UCLA Basketball: Bruins ranked 21st in preseason AP Poll

The UCLA Basketball team will start the 2017-18 season ranked 21st in nation in the preseason AP Poll Top 25, which came out today.

The UCLA Basketball team will once again start their season in the AP Top 25 as they come in ranked 21st in the preseason poll. This is the second year in a row that the Bruins have been ranked in the preseason Top 25 after their disasterous 2015-16 season.

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UCLA bounced back last year with an amazing recruiting class that was led by Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf who got them back to the NCAA tournament. UCLA finished 31-5 and made it back to the Sweet 16.

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That feat will be difficult to repeat as the Bruins lost four of their five starters and five total players to both graduation in the NBA draft this last not off-season.

Fortunately for Head Coach Steve Alford, he has been killing it on the recruiting trail and this year brings in another star-studded recruiting class consisting of seven freshman. Two of those are five star recruits, PG Jaylen Hands and SF Kris Wilkes.

They will bring their talents to a core consisting of vets PG Aaron holiday, PF Gyorgy Goloman and C Thomas Welsh who bring knowledge and experience of UCLA’s up-tempo offense.

With Alford able to recruit such amazing talent, the Bruins will try to build off of their offensive game plan from last season, which consisted of pushing the ball up and down the court at breakneck speed. Last season, UCLA was second in the nation in scoring with 89.8 points per game.

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The Bruins were also picked to finish third in the Pac-12 behind Arizona and USC, both teams that are also ranked in the top 25. Arizona starts the season in the preseason at #3 and USC at #10. For the full top 25, click HERE.