Daily Bruin – Page 58

Meet Your Maikis: Bruins should reconsider entering this year’s NBA draft

A few Bruins are trying to make the leap to the NBA too soon.

Three UCLA men’s basketball underclassmen, sophomore forward Kris Wilkes, sophomore guard Jaylen Hands and freshman center Moses Brown, have declared for the NBA Draft set to take place June 20.

All three prospects were left off Sports Illustrated’s latest mock draft, while ESPN ranked Wilkes and Hands at No. 74 and No. 93, respectively, on its 100 Best Available List.

Especially after unspectacular showings at the NBA Draft Combine, all three should reconsider their decisions to go pro.

Kris Wilkes

Wilkes is built in the mold of a prototypical wing. The 6-foot-7-inch and 209-pound wing fits the modern NBA as a shooter and slasher, but his skills aren’t at an NBA level yet.

Wilkes’ ability to score in transition is his biggest draw, something that bodes well for his potential to become a scorer at the next level. Combine that with his high motor and deceptive athletic ability, and he looks like Milwaukee Bucks forward Khris Middleton.

However, Wilkes shot 33.7% from beyond the arc this past year. While that mark is higher than projected first-rounders Romeo Langford out of Indiana and Nassir Little of North Carolina, Wilkes’ inability to leap those players on the draft boards highlights his issues with consistency.

Langford and Little are inferior to Wilkes from long range, but they don’t rely on outside shooting. Wilkes shot 205 3s this past season, while Langford and Little attempted just 125 and 52, respectively.

Meanwhile, his percentages fail to match elite shooters like Dylan Windler of Belmont, who connected on 42.9 % of his long-range attempts.

Defense is another concern.

His 0.8 defensive win shares and defensive box plus/minus of -1.0 are both tags of an average defender at best. Considering those numbers came against a slate ranked 57th by KenPom in opponent’s adjusted offensive efficiency, teams have the right to be cautious.

Wilkes’ ability to be an offensive centerpiece was challenged by coaches Steve Alford and Murray Bartow. Although he was UCLA’s first offensive option throughout much of his two seasons with the Bruins, his assist percentage was below 11%, leaving much to be desired in his ability to create on offense.

Where, or if, Wilkes will be picked in the upcoming draft is uncertain, but another year at UCLA to develop his playmaking, shooting consistency and defense would give him first round status next year.

Jaylen Hands

Hands is explosive.

The 6-foot-3-inch, 180-pound point guard can get up with the best, posting top-five finishes among guards in standing vertical and max vertical at the NBA Combine.

Hands is a solid shooter off the dribble – a must as a small guard in today’s NBA. He has natural defensive instincts and constantly gets deflections. His upside is John Wall, an attacking score-first combo guard with A-grade athleticism.

Hands assumed the point guard role this year after Aaron Holiday graduated and showed, well, mixed results.

Hands’ assist percentage rose from 18.7% to 36.5%, but his turnover percentage also rose, from an already high 16.4% to 19.5%. That’s one turnover every five plays.

Beyond turnovers, Hands would regularly settle for contested shots early in the shot clock and had a tendency to hold the ball deep into the shot clock before setting up UCLA’s offense.

The Bruins were 17th in KenPom’s adjusted tempo rankings this year. Despite his strength attacking the basket and the pace at which UCLA played, Hands averaged just 3.3 free throw attempts per game, outside of the top 600 in the NCAA.

Hands has NBA-star potential, but flaws in his decision-making skills and attention to detail are going to be hard for NBA teams to glance over when deciding whether to draft the point guard.

Moses Brown

At 7-feet-2.5-inches, Brown would be tied for the tallest player in the draft if it weren’t for UCF’s Tacko Fall, but his 237-pound frame slots him outside of the top-10 largest players in the draft.

His agile footwork and ability to run the floor – combined with good defensive timing and solid post offense – yielded a freshman year stat line of 9.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game.

UCLA’s top 2018 recruit contributed right away but his main limitation is his size. Brown was bullied by stronger opponents this year, like Ohio State’s Kaleb Wesson and Arizona State’s Zylan Cheatham. Wesson outplayed Brown to the tune of a 15-12 double-double, holding Brown to only nine points and two rebounds.

