UCLA Basketball is aiming to get back to the glory days. Years removed from a Final Four appearance against Gonzaga, Mick Cronin and the Bruins are still a very competitive team that is coming off a March Madness loss in 2025.
The beginning of the 2024-25 season was rough. Cronin even called out his team and called them delusional after a loss to Michigan. However, things got much better over time. They went on a big win streak and found themselves in the NCAA Tournament.
UCLA has landed a few good players in the transfer portal. One of them is former New Mexico point guard Donovan Dent. Dent was one of the best players in the Mountain West last season and won Mountain West Player of the Year over Colorado State's Nique Clifford. Dent played very well all season long and was one of the top players in the portal when he entered his name.
Dent is from Corona, California, so seeing him at UCLA is not shocking. Although his path to the Bruins was “unlikely”, despite growing up roughly an hour away.
Dent joined Andy Katz and discussed his road to UCLA.
“I think a lot of it had to do with Covid,” Dent said about his recruiting. “I mean, UCLA was one of the few schools in our gym a good amount of times, and they were going for some of the younger guys at the time, which was fine, everyone already had a couple of signings in my class.”
“New Mexico was there and on me from day one, they wanted me really bad. They showed up to all my practices and all my games. I went where I felt like I was most wanted. For UCLA, they had Tyger (Campbell) already, an All-American point guard.”
Dent will be the star for the Bruins in 2025-26. Don't be shocked if you see him on NBA radars toward the end of the season.
