What We Learned About UCLA Basketball After the Non-Conference Schedule

Taking stock of the Bruins heading into full conference play.

The Bruins are currently 11-2 on the season. (Photo credit: Jan Kim Lim/uclabruins.com)

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The UCLA Bruins currently sit at #15 in the nation as of the start of January. They are 11-2 on the season, with a 2-0 record in conference play to go with it. The Bruins have notched big victories on the road against Oregon and at neutral site games against Arizona and Gonzaga. Yes, there have been slip-ups, but overall, this team has improved much compared to what we saw a year ago.

With that said, this seems like as good a time as any to take stock of the team and see what we’ve learned about them as we head into the bulk of Big Ten conference play. This isn’t a comprehensive run-down of everything we’ve seen from the team, but just a list of things I want to talk about.

The Talent Level Has Improved Immensely (and a Surprise Best Player)

I wanted to start with a basic statement that I think has gotten lost in the discourse surrounding this team: the baseline talent level is much improved compared to last year.

UCLA’s starting lineup only features one player that was on the team last year. There are only four rotation pieces that were on this team last year. One of last year’s starters is redshirting on this team! There is just so much more talent on this team, and the returning talent is being put in a better position to be a positive contributor as a result. Lazar Stefanovic is perfect in his role as sharpshooter off the bench, while Sebastian Mack is feasting against second-units and Aday Mara looks much stronger and more playable than he did last year (we’ll talk about Dylan Andrews in a bit).

The reinforcements from the transfer portal have been mostly solid to spectacular. Skyy Clark has been a steadying presence at the guard spots, while Tyler Bilodeau has assumed the role of leading scorer that was projected for him at the start of the year. Kobe Johnson has been a bit erratic at times but his defense has generally been high and he’s starting to hit outside shots at a good clip. And while he’s not a transfer, Trent Perry has been solid as he gets acclimated to the college game.

The biggest surprise has been Eric Dailey Jr. In the season preview, I felt that Dailey was going to spend the year as a depth piece who may play himself into a bigger role this year before breaking out for good in 2025-2026, similar to the career trajectory of Jaime Jaquez. Well, much like Jaquez in his freshman season, Dailey has proven himself to be indispensable, and while he may not be UCLA’s best scorer or defender, he is their best overall player and the motor that keeps the entire machine running. Dailey rates near the top of the pile in many rate stats (especially if you measure it per 40 minutes or per 100 possessions rather than per game), and just does so many things well for the team, from his outside shooting to his willingness to mix it up for rebounds.

However, it is not statistics that exemplify why Dailey is the current best player on the team. Instead, consider the games against Arizona and North Carolina. In the Arizona game, Dailey was limited by foul trouble for most of the game, getting his fourth foul with 16 minutes remaining in the game. While Dailey sat, Arizona was able to build out a lead that started to feel insurmountable. I don’t think it is a coincidence that UCLA’s comeback occurred once Dailey was back in the game, and while he only scored one point and had a single rebound in those final eight minutes, his defensive intensity and steady play helped drive the Bruins. Similarly, one of the easiest things to point to when discussing UCLA’s loss to North Carolina (besides some unreal officiating) was the loss of Dailey to a head injury, preventing him from playing the entire second half.

The biggest hindrance to Dailey’s game so far has been foul trouble, which is to be expected. Dailey is an active defender, and he does have a propensity for getting too aggressive when he would be better served by playing safe. UCLA’s defense in general has been really good as well - currently sitting at 4th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency - so he needs to trust the other players around him a bit more rather than trying to do too much. But if he can lower his foul rate, Dailey should become even more of a factor.

The Need for 2024 Dylan Andrews

If there’s one major sticking point on this UCLA team at the moment, it is the play and production of Dylan Andrews. In the preseason preview, I felt Andrews had one of the best chances of any UCLA player to make an All-Conference list, just based on how he performed to end last season. What I did not see coming was a return of the early season Andrews that was only playing due to a lack of other options on the team.

Andrews missed a few games early in the season with a groin injury, and it is hard to say just how much he has been able to move past that, but the early results have not been good. Andrews is averaging 8.1 points per game on the season, which is good for fourth on the team so far, but that number is inflated by a 21-point outburst against Prairie View a few weeks ago. Taking a look at Andrews’s run of games against higher-end opponents puts things in stark contrast; Andrews scored 12 points against Washington, which is the high-water mark of this data set. The only other double-digit scoring output Andrews put up was his 10 points against Oregon, and three of those came on a last-second prayer that banked in to win the game for the Bruins. Against Arizona, Andrews only had four points; against North Carolina, he only had two. The worst performance came against Gonzaga, where Andrews was held scoreless on 0-5 shooting, and most damningly was held out of the final stretch of the game, exiting with 12:13 left in the second half and only returning as a defensive substitute with five seconds remaining.

It wasn’t until the end of January last year that things finally clicked for Andrews; he went for 20 points on 7-15 shooting in a victory over Southern Cal and was only held below double-digit points once in the final 14 games of the season. Andrews’s turnaround also helped coincide with the best run of play UCLA saw all of last year, so you can understand why Mick Cronin and the rest of the coaching staff will continue to play him. At his best, Andrews can be the best player on the court, with a quickness to get past any defender, a solid stroke from distance, and a devastating pull-up jumper from the free throw line. Andrews pairs that with excellent defense, which has generally still been the case this season even if the offense has been fleeting. That version of Andrews can take this UCLA team from a very good one to a truly elite squad.