Cheatham ran amok on the boards, finishing with 20 rebounds compared to Brown’s four. Brown’s 18.4% rebounding percentage for the season is above average, but not the dominance NBA teams want from a player over 7-foot-2.

Shooting is another mark against Brown. His dismal 35.2% clip from the free throw line makes him virtually unplayable late in games, and severely limits his offensive ceiling when teams can resort to “Hack-a-Shaq” to stop him.

Brown was also disciplined twice for off-the-court conduct: once for being late to a team shootaround at home versus Utah and again at Utah for violating student-athlete policies.

Brown needs to put on muscle and fix his shooting before many NBA teams are going to take a flyer on him. But returning to college for a year or more could afford Brown time to mold his game into Hassan Whiteside rather than Hasheem Thabeet.

Even though Hands and Wilkes have hired agents, with the new NBA rules regarding the draft, they can still return to play at UCLA. All three Bruins have until May 29 to withdraw their name from draft consideration and retain college-eligible status.

Brown, Hands and Wilkes all have the talent to be noteworthy NBA players in the future, but each need to improve their body of work in college for teams to consider them worth a draft pick.

Women’s tennis to lose several seniors who contributed to NCAA success this year

The Bruins’ season ended in the Elite Eight for the second consecutive year.

“(I’m) really proud of my seniors who have led this team,” said coach Stella Sampras Webster. “(Senior) Ayan Broomfield has such passion and energy, and I know we’ll miss (her). They really came together. They had really good chemistry. They took us as far as we could go.”

No. 7 seed UCLA women’s tennis (21-8) began its NCAA team championship with three straight sweeps over Northern Arizona (15-9), LSU (17-12) and Washington (21-5). In the quarterfinals, UCLA fell to North Carolina (33-2) – a foe it lost to earlier in the season – 4-1.

The Bruins’ season was dealt an early blow during the fall season when reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year and UCLA’s top singles player, Ena Shibahara, informed the team she was electing to turn pro.

The Bruins will further lose three seniors to graduation – Broomfield, Gabby Andrews and Alaina Miller.

The No. 5 ranked doubles pair of Broomfield and Andrews have been playing together since Broomfield transferred from Clemson after her sophomore season. The duo manned the second doubles spot last season, notching an 11-4 dual record.

This year, the pair has been the Bruins’ top doubles team, posting an 8-5 tally on court No. 1 to help UCLA win the doubles point in its last 17 matches.

“We really focused on doubles in practice,” Andrews said. “(Broomfield) and I take pride in knowing that we set the tone for the rest of the match.”

Miller started her UCLA career in 2015-2016 with a 14-6 singles record in dual matches, including a 7-2 mark on court No. 3. Last season, she posted an 18-2 record in dual-match singles, primarily on court No. 6. This year, she played on court four, recording a 12-10 mark in dual singles play.

The Bruins have recruited the No. 2 incoming freshman class, according to the Tennis Recruiting Network. This includes two blue-chip recruits – Alexandra Vagramov from Port Moody, British Columbia, and Abigail Forbes from Raleigh, North Carolina.

UCLA will have last year’s top overall prospect and this year’s Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, No. 32 Elysia Bolton, returning. Redshirt junior No. 45 Jada Hart, who filled the top singles spot this season, freshman Taylor Johnson and sophomore Abi Altick will join Bolton in the lineup next season.

“(I’m) definitely (going to) try and take a little break after this and then get back to it in the summer,” Altick said.

The Bruins’ team season is over, but four players remain in the NCAA individual championship. Hart advanced to the round of 16 with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over No. 24 Michaela Gordon of Stanford and Bolton defeated No. 28 Bianca Turati of Texas 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. Andrews and Broomfield advanced to the doubles second round with a 6-3, 2-6, (10-7) win.

“It’s very hot and humid out here so we’ve got to make sure we keep at the fluids and are eating properly,” said Hart.

Women’s soccer coaches look to incoming freshmen to bring depth to the field

Nine Bruins will be added to a UCLA women’s soccer roster that is going to graduate just two seniors.

