The UCLA basketball team just received some good news as point guard Jaylen Hands announced that he is returning to the team, a day after Kris Wilkes did the same thing.
After taking a few body blows since exiting the 2018 NCAA Tournament in a “play-in” game, UCLA basketball head coach Steve Alford has been receiving a lot of good news lately. The biggest being the return of two players, which includes sophomore-to-be PG Jaylen Hands, who has announced that he will return to the Bruins for another season.
RELATED: Kris Wilkes Will Return To The Bruins
Yesterday, it was announced that forward Kris Wilkes was withdrawing from the NBA Draft and returning to Westwood, so having his freshman counterpart from last season do the same is a very big deal.
UCLA Jaylen Hands has withdrawn from the NBA Draft and will return to school, sources told ESPN.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) May 30, 2018
Before the weekend, it was projected that UCLA could be without four players (for a variety of reasons): Hands, Wilkes, Cody Riley (NBA Draft, academics) and Shareef O’Neal (academics).
Though there is still a chance for the latter two to return, the former two are back and that is huge, especially in regards to depth.
Without these four players, UCLA would have only had nine scholarship players for the 2018-19 season. Among those, Prince Ali, Chris Smith and Alex Olesinski would have been the only Bruins with any playing time.
With Hands back, they not only retain experience, but much needed statistical contributions. With only Ali, Smith and Olesinksi, UCLA would be returning only 21.6% of their point total from last season. With both Wilkes (the second leading scorer) and Hands (UCLA’s 4th leading scorer with 9.9 ppg), UCLA brings back 49.98% of their scoring output.
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Another reason Hands’ return is so vital is because the Bruins would have only had one point guard on the roster, in-comnig freshman Tyger Campbell. Now UCLA is at least two-deep at each position and with the addition of freshmen SG Jules Bernard, SG David Singleton III, C Kenny Nwuba and C Moses Brown, the Bruins will be a very talented team next season. Welcome back, Jaylen!