Hello, old fremeny
Arizona is set for a whole new world when it begins play in the Big 12 Conference later this month, facing off against a set of mostly unknown opponents in arguably the toughest league in college basketball.
But before that, the Wildcats get to see an old friend, or rather foe, in the UCLA Bruins. The former Pac-12 rivals start a 3-game neutral-site series on Saturday at Footprint Center in Phoenix.
UCLA, which has moved to the Big Ten Conference, moved into the AP Top 25 this week at No. 24 after opening its league schedule with a pair of wins. The Bruins’ only loss came last month against New Mexico in Las Vegas.
To better understand the Bruins, we reached out to Dimitri Dorlis of The Mighty Bruin. Below are his direct answers to our wayward questions:
AZ Desert Swarm: UCLA is off to an 8-1 start, much better than a year ago when the Bruins entered the final season of Pac-12 play below .500. What have been the biggest reasons for the improvement?
Dimitri Dorlis: “I think Mick Cronin said it best earlier in the season when he was asked the same question: UCLA just has better players compared to last year. The UCLA team last year was almost like a weird social experiment to see how many freshmen on a team was too many, and acclimating that many freshmen and international players to the college game proved to be too tough a challenge. The upgrades through the transfer portal are numerous; Tyler Bilodeau gives UCLA an actual four instead of what they were trotting out last year (even if Cronin keeps playing him as a big), Eric Dailey Jr. has been UCLA’s best player this season, and while some of the other transfers like Skyy Clark, Kobe Johnson, and William Kyle III have not started hot out of the gate, they have provided a higher floor compared to last year. Add in improvements from the guys who stayed (Dylan Andrews, Sebastian Mack, Lazar Stefanovic, and Aday Mara in particular) and you have a really good team that is playing high-level defense already.”
It looks like about half the current roster are transfers, including most of the starters and a few from former Pac-12 schools. Which of these newcomers have had the most impact?
“There’s two answers here. The easy one from the outside is probably Bilodeau. The Oregon State transfer is taking on a huge offensive load so far and has mostly lived up to the challenge, though he’s currently being miscast as a big. He’s been effective both near the basket and away from it, which makes him hard to defend. The correct answer, however, is Eric Dailey Jr. The Oklahoma State transfer has been UCLA’s best player so far, showcasing both an incredible motor, defensive prowess, and ability to meet the moment. He led the Bruins in scoring against Oregon with 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting, and while I would assume his numbers will come back down to earth at some point, the most impressive thing is that he never seems to be pressing too much, and is instead playing within himself and the system to get his baskets.”
UCLA is once again showing solid defensive prowess, leading the nation in points allowed and holding opponents to 37.5 percent shooting. What makes the Bruins so effective on this end?
“Call it Cronin’s commitment to excellence on that end. He’s always been a great defensive coach but this year he got a lot of veteran players to come in and buy into that system. It probably helps that many of them are familiar with Cronin and that system already (Bilodeau and Johnson are former Pac-12 guys, and Skyy Clark was heavily recruited by Cronin out of high school), but the scary thing is that I don’t think the defense has reached its potential yet. UCLA has been running a bad full court press far too often this year and is giving up way too many good looks out of it, and there are some defenders on the roster (Clark and Johnson in particular) who are struggling to adapt to the whole-team defensive system. Johnson has a lot of bad habits to unlearn after playing under Andy Enfield for so long, while Clark just lacks the lateral quickness and size to be a good defender.”
Who do you expect to be Arizona’s most difficult matchup?
“I honestly haven’t watched enough Arizona to give you a definitive answer as to where UCLA can attack, but I do have an interesting answer here: the bench. UCLA’s bench is hilariously deep this year, as they can run out a lineup with the bench (Sebastian Mack, freshman and former California PotY Trent Perry, Dominick Harris, Lazar Stefanovic, William Kyle III or Aday Mara) that could be a competitive Big 10 team on their own. UCLA has won a lot of games thanks to this accumulation of talent, and being able to go 9-10 deep on the bench and have very little drop-off in quality is what is allowing them to blow out a lot of teams and stick around with an Oregon team that had more top-end talent. It also means this UCLA is less susceptible to foul trouble than ones in the past, which not many teams can say is the case.”
Based on clips seen and quotes posted, it seems like Mick Cronin has become a little more laid back in his 6th season? Has he changed his tune or have there just not been enough things for him to get mad about?
“Has he seemed calmer this year? From inside the bubble, I can tell you it’s still the same fiery Mick Cronin during games. If I had to guess why it seems better from the outside, I would say that it comes back to having a veteran team. In particular, I think Cronin is getting exactly what he wanted from this roster, which is a bunch of talented but flawed players who are coming to him as sort of an NBA finishing school. There’s a lot of trust already built on the roster, and even if Cronin has spent parts of games ripping into various players, it hasn’t caused them to lose morale but rather use it to improve.”
Prediction time. Will UCLA take this neutral-site matchup and put Arizona back below .500 or will Tommy Lloyd improve to 7-2 against the Bruins? Give us a score prediction.
“My first belief is that Arizona is probably much better than their record would indicate. None of the teams they lost to are bad, with three of them being ranked and West Virginia knocking on the door. But from what I watched of their game against Oklahoma, this Arizona team has some noticeable flaws, particularly on the defensive end and with their shooting, that UCLA can take advantage of. I think this game will be extremely close, with Tommy Lloyd and crew considering this a must-win for Arizona’s tournament hopes, but I also think the Bruins have all sorts of momentum after playing and winning a competitive matchup in Eugene where they were the better team for 37 minutes of that game. I’m going to say UCLA wins by two, 75-73.”