Three forwards, three midfielders, two defenders and a goalkeeper – seven of which have played on youth national teams – make up the Bruins’ incoming freshman class. They will join a team that made the NCAA quarterfinals last year.

“(The recruits) are technical players who play at an elite level,” said assistant coach Sam Greene. “But for us, it’s who’s physically and mentally prepared to step in as an 18 year old to a team that’s very, very deep and is trying to win a national championship.”

UCLA will return all but two players – but the team still lacks depth on the backline.

Freshman defender Maddi Desiano missed much of last season with an injury and reinjured herself this spring. Sophomore midfielder Delanie Sheehan filled the gap for the Bruins, starting almost every game at outside back.

Senior forward Hailie Mace also served sporadically as an outside back. The three-time All-Pac-12 honoree and 2017 All-American played in just 13 of 22 games last season due to national team duties, but still scored nine goals and logged six assists.

“(Mace) was a utility player – she played in the back and up top – so we’re really missing her in two spots,” said coach Amanda Cromwell.

Despite needing backs, UCLA’s incoming class includes just two defenders: Brianne Riley and Kylie Kerr. Cromwell said the plan is to potentially move other incoming players – including forward Rachel Lowe, midfielder Brecken Mozingo and midfielder Kali Trevithick – to the backline.

“The good thing is (the recruits) are versatile players, so they can potentially transition to an outside back – we still have need there for some depth,” Cromwell said. “Just with their athleticism, even though they’re not true defenders, … they are players that can play out wide, so we teach them some defending skills, and maybe we can make it work.”

Lowe has scored five goals in her 16 appearances for the Australian women’s national under-20 team, and Mozingo and Trevithick have both played in the U.S. youth system. Forward Mia Fishel – another incoming Bruin – competed for the U.S. in the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, where she scored one of the squad’s three goals.

Forward Sunshine Fontes scored the team’s other two goals in the tournament and has been praised as a top recruit after her 22 goals on the U-17s in 2018 – the second-most for a youth women’s national team player in history. But the Hawaii native tore her ACL and may redshirt her freshman season, Cromwell said.

UCLA will return the bulk of the offense that logged the most points in the country last season. Greene said incoming attackers will have time to fit into the system.

“We have a lot of attacking pieces, so it’s finding the right formation to put those pieces in place to be able to do their thing,” Greene said. “Having the mentality of ‘I’m a freshman, and I might not get the starting position that I’ve had, but can I fit as a piece of the puzzle?’ allows them to start being an impact player that grows within our system.”

The team will head to Italy to play in the World University Games this summer. Cromwell said the extra games will be the perfect opportunity to test out different lineups, players and formations.

“We’re going to have those games to try a lot of these players out,” Cromwell said. “We need it this summer probably more than ever.”

Women’s golf ends NCAA championship play after its worst finish of the season

The Bruins’ championship pursuit has been cut short.

No. 14 UCLA women’s golf finished at 65-over 941 – placing 20th out of 24 teams in stroke play – at the NCAA championship in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The team was 26 strokes back from the top-eight spot necessary to advance to match play.

Sophomore Patty Tavatanakit, who came off her second straight NCAA regionals victory, was the lone Bruin to crack the top 50. Tavatanakit shot 11-over to tie for 43rd.

Tavatanakit paced the team in the first round, shooting 2-over to move into a tie for 13th. The Bruins were in 15th place Friday at 23-over, but trailed eighth place by only five strokes.

While other teams saw action Saturday morning, UCLA was unable to play at all due to severe afternoon weather. The tournament was shortened from 72 to 54 holes, and the midtournament, cut from 24 to 15 teams was skipped.

The Bruins shot 16-over in the second round and dropped to 16 strokes back of eighth place. Freshman Phoebe Yue shot 5-over 78 on Sunday – a nine-stroke improvement from round one. Junior Mariel Galdiano cut seven strokes off her first round score, shooting 2-over 75.

UCLA had its highest-scoring round of the tournament Monday at 26-over 941, which tied for the worst round of the day. The Bruins’ 20th place finish was their worst of the season and last among the six Pac-12 teams in the tournament.

