can exercise the same amount, but we’ll have different results,” Moore said.

USAC hosts speed-dating event for student organizations to promote collaboration

Student organizations went on speed dates to build cross-community relationships.

About 15 students from various student organizations met in small groups at an event hosted by the Undergraduate Students Association Council General Representative 1 office Tuesday. Club representatives rotated around tables and engaged in conversations guided by a set of questions. Many of the clubs represented were cultural awareness and community service organizations.

Joshua Avila, chief of staff for programming for the General Representative 1 office and a second-year political science student, said the event aimed to create a space for clubs with common organizational missions to collaborate on their programming.

Avila said the General Representative 1 office wanted to provide a setting to make cross-organizational programs seem more feasible.

“We asked those types of questions to get people to have that conversation about: ‘Oh, you’re from that org? Well I’m from this org, too. We’ve always wanted to do something like that, too. Maybe we should coordinate,’” Avila said.

Avila added he thinks other club recruitment events, including the fall Enormous Activities Fair, were not conducive to individual and intimate discussion that could encourage inter-club collaboration.

“You’re not [usually] having a sit-down conversation with them. You’re talking with them because you’ve come with an agenda,” Avila said. “We really wanted to create a program that [would] bridge those genuine conversations with the ability to find another club you can join or find other types of things.”

Isabel Oraha, a third-year Middle Eastern studies and history student, said she attended the event on behalf of the Transfer Student Representative’s office. Oraha said the low turnout at the event was initially concerning but ultimately allowed for fruitful conversation.

“When I first got here I noticed that there wasn’t a whole lot of people, so I was a little worried about the event,” Oraha said. “But I think that having less people allowed me to connect more with the people who were here. I met a lot of people here [whose] club I had never [about] before or I knew about their org but I had never been able to actually get in contact with.”

Tina Yee, a first-year business economics student, said she noted a lack of professional organizations at the event and added she believes the limited turnout could be attributed to a lack of outreach.

“I’m not sure if the board members knew about this event,” Yee said. “It might have been an issue with emailing or maybe none of them [had] seen the event page.”

Avila added his office engaged with the event participants to identify ways student government can be more proactive in using resources to support club endeavors.

“The specific platform that we’re a part of is making sure that government resources and [the officers] can go to them and put their events and shows to life instead of them waiting on us and them going through our bureaucracy because student government is hard to transpire,” Avila said.

Avila said the office is considering holding similar events in the future, but is still not certain.

Environmental group gains support for regulating oil drilling in LA communities

An environmental advocacy group is trying to end oil drilling near neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling Los Angeles, an environmental group advocating against oil drilling in Los Angeles, was endorsed by the North Westwood Neighborhood Council at their January meeting. STAND-LA plans to urge the Los Angeles City Council to enact a buffer around current oil drilling sites in LA County to mitigate the health hazards of living near these sites.

There are 24 oil and gas facilities currently operating in unincorporated LA County and 68 active oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin, according to a 2018 study on public health and safety risks of oil and gas facilities in LA County by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Additionally, Karla Tovar, a public information officer for the LAC DPH, said the LAC DPH believes the report contains data that encourages strengthening public health and safety policy.

Nicole Wong, the research chair at STAND-LA, said the findings of the report were essential in helping them move forward with their legislative campaign to protect communities from oil drilling.

“We started this campaign for the city of LA to enact a human health and safety buffer,” Wong said. “We believe that 2,500 feet, which is little less than half a mile, would be the most protective way for the city to ensure public health and community safety with regards to these drilling sites.”

Amir Tarighat, treasurer of the NWWNC, said the council voted to support the establishment of the buffer after a representative from STAND-LA presented their case before the council.

“One of the few main purposes of neighborhood councils is to actually advise the city council on the issues,” Tarighat said. “Different organizations, generally when they are for or against something, go around to the different neighborhood councils, presenting their opinions.”

Tarighat added the NWWNC supported this policy because it aligned with the goals of the council.

“In addition to the fact that it is one of our core responsibilities, this is a really important issue for us because our neighborhood and our community really prioritize progressive values such as things that protect low-income and minority communities, which are being impacted,” Tarighat said. “It’s a safety and health issue.”

Eyal Li, a fourth-year environmental science student and member of Environmentalists of Color Collective at UCLA, said this report provided evidence supporting the buffer, which would force drill sites to maintain a certain distance from heavily populated areas.

“This is a regulation that would impose a buffer zone of a certain distance between drill sites and land uses that are considered sensitive, such as residential areas, churches, schools and hospitals. And that definition is not quite concrete yet,” Li said. ”For example, it could be expanded to include parks or anywhere people frequent, and that would be ideal.”

