The UCLA basketball team had to do without the services of big men Cody Riley and Jalen Hill last season due to a season-long suspension, but their return will have a big impact for the Bruins during the 2018-19 season.
What was to become of the UCLA basketball team after the exodus of three NBA-bound freshmen that led head coach Steve Alford’s best squad in his tenure in Westwood during the 2016-17 season?
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Lonzo Ball, TJ Leaf, and Ike Anigbogu played a huge part in UCLA’s 31-5 finish that season and helped make it one of the best offensive teams in the nation. It also helped prove that Alford’s uptempo style of basketball could bring them success (despite not winning any hardware and exiting the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet Sixteen, once again).
The offense that squad brought would be hard to replicate, but Alford was on a roll in recruiting and he was bringing in a Top 5 recruiting class which included 5-star PG Jaylen Hands and SF Kris Wilkes, 4-star PFs Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, and 3-star SF Chris Smith, and SG LiAngelo Ball. Alford might not have been able to replicate the previous season’s success, but he had a recruiting class that was going to help him try.
Things were looking up prior to the start of the 2016-17 season. Aaron Holiday and Thomas Welsh would lead this talented team, which would have been Alford’s deepest in his tenure, but then an incident in China derailed those plans.
The Bruins were set to begin their season on November 10, 2017, in Shanghai, China against Georgia Tech for the Pac-12 Goodwill Game, but earlier that week, three of the newest members of the Bruins’ squad were arrested on suspicion of shoplifting.