The problem, however, is that Andrews is starting to run out of runway to get back to that point. If the Gonzaga game is any indication, Cronin is starting to tighten the leash on Andrews, instead turning to Skyy Clark and Sebastian Mack to carry the load from the guard spot. This is a flawed solution - Clark is steady but cannot easily generate his own shot, while Mack’s style of offense is exciting but, as the Gonzaga game indicated, can short-circuit against sound defenses. For UCLA to really click offensively, they need Andrews to get going.

A Note on the Offense

Mick Cronin is never going to win over a certain subset of UCLA fans. These are the fans who love offense and find the grinding nature of the Cronin offensive system to be antithetical to what basketball should be. I am not one of those people - the basketball team I coach focuses much more on the defensive end and limiting the amount of chances the opponent has to score - but I do understand their concerns. There are times in every game when UCLA will go into an offensive funk, failing to make shots for minutes on end, and when you see that continue to happen you will start to feel a certain way.

But it should be noted that UCLA’s offense has improved immensely this year compared to last and is a sign that Cronin can adapt to his roster. UCLA currently sits at 66th in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency rankings, which is fairly average but much improved from last year’s 152nd ranking. UCLA is shooting more three-pointers - and making much more - compared to last year and is making more shots around the rim. I actually went and compared UCLA’s stats to that of the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 Bruins, who had the best KenPom offensive ratings of the Cronin era, and the numbers are very similar; if anything, this is the best shooting team of the Cronin era.

Two numbers stand out about this year: turnovers and assists. UCLA is currently averaging 11.5 turnovers per game, which is not terrible but represents the highest mark for a Cronin team since his first season in Westwood when the team averaged 13.6 for the year. Typically, Cronin teams have averaged around 10 turnovers a game, so UCLA seeing a small uptick in those turnovers is helping to explain the lower efficiency numbers compared to years past. But the bigger number is the assists; UCLA is currently averaging 16.6 assists per game, which if it holds would represent an almost 2 APG improvement on the best season under Cronin.

The reason for those numbers is pretty simple: UCLA has mostly abandoned the iso-ball that defined the Jaquez years and is embracing a more flowing offense, characterized by a bevy of unselfish players constantly looking to make the extra pass and turn a good shot into a great one. UCLA isn’t running a complicated offense - it is closer to a basic motion offense without any of the bells and whistles that elite motion offenses possess - but there are less instances of poor offensive flow to be found this year. Most of the lulls on offense tend to be instances of players simply missing shots, which happens.

And before I move on, I would also like to mention that while those UCLA fans at the beginning of this segment love to harp on the offensive lulls of the Cronin offense, they never seem to mention when the opponent goes through a similar lull. Like Gonzaga, for instance, who made only one shot from the field in the final 4:40 of game time. Basketball is a game of runs, and if you can only focus on the one your opponent goes on, you just end up in a bad head space.

Lauren Betts is a Cheat Code

OH DID YOU THINK WE WERE ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE MEN?

I have not hid my distaste for Coach Cori Close. I think she is an excellent recruiter, perhaps one of the best in the nation, but she struggles on the tactical side, which is how her teams have often come up short when faced with an opponent that can match their talent. But even I have to give Coach Close credit for figuring out a solution: simply out-talent everyone. That is what UCLA has been able to do this season, throwing waves of talent at opponents to the point where even mighty South Carolina could not keep pace with the Bruins.

Of course, it helps when you have one of the more dominant centers in WCBB to anchor your lineup, and that is exactly what Lauren Betts has been doing this year. She leads the team in points per game (19.3), rebounds (9.8), and, in a sign of how all-encompassing she has been, is fourth in assists per game on the team. She is so dominant that Michigan was essentially forced into fouling her repeatedly in the 4th quarter just to get the UCLA offense to look anywhere else. It has turned into a situation where any offensive trip where she does not touch the ball can be seen as a failure.

To be sure, UCLA is getting great contributions all throughout the lineup. Kiki Rice has elevated her game in year three, currently averaging a career-high in points per game despite taking fewer shots, and is turning the ball over at a career-low rate. Gabriela Jaquez is making the most of her new position as a starter and is putting on the kind of all-around performance that would make her brother proud. Timea Gardiner is posting similar rate numbers to what she was putting up at Oregon State last year, which is great because it is also pushing Angela Dugelic to perform the best she has in a UCLA uniform just to hold on to her starting spot. Freshman Elina Aarnisalo has played with veteran poise and has given UCLA a secondary ball-handler to complement Rice.

But it is Betts who is the engine that powers this team. The overall success of this year’s women’s basketball squad may ultimately rest on Betts’s continued health, and if Coach Close can show an increased tactical acumen when the chips are down. Matchups with Southern Cal and Ohio State will provide some tests, but we may be approaching a point where any failure to make the Final Four will be seen as a disappointment.

Go Bruins!

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