Li said the report’s conclusions support STAND-LA’s platform and the ECC’s findings.

“It confirmed what activist groups such as STAND-LA have said for years,” Li said. “They said that these have horrible adverse health effects and it’s basically outrageous that people live literally next door to these drill sites.”

Li said the report’s findings reveal that living near oil drilling sites results in health hazards for residents. Li added while this was primarily an environmental issue, the location and regulations of these oil sites also relate to socioeconomic discrimination because hazardous drilling sites affect minority communities the most.

“Even in sites where you’re in wealthier, whiter communities, there are more stringent, enforced regulations on those oil sites, and those tend to be further away,” Li said. “If you’re in these lower-income, minority neighborhoods, such as Vernon and East LA, you could have sites literally next door to houses and no one’s enforcing the regulations.”

Li said the ECC aims to raise awareness and educate students about how climate change and socioeconomic discrimination are closely related.

“The most important thing that will really resonate with students is the horrible environmental racism these oil corporations have perpetuated for decades without any regulation,” Li said. “Many students are from these areas, and they can talk about their lived experience with polluters and being ignored by the city government until now.”

Around the League: Pac-12 sees battles for top spot in gymnastics, women’s basketball

Gymnastics
Angie Forburger, assistant Sports editor

Three matchups between ranked Pac-12 gymnastics programs are slated for this week.

No. 4 Utah (2-0, 0-0 Pac-12) is set to travel to No. 21 Oregon State (3-0, 0-0) on Saturday. The Utes defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions before taking down in-state rival the No. 6 BYU Cougars on Friday. Oregon State opened their season Sunday with a first-place win at a quad meet against Illinois, No. 16 Kentucky and Lindenwood.

No. 19 Arizona State (3-1, 0-0) is heading to Westwood on Monday to face No. 2 UCLA (4-0, 1-0). The Sun Devils are coming off a win at Texas Woman’s University, earning their best score so far this season with a 195.675. The Bruins finished first in the Collegiate Challenge on Saturday, scoring two perfect 10s.

No. 24 Stanford (5-0, 0-0) is taking on No. 12 California (2-2, 0-1) on Monday. Stanford earned its second first-place finish of the year in a tri-meet against Sacramento State and Seattle Pacific on Friday. The Golden Bears finished in second place behind the Bruins at the Collegiate Challenge after falling to the No. 5 LSU Tigers to open their season.

No. 20 Washington (0-1, 0-0) will compete at home against Arizona (2-2, 0-0) on Friday. The Huskies fell to No. 15 Nebraska in their season-opening meet by just over a quarter of a point. After finishing second in a quad meet against Central Michigan, Illinois and Bridgeport, Arizona fell to No. 14 Arkansas on Saturday.

The teams have just over two months until the Pac-12 championships.

Women’s basketball
Joy Hong, assistant Sports editor

Three Pac-12 women’s basketball teams are still undefeated in conference play.

No. 5 Oregon (15-1, 4-0 Pac-12), No. 6 Stanford (14-1, 4-0) and No. 10 Oregon State (14-2, 4-0) sit at the top of the conference standings after two weeks of Pac-12 competition.

The two Oregon schools are fresh off of sweeps over UCLA (9-8, 2-3) and USC (10-6, 0-5) and will both face No. 19 Arizona State (12-4, 3-2) and Arizona (13-3, 3-2) this weekend.

The Sun Devils and the Wildcats both defeated then-No. 24 California (10-5, 1-3), as the Golden Bears were swept at home last weekend and fell out of the rankings for the first time this season.

The Bruins and the Trojans will clash for their second rivalry game of the season at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday afternoon. UCLA will have the opportunity to complete the sweep while USC will have the opportunity to notch its first conference win.

Utah (15-1, 4-1) has yet to crack the top 25 this season but sits right behind Oregon, Stanford and Oregon State in the Pac-12 standings.

Utah will host Colorado (10-6, 0-5) on Friday, while Washington (8-9, 1-4) and Washington State (7-9, 2-3) will visit Cal and Stanford this weekend.

Men’s volleyball
Gabriel McCarthy, assistant Sports editor

The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has not commenced conference play, but a number of teams are a few matches into the season.

No. 6 UCLA men’s volleyball (5-1) completed a two-game sweep of unranked McKendree and Lindenwood on its trip to the Midwest last week.

No. 4 BYU (2-0) kicked off the regular season with a sweep of then-No. 7 Ohio State before sweeping then-No. 14 Ball State. The Cougars are led in kills by opposite Gabi Garcia Fernandez, with 31.

No. 5 Pepperdine (4-0) has opened the season with wins over Princeton, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara, twice.

Unranked Concordia (0-6) has started the season getting swept in four of its six games. The Eagles’ closest match was a five-set finish against unranked NJIT.

