Jaime Jaquez Jr. Returns to UCLA Men's Basketball, Opts Not To Enter NBA Draft
The Bruins are getting their stat sheet stuffer and program cornerstone back for one last ride.
Guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. announced he is returning to UCLA men's basketball for the 2022-2023 season in a video on social media Monday afternoon, delaying his declaration for the NBA Draft until next spring. Jaquez led the Bruins in points, rebounds and steals both this season and last season, leading the way for a team that made the Final Four and Sweet 16 in back-to-back years.
In his announcement video, Jaquez cited wanting to win UCLA’s 12th championship as one of the deciding factors in him electing to return for his senior campaign.
Jaquez was one of the five finalists for the Julius Erving Award this season, given to the nation's top small forward, but two of the others have already declared for the NBA Draft and the winner, Duke's Wendell Moore Jr., could be pro-bound as well.
UCLA lost guard/forward Peyton Watson to the 2022 NBA Draft Pool on Tuesday and guard/forward Jake Kyman to the transfer portal two weeks earlier, but with Jaquez's return, the program will still have to shed another scholarship player in order to make room for the three incoming freshmen.
Ever since coach Mick Cronin arrived in 2019, Jaquez has been part of UCLA's core, standing in as the headliner in the coach's first recruiting class with the program. Jaquez is averaging 13.9 points and 5.7 rebounds per game across his collegiate career, picking up All-Pac-12 First Team and Second Team honors in addition to two nods to the All-Pac-12 Defensive Team.
“Jaime has been a tremendous and tenacious player in our program for three years, and we are thrilled that he will come back for his senior season in Westwood,” Cronin said in a statement released by the team. “Jaime has a chance to go down with so many other great Bruins in UCLA history who have played four seasons in front of the Pauley Pavilion faithful.”
Jaquez first broke onto the scene at the 2019 Maui Invitational, when Cronin inserted him into the starting lineup against Michigan State and never looked back. Jaquez has started in 89 of the Bruins' last 91 games since the end of that nonconference tournament – he came off the bench in the home finale his freshman year in order for Alex Olesinski to get the start on Senior Day, then missed one game due to injury this past January.
Working through several ankle and head injuries as a junior, Jaquez largely retained his do-it-all, iron man status by powering through those bumps and bruises all year long.
Jaquez notched career highs across nearly every per game, per 40 minute, per 100 possession and advanced statistical category despite those injuries. The 6-foot-7 wing ended the regular season on a tear, guiding his team to a 8-1 stretch ahead of the Pac-12 championship game, but his production slowly dropped once the postseason began.
After scoring 23 points in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals against Washington State, Jaquez's next five performances ended with 19 points, 18 points, 15 points, 15 points and finally 10 points in a Sweet 16 loss to North Carolina. Jaquez suffered his third ankle sprain of the year six days prior to that do-or-die contest, and after lifting UCLA to a multi-score lead midway through the second half, he missed his final nine shot attempts of the night before watching that advantage turn into a late deficit.
By returning to Westwood for another season, Jaquez has a chance to erase those misses and replace them with some big time makes come March Madness 2023. Jaquez has already appeared in nine NCAA tournament games with the Bruins, averaging 14.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game in those contests.
Jaquez returning for another year means he will overlap in Westwood with his younger sister Gabriela, a McDonald's All-American who is set to join UCLA women's basketball in the fall. The younger Jaquez committed to the Bruins last summer, planting the seed for Jaime to come back for a fourth year.
The Jaquez siblings will now have a chance to take Westwood by storm together, one making a push to go out on top while the other takes her first steps at the next level.
The Bruins now await the decisions of guard Johnny Juzang, guard Jules Bernard, forward Cody Riley and center Myles Johnson, needing one to leave in order to meet the NCAA's scholarship requirements.
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