UCLA Basketball: Bruin Takes Selfless Stance As Team Struggles To Make AP Top 25

Your 2023-24 UCLA Bruins boast a starry recruiting class, one which features two freshman frontcourt players widely considered probable first round NBA draft picks next summer.

And neither is remotely close to being UCLA’s best player this season.

That would be 6’10” sophomore power forward Adem Bona, the reigning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.

Bona’s scoring has seen a massive uptick this season, thanks in part to the departures of several upperclassmen last summer. At present, though, he’s not focused on individual glory — at least, not to hear him tell it.

Grace Whitaker of The Daily Bruin writes that Bona is more frustrated with the club’s early struggles this season to match up favorably against comparable competition. UCLA is 5-3 on the year, in large part because the program has been able to win a lot of the games it was expected to, against far inferior opponents. But to get deep into March Madness next spring, the Bruins need to go deeper than that. The team has yet to make the Associated Press’s poll of the top 25 programs in the country.

“To be honest, developing the team together, winning more games, playing more as a team, playing cohesively,” Bona said of his priorities this year. “It’s more about the team and less about myself right now, trying to get the team together to be able to win more games.”

It’s a noble thought. UCLA can start by beating Villanova today. The matchup tips off at 4 p.m., and will be broadcast on Fox.

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