No player shot better than 5-over 78 in the final round. Senior Beth Wu tied for 73rd at 16-over and Galdiano shot 20-over 239 to tie for 93rd. Yue and junior Clare Legaspi tied for 113rd and 118th, respectively.

The team shot 23-over on par-3s during the tournament, tying with No. 26 San Jose State and No. 16 Northwestern for the worst cumulative par-3 score. UCLA also tied for last with San Jose State for total birdies with 24 in addition to finishing in the bottom half in par-4 and par-5 scoring averages.

The Bruins could not surpass their performance in last year’s NCAA championship, where they were tied atop the leaderboard after stroke play and won a tiebreaker against the Alabama Crimson Tide to earn the top seed heading into match play.

However, UCLA was upset by No. 8 seed Arizona – the eventual national champions – in the match play quarterfinals, falling 3-2 despite individual victories from Wu and Galdiano.

No. 4 Texas, No. 2 Duke, No. 1 USC, No. 6 Arkansas, No. 3 Wake Forest, No. 7 Arizona, No. 5 Stanford and No. 12 Auburn will compete in match play quarterfinals on Tuesday, with three Pac-12 teams in position to win the conference’s fifth straight national championship.

Op-ed: Tuition hike reveals failure to recognize contributions of nonresident students

On Thursday, The University of California Board of Regents decided to, once again, raise tuition for nonresident students.

UC President Janet Napolitano sent a clear message to all out-of-state, international and nonresident-tuition-nonexempt undocumented students: We don’t care about you unless you bankroll our institution.

The tuition hikes are a paradigm of the paradoxical relationship between our financial value and our unappreciated role as contributors and builders of a world-class university system. The time has come for this blatant disregard for the humanity and value of nonresident students to stop.

As an out-of-state student, I am fortunate to have parents who can pay for the equivalent of in-state tuition at my state school. However, that still leaves me to cover the additional $29,754 nonresident supplemental fee myself. I do not qualify for financial aid, yet I still carry a loan burden much greater than many of my Californian counterparts.

I came to UCLA knowing my financial situation. However, I came on the premise that it was more affordable than some of my other choices, which were private schools with tuitions upward of $70,000 a year. UCLA’s affordability, in large part, led me to choose it over other more prestigious and more expensive universities.

Yet as tuition rates get closer to the price of these private universities that provide more equitable financial aid and resources, the UC will lose valuable students and yield rates will drop.

The regents have no care for our financial and personal needs, but they should care about our retention if they wish to have students to fund their multimillion-dollar funding gaps in the future.

Moreover, campuses like UCLA pride themselves on being a world university, while financially exploiting the students that make it so. The nonresident students now being forced to pay higher tuition are the students who encourage their peers and siblings from across the country and world to apply to UCLA and tell their networks of friends and family about their experiences. They are the students who pursue successful careers in a wide spectrum of fields, bolstering the prestige of UCLA across the globe and bringing in essential money and resources.

For instance, UCLA is desperately attempting to cement itself as a respected institution to employers and the federal government in my hometown of Washington, D.C. Yet at the same time, administrators ostracize students from these areas by exploiting them for money and disregarding their unique needs. These students have the knowledge and network to build up UCLA’s reputation in their places of residence – through parents, peers and institutional connections. The UC cannot expect to gain respect across the globe if it fails to listen to the needs of the students from these regions.

Napolitano argued not raising nonresident tuition would result in a $30 million budget gap that would harm all students. Yet the regents could have opted for a smaller tuition increase of about $100 for all UC students to raise this money. Instead, it decided to charge about 20% of its population an amount over seven times greater than this.

While tuition increases will hurt students no matter what, there are many more California residents that can afford a $100 increase than there are nonresident students that can afford a $762 increase.

The regents might have had the ability to see nonresident students as more than just a herd of cash cows if they were less blind to the contributions nonresident students make to the UC’s prestige and diversity. Inevitably, though, they will attempt to raise tuition for nonresidents again.

Let’s hope they recognize the students who have made the nation’s top public universities what they are today.

