Before anyone asks, let me start by stating that as of the writing of this article, we still do not have official word on the extent of Jaylen Clark’s injury. Nor do I expect UCLA will release any official word this week, likely just stating that Clark’s injury is “day-to-day” and that he will be evaluated further prior to each game of the Pac-12 Tournament. With tournament seeding still on the line for the Bruins, I can imagine Coach Mick Cronin employing some simple gamesmanship just to prevent the tournament committee from screwing UCLA out of the high seed that they deserve (who can forget the 2013 season, when an injury to Jordan Adams in the Pac-12 Tournament dropped UCLA, who had won the conference that season, down to a 6-seed that led to an upset loss to Minnesota and the firing of Ben Howland?).

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s be adults here: Jaylen Clark is likely done for this season.

I don’t want to speculate on the extent of Clark’s injury, but it was bad enough for him to be in a boot and have crutches at the end of the Arizona game last Saturday. Even in the best-case of best-case scenarios where Clark somehow avoided a major injury, I would not expect to see him this week in the Pac-12 Tournament, and maybe not even in the first week of the NCAA Tournament just to give him a chance to heal. But in any case, I don’t expect UCLA is counting on Clark to provide much of anything as they push for an NCAA Tournament.

This does create a different value proposition for the Pac-12 Tournament. Before the injury, I would have been in favor of Coach Cronin playing the bench more as a way to provide them more experience and save the starters for the games to come, but now it becomes paramount that UCLA uses the tournament as live practice as they figure out how to replace Clark’s contributions to the team.

The first change that will happen seems pretty simple. I would expect David Singleton to be reinserted into the starting lineup. This does create some problems, as UCLA will lose some size in this exchange, but Singleton has the experience required for that spot at the moment. This might open things up a bit more offensively for the Bruins - Singleton is a more-accurate shooter from a distance than Clark is, and that should in turn open the lane for more slashing opportunities for Amari Bailey - but defensively they will drop down a beat. UCLA’s team defense is still really good, but Clark’s instincts on that end were a force multiplier that no one on the team can truly replicate.

Second, I would expect Amari Bailey to get more run in general. Bailey is averaging 25.3 minutes a game this season, but with Clark gone, I would expect him to move up to the 30-minute mark for the remainder of the season. Bailey is the player who can offer the best approximation of Clark’s game, being a much better slasher than an outside shooter and a strong defender in his own right. In addition, Bailey has size, something that is sorely lacking in the other potential options. Again, this is not a perfect replacement, but Bailey is the best bet for trying to fill that void.

On a similar note, I definitely expect to see more of Will McClendon and Dylan Andrews, both mostly for what they bring on the defensive end. Andrews is the more athletic of the two while McClendon is often the safer option, but both have produced similar rate stats when it comes to rebounding and steals. I would expect Andrews to get more run if the Bruins want potential scoring punch, while McClendon will likely get more play whenever they want to sit Bailey, as he can play bigger and provides a decent bench option against opposing size.

One thing I would expect to see during the Pac-12 Tournament in particular is new lineup combinations. I will be honest: I don’t see UCLA facing an actual challenge until the finals when they likely play Arizona or Southern Cal again. The Bruins will face one of Washington or Colorado in the first round; Washington is nowhere close to a consistent team and Colorado will be without K.J. Simpson for the tournament, so both matchups should favor UCLA handily. In the semifinals, they would likely face either Oregon or Washington State (I’m not even going to pretend UC Berkeley has a chance to make it this far), and while both matchups would prove interesting, the bigger question will again be whether UCLA shows up mentally more than anything else. That gives the Bruins two games to test some things out, and I’m sure we’ll see some interesting stuff. For example, there was a lot of talk during the preseason about a potential lineup featuring both Adem Bona and Mac Etienne on the floor; Etienne does have a respectable jumper from 10 feet out and did look to consistently hit the Thomas Welsh Memorial Baseline Jumper during warm-ups, so the offense may not have huge spacing issues, while defensively this gives the Bruins more length and size on the interior. I would also expect a Bona/Etienne-Bailey-McClendon-Andrews combination at some point with either Jaquez or Singleton to round it out, which might be UCLA’s best potential defensive lineup at this point. Maybe we see more of Abramo Canka, just to see if he can provide five minutes of solid play? He doesn’t have the game reps that anyone else really has, but March has always been full of surprises for the Bruins.

Here’s the big thing, though: UCLA is going to need to find a way to replace 13 points per game, six rebounds per game, and 2.6 steals a game. Jaylen Clark was a potential All-Conference player and likely Conference Defensive Player of the Year for a reason, and his absence is going to be impossible to replace with one person. It’s going to require a team effort, where everyone steps their game up. It’s going to require the bench players to play more substantial minutes than they have in the past. It’s going to require Bona to play smarter and limit his fouls where he can. It’s going to require Bailey to tap into his potential more, and for Singleton to empty the tank one last time.

Most importantly, it’s going to require UCLA’s two remaining stars to shine even brighter. I said at the beginning of the year that UCLA was only going to go as far as the trio of Jaime Jaquez, Tyger Campbell, and Jaylen Clark would take them, and now one of those three is out. Jaquez likely wrapped up Pac-12 Player of the Year this past week, but he now needs to find another level from both a scoring and defensive standpoint. And while Tyger’s contributions on the offensive end have remained fairly good for the most part, he really needs to lock in defensively - too often against Arizona, Campbell made a bad defensive play to allow Arizona to get an easy look at the basket. UCLA’s margin for error has gone down drastically with Clark out, and they can’t afford to have Campbell fall asleep on defense.

The one bit of hope I will throw here is that, if there is any coaching staff in recent UCLA history I would trust most to have a plan for the loss of a major piece, it is this one. In the 2020-2021 season, the Bruins lost Chris Smith, their best player, early in the year and then lost Jalen Hill, their best defender, late in the season, and still turned it around en route to a Final Four appearance. Last year’s team lost Clark for an extended period of time and saw significant injuries to both Jaquez and Johnny Juzang, and were still a few minutes away from the Elite Eight and another potential Final Four. Yes, the adjustment period is even shorter this time, but UCLA has built a solid amount of depth this year compared to years past, and that could prove the difference between the season definitely being over and the Bruins still having a shot at doing something special.

The margin for error just shrunk, but if there’s anything we’ve learned about the UCLA Bruins under Mick Cronin, it’s that this team refuses to die and will keep fighting until the last moment.

Go Bruins!

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