Donovan Dent has one of his best games as a Bruin

The Bruins have been waiting for Donovan Dent to show why he was one of the best transfers of the off-season. He showed those glimpses on Wednesday night against Arizona State. Scoring 20 points and being able to break down a defense. Something that made him a star player when he was with New Mexico. UCLA needs Dent to be on top of his game, if this team wants to compete in the Big Ten and make a deep March run. He is more than capable of doing it but more games like last night will need to come.

Dent last season averaged 20.4 points on a shooting line of 49/40.9/78.4 leading him to be Mountain West Player of the Year. So far this season his averages of 12.8 points on 39.3/12.5/63 shooting line is far near that production. There seems to be times that he is not confident in his jump shot. Leading to being hesitant to shoot the ball. The Bruins will need him to tap into that confidence that he displayed last season. There were games that he looked unstoppable.

The competition in the Big Ten is much more than it is in the Mountain West. There are growing pains that are going to happen. But Dent has a great opportunity ahead of him. With a good season, he could catapult himself into NBA Draft talks. UCLA is a well-known school about sending players to the next level. He will get that opportunity and his play will need to continue as it did in the Arizona State game.

Dent is a great talent; he will figure out his jump shot. There is no reason for him to be shooting 12.5% from 3-point range. 63% from the free throw line is also well below average for a player of his caliber. It is time to build on the positives and Arizona State was a positive. He will have two games to continue that against Cal Poly and UC Riverside. After that there will be no room for error and it’s important to go into that Big Ten schedule strong.