UCLA Basketball: Insider Suggests New Bruins Look Raw In Preseason Scrimmages

This doesn't bode incredibly well.

With your UCLA Bruins men's basketball program now just one week away from the start of its 2023-24 season, it appears that adding seven freshman and one junior transfer could be taking its toll on the disciplined club that, last year with a much more seasoned overall roster, advanced all the way to the Sweet Sixteen during the NCAA Tournament.

Tracy Pierson of Bruin Report Online that Mick Cronin's new team, which includes some highly-touted recruits with serious NBA potential, has at times struggled to gel in preseason practices.

"Overall, from what we’ve been told, the practices have both been very promising but rough at times," Pierson writes. "Remember, there are seven freshmen and eight total new players, so there’s just so much that they all don’t know about how to play under Mick Cronin – or just basketball in general. It’s tough for any freshman when he’s making the transition to college basketball – much less seven of them. They don’t know so many fundamentals and techniques, and with international players, almost all of it is new. For some, like [Berke] Buyuktuncel or [Aday] Mara, they’ve never practiced like this – at this level of intensity or detail. The European teams they played on were professional, and pro teams pretty much don’t practice but just play games. Even the American freshmen are swimming. On both sides of the court. You can imagine, for someone like Cronin, who wants precision in his screens, cuts, timing, angles, etc., it’s practically a whole team of players that don’t know any of it. With defense, it’s mostly about experience and knowledge – knowing when to switch, go over a screen, help, rotate, etc., and Cronin is pretty much dealing with a team-full of players who are learning it all from scratch. So, you can understand why the first couple of weeks of practice have been generally rough."

Here's hoping that the club can work out its growing pains early, and that they won't have too adverse an impact on its 2024 March Madness trajectory.

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