TheSuzerain wrote:Excited for UCLA - Marquette.
Does UCLA have crap perimeter talent this year? Bona/Mara seems like good talent up front yet they are unranked.
Ucla has 7 freshmen this year which is a big reason why they’re unranked. Aside from that, their two key experienced players are sophomores. They lost a lot of upperclassmen. Their most experienced guys are Nwuba (who’s been an end of bench/rotation guy most of his career) and transfer Lazar Stefanovic
But to answer your question, UCLA doesn’t necessarily have crap perimeter talent but they’re currently very unknown. Their likely best perimeter guy is more of a 3/4 in Berke Buyuktuncel who will be making his debut tonight since he finally just got cleared by NCAA on Thursday.
Apart from Berke, I like Ilane Fibleuil a lot but he’s still a bit of a project (another freshman). He’s very athletic and has great defensive potential and as a slasher offensively
Another pair of freshman (Sebastian Mack and Jan Vide) are also quite intriguing but Mack plays very out of control right now and Vide needs to work on his jumper (he has a sweet float game though)
I expect ucla to lose tonight but by March they’ll be a very different team. There’s still a lot to be sorted out and with so many freshman (4 being international guys), it’ll take some time for them to get acclimated to college basketball.