Cooper is a first-year geography student.

UC’s tuition hikes overlook overarching issue of graduate student under-enrollment

Finish the puzzle.

Deferred enrollment – the process of stashing your admit letter so you can make the world a better place for another year before having to learn how to play rage cage.

Deferred maintenance – the process of snoozing the alarm clock alerting you that infrastructure, like those rusty elevators in Boelter Hall, should probably get an upgrade.

Deferred enrollment maintenance? That’s the process of hamstringing your educational lifeline.

And it’s what the University of California excels at.

Last week, the UC Board of Regents saw fit to jack up next year’s nonresident tuition by $762 – ostensibly to plug a $30 million hole in the University’s 2019-2020 budget. The decision spurred the now-seasonal conversation about how administrators don’t value out-of-state students and how California’s flagship educational institution is pulling the drawbridge on its institutional diversity.

The void-shouting complaints from students were expected. The regents knew full well what the 2.6% increase to the nearly $29,000 nonresident supplemental tuition would entail – even with the stipulation that part of it would go toward financial aid for out-of-state students.

But the kicker here isn’t that campuses like UCLA are closing off their musty, brick walls to out-of-state students. Instead, it’s that even with the tuition increase, the UC’s budget is still a block of Swiss cheese.

And that’s because administrators have forgotten about a crucial population: graduate students.

The state government’s years-long stockpiling of resident undergraduate students into campuses like UCLA, while not comparably increasing the number of graduate students, has resulted in ballooned class sizes, ratcheted up housing fees and diminished funding for student worker and researcher compensation. The institution has effectively been strained where it hurts: its affordability and space.

That reality explains why the 2014 yield rate for UC master’s students – the percentage of admits who chose to enroll – was 14 percentage points lower than the 2014 national average for high-performing research universities, according to the Council of Graduate Schools. Crunch the numbers and for UCLA those are up to 150 additional office hours and discussion sections undergraduate Bruins could have signed up for.

Tuition hikes haven’t helped the University stay afloat. Instead, they’ve set it on a collision course with the sturdiest iceberg there is.

And so long as the spreadsheet games ignore the need to grow graduate student enrollment, the UC’s quality of education is headed straight to the floorboards of the sunken Titanic.

The University has known this for some time. Its budget reports document how since the 1960s, undergraduate enrollment has boomed by 300% while graduate enrollment levels have limped along with a measly 80% growth. The end result has been that graduate students now make up less than one in five enrolled students at general UC campuses – compared to nearly one in three 50 years ago.

That’s well behind other universities. In 2014, graduate students made up 21% of the UC’s total enrollment. That was about two-thirds the number of graduate students enrolling at comparable public universities and one-third of those that private universities were signing up.

The University has tried to mitigate this by requesting state funding to bring in an additional 1,000 graduate students from California for the 2019-2020 school year. It has sought additional funding in the past, too.

But the enrollment numbers have lagged behind. The 2017-2018 admissions cycle only attracted an additional 659 nonresident and resident graduate enrollees compared to the 2016-2017 cycle. That number was 396 for the cycle before.

The stats only look worse when you zoom in on UCLA. Two years ago, the university only brought in an additional 128 graduate students. The year before drew in only 23 additional doctoral and master’s students. And that’s before we start counting how many graduated in those years.

It’s no wonder the student-to-instructor ratio for discussion sections for South Campus courses still hover around 40-to-one.

Oh, and just try asking students streaming out of those classes about the quality of their educations.

These tuition hikes – which affect graduate students, too – defy logic. The more you increase prices, the more campuses have to charge students, the more they have to cough up to waive the fees for exceptional students and the more these essential educators and research powerhouses turn away from the UC. Add on the warped admissions priorities of campuses like UCLA and UC Berkeley, whose doctoral student admission rates have dropped in recent years, and it’s clear that deferred enrollment maintenance is the greatest runaway scandal the UC is engaging in.

Sure, the University has been required by the state government to drastically increase the number of California undergraduate students in recent years. Financing the subsidized tuition for those students – and financial aid for some – means someone has to foot the bill. That responsibility has understandably fallen on nonresident students, whose families do not pay taxes toward California’s premier higher education institutions.

