UCLA Athletics Whip-Around 4/15: Basketball, Football, Charity Bowl, More

Taking a quick look around the UCLA Athletics sphere.

Apr 15, 2024

Lazar Stefanovic is not mentioned in this article, but I hadn’t used him in a picture in awhile so here you go. (Photo credit: Scott Chandler/uclabruins.com)

Welcome to the Whip-Around, our yearly answer to putting out content in the Spring when things start slowing down. The Whip-Around exists as a catch-all for anything happening in UCLA Athletics at that present moment, so I would not expect in-depth discussion in the articles (we save those for stand-alone articles) but rather just an easy way to keep track of as many things as possible.

Feel free to join in the comments to talk about whatever sport you want, or talk about a sport we did not cover (spoiler: this will probably happen a good amount!). We’ll try to get these out on at least a bi-weekly basis through the spring until summer gets here and we try a few other things.

Let’s get into it!

Did I bring back the Whip-Around just to pimp out the Charity Bowl?

Yes, yes I did.

For those unaware, every year the former team at Every Day Should Be Saturday hosts the Charity Bowl, a fundraiser for New American Pathways, a full-service refugee resettlement nonprofit based in Atlanta. Last year the Charity Bowl raised $933,287, and the goal this year is to hit the million-dollar mark. The Charity Bowl holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons. For one, it’s a good cause and donating to good causes that can provide meaningful change in the world feels good. Two, the event is run by our former colleagues and bosses Spencer Hall and Holly Anderson, two of the most insightful and talented people I know.

And three, there are bragging rights on the line.

See, the way the Charity Bowl works is that people are encouraged to donate to New American Pathways under the banner of their favorite college football team. These donations are tallied up and posted as results throughout the week, with the final tally released on the following Monday usually so that any stragglers are included. Michigan wins this competition every year, and usually by a very large amount, but our main goal here is to start being competitive with our new Big Ten brethren. Last year UCLA raised $4,175, which was good enough for 46th and almost doubled up what Southern Cal put up, but lags well behind what some of the other Big Ten teams are putting up. Hell, we are well behind Stanford and UC Berkeley, and those two schools don’t even care about sports anymore.

That’s where you all come in.

For years I’ve tried to push UCLA’s presence up via the old Bruins Nation Twitter handle, but that is not dead and gone. So instead, I’m using my minuscule amount of weight in the UCLA community to try and drive up UCLA’s tally this year by enlisting you all in this project. I’m trying to get UCLA up to at least $6000 in donations this year, with an ultimate goal to start getting into the $10k range. I am not asking for major donations - the top schools in the competition get there in part through a large amount of small-dollar donations in the $10 and $20 range - but I am asking for your support, and for you to spread the word to other UCLA fans that you know. And having fun with it is encouraged; for example, here is my first donation of the week in honor of our dearly-departed Chip Kelly:

There’s a bunch of other cool things you could do to drive up the numbers. Want to make a monthly donation? That gets added up to the full-year amount and added to the tally! Work for a company that matches donations? That matched amount can also get added to the scoreboard! Want to shame other people here and elsewhere about the fact that you are more charitable than them? Post your donations in the comments or screenshot the donation and post it online!

Here are a couple helpful links to get you started.

If you want to donate, go to this link here. Or, if you want to donate on mobile, text charitybowl24 to 91999.

From Holly and Spencer, here’s a giant FAQ to answer any questions you may have. Here’s also a link to a piece they wrote a few years ago (taken out from behind the paywall) explaining why they continue to put on the Charity Bowl each year.

And here’s a link to last year’s scoreboard, so you can get an idea of what we’re gunning for.

Thanks everyone, now to some UCLA athletics.

I’m not going to count my chickens before they hatch, but I did tell you something like this would happen for UCLA basketball.

In the basketball post-mortem from last month, I said that UCLA was going to be active in the transfer portal, and that their increase in NIL would likely lead to success. So far, that has proven to be the case. Louisville transfer Skyy Clark will add a lot of scoring punch to the backcourt, being a consistent three-point shooter while also having the ability to get in the paint and score. Southern Cal transfer Kobe Johnson brings athleticism and high-level defense to the wing while also being a solid threat to score (coincidentally, he was my favorite player by far for the Trojans last year and was instantly my biggest want when he hit the portal). This past weekend UCLA hosted official visits with two big wing targets Oregon State transfer Tyler Bilodeau and Oklahoma State transfer Eric Dailey. All reports indicate that LMU transfer Dominick Harris is a silent commit.