No. 15 Grand Canyon (3-2) was swept by Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara in its first two games of the season but has won three games in a row, including a 3-2 win over CSUN – which swept UCLA.

Unranked USC (2-1) defeated Concordia and NJIT, but was swept by Hawai’i in its third match of the season.

No. 9 Stanford (4-0) posted three straight sweeps over Menlo, UC Santa Cruz and then-No. 14 Ball State. The Cardinal bested the Ohio State Buckeyes 3-1 at home to continue their unbeaten run and are led in kills by opposite Jaylen Jasper, who has 47 and has hit for .386.

Report Card: Men’s basketball sees overall improvement after Steve Alford’s departure

UCLA men’s basketball has reached the halfway point of the 2018-2019 season and its midseason grades are in. Here is a look at how well Daily Bruin Sports thought the Bruins performed on the court.

Starting backcourt
Grade: B

UCLA’s starting backcourt of guards sophomore Jaylen Hands and redshirt junior Prince Ali has had its fair share of head-scratching moments this season, but the players are starting to become a formidable pairing for the Bruins.

Despite only averaging 11.6 points on 37.2 percent shooting from the field, Hands has consistently been able to find ways to impact the game on both ends of the floor.

The sophomore’s evolution into a more consistent playmaker this season has been one of the main factors in the team’s recent success. Hands leads the Pac-12 in assists at 6.6 per game, 1.3 higher than the second-ranked player on the list. Hands also leads the Bruins in steals per game.

Hands’ backcourt mate, Ali, has also been inconsistent on the offensive end, but the redshirt junior has added an element of excitement to a lineup that at times can be lethargic.

Ali’s athleticism and willingness to take risks has led to a handful of big moments for UCLA this season. Most recently, Ali went off for a team-high 22 points in a comeback victory at Oregon in which he knocked down a crucial fadeaway 3-pointer in the closing seconds.

When Ali’s game is clicking, he becomes one of the top scoring options on the team. The redshirt junior also shoots 4.6 percent better from deep than any other player in the Bruins’ starting five.

Starting frontcourt
Grade: B-

UCLA’s frontcourt is loaded with talent, but it has not produced the numbers that one would expect.

Sophomore guard Kris Wilkes – who starts at the small forward position – has not made any noticeable improvements in his game since last season, and he might even be going backward.

Despite leading the team in scoring at 17.3 points per game, Wilkes is shooting just 31.5 percent from 3. Last season, he shot 35.2 percent from beyond the arc.

Another reason for concern with Wilkes is he is supposed to be the primary scoring option for the Bruins. While playing second fiddle to Aaron Holiday last season, Wilkes managed to score 13.7 points per game, just 3.6 points lower than his current average.

If UCLA is going to make a run at a conference title in the second half of the season, it will need Wilkes to produce at a higher rate of efficiency.

Freshman center Moses Brown has been the bright spot of the Bruins’ frontcourt this season. The five-star freshman is averaging a near double-double at 11.9 points and nine rebounds per contest.

Despite looking unpolished at times, Brown has carved out a nice role as a rim-running center who consistently finishes with dunks and layups at the basket. He has also been a force on the defensive end with 2.2 blocks per game – good for third in the Pac-12.

Brown’s biggest weakness, however, is at the free throw line, where he shoots just 36.7 percent.

Bench
Grade: B+

No individual player off the bench has numbers that jump off the page, but the unit as a whole has been fun to watch – especially since the firing of Steve Alford in December.

Led by freshmen guards David Singleton and Jules Bernard, the bench unit has provided interim coach Murry Bartow a great amount of depth with a rotation that can go up to 11 players deep without missing a beat.

In years past, Alford clung to an eight-man rotation that had players seeing closer to 35 or 40 minutes of action per night, including games in which the Bruins were in full control down the stretch.

With so many reliable options to turn to off the bench, no UCLA player this season is averaging more than 30.6 minutes per game. Last season, the Bruins had two players averaging more than 33 minutes per game.

Coaching
Grade: A+

If this grade reflected the efforts of Alford it would be much lower, but for the sake of positivity, his time will not be included. His replacement, Murry Bartow, however, has done a fantastic job in his first few weeks as the interim head coach.

Bartow not only shifted the culture in a matter of days, but he has also been able to get the best out of each of his players.

In the four games he has coached, there have been three instances in which five or more players scored in double figures, which already equals the amount of times that happened in the 13 games under Alford this season.

Bartow also led UCLA to a 3-0 record to begin Pac-12 play – a feat Alford never achieved with the Bruins.

It is still unknown what will happen with Bartow after the season ends, but he will be the one credited for turning the program back in a positive direction.