UCLA Basketball: 5 things we learned from the Bruins’ exhibition game

5. UCLA Could Go 10 Players Deep

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During his tenure, Steve Alford has typically run with an 8-man rotation, though that has to do with the fact that Alford’s teams have not necessarily been deep. That changed this season with a six-man freshman class, though it was not exactly known who would be immediate contributors.

What also threw things for a loop was the fact that the Bruins lost three players due to injury before the season started (Alex Olesinski – foot, Shareef O’Neal – heart, Tyger Campbell – ACL).

So does that mean the Bruins could have had an 11-man rotation? No, but it gives Alford more options. Still, the Bruns had six players score in double-digits (Ali – 25, Brown – 20, Hands – David Singleton – 14, Kris Wilkes – 13, Jules Bernard – 10) and the minutes were distributed fairly evenly with all 10 scholarship players getting no less than 14 minutes of game time.

Alford might have wanted to get his Bruins as much experience as possible, especially in an exhibition, but when they were in the game, they made use of their time on the court. All ten scholarship players scored and grabbed a rebound, eight of them had an assist (for a total of 21), seven recorded a steal and they collectively only had 9 turnovers.

Once again, we have to take all of this with a grain of salt, but it is a good indication of what is to come for UCLA this season.