UCLA had seen some players depart in the meantime. Some felt obvious like Ilane Fibleuil and Jan Vide while Will McClendon’s transfer felt overdue yet bittersweet due to the ACL injury robbing him of athleticism before he could even play a game for the Bruins. And maybe most importantly for next year, Adem Bona declared for the NBA draft, and all indications are that he intends to leave, so the Bruins are now in the market for a new post player.

Mick Cronin and his staff entered transfer season with one scholarship in hand to offer. As of right now, the Bruins are up to three available scholarships, though you have to assume those are being earmarked for Dailey, Bilodeau, and Harris. There is still some fluctuation that can take place with the roster; for example, rumors are that UCLA is suddenly a major player for former Southern Cal commit Trent Perry, the Harvard-Westlake combo guard who led the Wolverines to the California Open Division championship this past year. There are also some questions about what UCLA plans to do regarding the Bona-shaped hole on the roster; reports are indicating that Aday Mara will be returning next year, but are the Bruins going to seriously pursue a transfer post or do they think they can get by going smaller with Bilodeau/Dailey at times. And what do the recruitments of those two wings mean for Berke Buyuktuncel and Brandon Williams, who would likely see a drop in minutes should those two commit?

In either case, the early transfer window has been a coup for Mick Cronin, who is showing that his issue has not been a lack of recruiting in recent years but rather having to recruit against other name brands with one hand tied behind his back. Cronin with an actual war chest of NIL has done a great job of reshaping the roster into something that can compete for a Big Ten Championship quickly.

Spring football practice is back! I’ve been keeping tabs on it on the side, and I’m not super thrilled with Hudson Habermehl going down with a knee injury late last week, but overall the vibes seem to be very positive with Deshaun Foster at the helm.

But the reason I’m not paying attention to spring practice is that I suspect this team is going to look very different come the fall. UCLA was well behind the eight-ball roster-wise thanks to the inaction of Chip Kelly, and Foster and his staff will likely be hitting the late Transfer Portal window hard when it opens tomorrow (for example, impending Arkansas left tackle transfer Andrew Chamblee has indicated he will visit UCLA once the window opens). So there should be a decent amount of change to the roster come fall practice. In addition, the offense is very much in the early phase of installing concepts, and things should be kept rather simple before ramping up in the fall.

But hey, Spring Game at the Rose Bowl on April 27th! That should be fun!

Here are some quick hits from around the athletics department:

The baseball team is still a mess, dropping the rubber match and series to a bad Washington team on Sunday to fall to 13-20 on the season. It’s hard to look at this team as anything other than a massive disappointment given where preseason expectations were, and the Bruins seemingly cannot do anything with any sort of consistency. It’s the kind of performance that should prompt some questions about coach Jon Savage’s approach at the very least, especially with Southern Cal continuing to build up across town.
Softball continues to have a solid season, though still off of their heights from the past decade. Currently, the team sits at 22-9 and ranks 11th in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, which would likely be good enough to host a regional, but for a program with bigger aspirations, this probably doesn’t feel great. Still, there are a ton of positives (Maya Brady having an unbelievable year, for example) and it wouldn’t be shocking to see this team go on a tear to end the regular season.
Besides being the subject of some highlight reels/thirst traps on TikTok that my students decided to share with me last week, the men’s volleyball team still looks like the class of the nation, sitting at #1 in the nation heading into the MPSF Tournament this week. I think they’ll be guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament barring a disastrous upset of some kind, and with that tournament being played down the road in Long Beach, you have to like UCLA’s chances at a repeat national championship.
Beach Volleyball ranks #1 in the nation and just won the Center of Effort Challenge, beating #10 LMU, #4 Florida State, #6 Cal Poly, and most importantly #2 Southern Cal en route to the title. As usual with this program, it looks like it’s going to come down to their performance over a few days in Alabama as to whether they can claim a national championship or not.
Tian Fangran announced she will be going pro after her sophomore season for UCLA women’s tennis, which makes sense considering she won the NCAA singles championship just last year.

That’s all for this edition. Get to donating and let’s shoot for the stars!

Go Bruins!

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