But these tuition fees seem to only be going toward expanding the hole that’s sinking the UC. Matching the number of graduate student enrollees to undergraduates is a start, but years of sitting on the problem have led to a morbid situation of overcrowded classrooms and an undercut education by the nation’s top public universities.

It’s only a matter of time before that all catches up. Deferred maintenance has a habit of never letting go.

Cafe review: Donation-based coffee shop Upside Down provides fresh, welcoming environment

Accustomed to the appallingly high expenses at modern coffee shops, I wondered what the prices would be as I walked into Upside Down – only to find that there were none.

The donation-based cafe – where customers dictate how much they want to pay for its products – initially seemed like every other trendy, millennial-infested coffee space from the outside. But its eccentric artwork and economic model set it apart from Westwood’s overcrowded coffee scene. Owned and operated by the nonprofit organization Jews for Jesus, Upside Down is currently in its early stages, having had its soft opening March 25. Before the space on Le Conte Avenue was converted into a cafe, it served as an office owned by the nonprofit, said Upside Down’s director Isaac Brickner, but the organization wanted to further engage with the community by making it a place open to all.

“We wanted to provide a space for students to just hang and connect,” Brickner said. “Our goal is not just centered around coffee and studying; it’s more about building a community.”

The cafe’s clean, open concept and rotating art exhibits make it a comfortable, leisurely place for students to spend time on those lucky days with few classes. The neon pink canvases leap from the blank wall, drawing the customers in. Almost all of the work is reminiscent of neoplasticism, with the geometric paintings complementing one another to produce a satisfying collection that facilitates an ideal study break. Meanwhile, the subtle stream of ambient James Bay-type indie music eases students into a productive, relaxed mindset. The simplicity of the space helps eliminate any distractions, but the art keeps things interesting.

The cafe also boasts clearly high standards for its coffee. Upside Down is influenced by Australian cafe culture, especially in the way Australians care for their coffee and perfect their products, straying from the more industrialized process used in the United States, Brickner said. Australian coffee shops prioritize details such as latte art, he said, which they believe affect both the presentation and taste of the drink.

Upside Down’s products reflect its mission, with the cold brew offering a bold yet smooth texture accompanied by chocolate undertones. First-year sociology and economics student Eliza Donaghy, who came to the coffee shop to get some homework done, said she enjoyed her hot mocha. It was the perfect blend of sweet and bitter, she said, served in a small, ceramic mug.

But despite being a relaxing student spot, the cafe is not the most convenient for students’ tightly packed schedules. Upside Down is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. only on weekdays, inevitably conflicting with class schedules. Brickner addressed this potential issue, noting the cafe opened just a month and a half ago.

“The cafe is still in its soft opening, so these hours are definitely not permanent,” Brickner said. “We didn’t want to overwork any of our employees at the beginning.”

Upside Down also falls short in the variety of its beverages, at least compared to its local competitors. The cafe offers the basics – espresso, latte, pour-over and an assortment of teas – but currently nothing else, even though pastries and cookies would provide an appropriate complement. The addition of snacks might come after the grand opening, Brickner said, but it has never been the variety of products that draw customers to the cafe.

Upside Down’s business style and customer service distances it from its competitors, like Ministry of Coffee. When I walked into the space, I was greeted with abundant smiles from barista and hospitality coordinator Lucy Eshleman. She wore her light brown hair back in an effortless messy bun, complemented by a stylish, rustic outfit. The employees’ freedom from uniforms mirrored the relaxed vibe of the cafe.

“We have a donation-based business model because we wanted to make our products accessible and open to all,” Eshleman said. “We wanted to build a family, not just a coffee shop.”

The economic model of the cafe, combined with idiosyncratic art, make Upside Down a real treat. Although their hours and menu are limited, the clean, accepting vibe of the space and the customer service make Upside Down a front-runner in Westwood’s intimidating coffee shop market.

“There are plenty of coffee shops in Westwood. But there isn’t a place to just go and be,” Brickner said. “This is the ultimate goal of Upside Down.”