University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
UCLA
Pacific
No. 16 UCLA Basketball to Open Season Friday
November 06, 2016 | Men's Basketball
LOS ANGELES โ The No. 16 UCLA men's basketball team begins its 98th season this Friday evening, hosting Pacific in Pauley Pavilion in the season opener for both teams. Game time is 6:00 p.m. (PT). The Bruins will play Pacific as part of a doubleheader, with the No. 9 UCLA women's basketball team taking the court against the Tigers at approximately 8:30 p.m. (PT).
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GAME INFORMATION
Venue: Pauley Pavilion (13,800)
Tipoff Time: 6:06 p.m. (PT)
Television: Pac-12 Networks
TV Talent: J.B. Long (play-by-play), Don MacLean (analyst)
Radio: AM 1150
Radio Talent: Josh Lewin (play-by-play), Tracy Murray (analyst)
SIRIUS Channel/XM Radio: TBD
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BRUINS AT A GLANCE
UCLA returns 10 players who competed last season, including four of the team's five starters โ senior Isaac Hamilton, senior Bryce Alford, junior Thomas Welsh and sophomore Aaron Holiday. Other prominent contributors back from last season's team are junior G.G. Goloman and sophomores Alex Olesinski and Prince Ali. UCLA has added three freshmen โย Ike Anigbogu, Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf โ who were nationally ranked among the top 25 incoming players by Scout.com and Rivals.com. In all, the roster includes three seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and five freshmen.
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SENIOR LEADERS
Bryce Alford and Isaac Hamilton, a pair of senior guards, will open the season as two of the Pac-12 Conference's most veteran student-athletes. Alford has averaged 13.0 points in 105 career games the previous three seasons. He enters this season as the only returning player in a Power 5 conference to have averaged at least 16.0 points, 5.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game last season. Hamilton is the Pac-12's leading returning scorer from last year, having averaged a team-best 16.8 points per game in 2015-16.
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CRUNCHING NUMBERS
Ranked No. 16 in the preseason AP poll, UCLA returns 77.0 percent of its total scoring and 58.3 percent of its rebounding production from 2015-16. The Bruins bring back 87.3 percent of its assist production from last year. UCLA's returning players accounted for 74.9 percent of the team's minutes in 2015-16. Four returning players from last season's starting lineup averaged at least 10.0 points per game a year ago โ Hamilton (16.8 ppg), Alford (16.1 ppg), Welsh (11.2 ppg) and Holiday (10.3 ppg). Those four players accounted for 73 percent of UCLA's scoring from last season.
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SOPHOMORE SEASON
Among one of the most productive freshmen in the Pac-12 last season, Aaron Holiday enters his sophomore year after having averaged 10.3 points per game last season (started all 32 games in 2015-16). Holiday led UCLA in three-point field goal percentage during his freshman campaign, shooting 41.9 percent from beyond the arc. The younger brother of former UCLA guard Jrue Holiday, Aaron averaged 4.0 assists per game last season and enters this year as the third-leading assist producer in the Pac-12 (based off last season's statistics).
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NAISMITH PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Freshman Lonzo Ball was named the Naismith High School Player of the Year as a senior at Chino Hills High School in 2015-16 (23.9 ppg, 11.3 rpg, 11.5 apg), leading his team to a 35-0 record and the CIF State Open Division Championship. The 6-foot-6 guard and fellow UCLA freshman TJ Leaf played in the 2016 McDonald's All-American Game in Chicago (March 30, 2016). Ball was also named the 2015-16 Male High School Athlete of the Year by MaxPreps and the Morgan Wootten Player of the Year, as well as the Gatorade State Player of the Year in California.
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WELCOME TO WESTWOOD
Joining Ball in a recruiting class that was tabbed as high as No. 3, nationally, by Scout.com, are forward TJ Leaf and forward/center Ike Anigbogu (pronounced ee-KAY ah-nee-BOH-go). Leaf averaged 28.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game as a senior at Foothills Christian High School last year. He led his high school program to the CIF San Diego Section Championship. Anigbogu registered 17.1 points and 9.6 rebounds in 25 games as a senior last season. He shot 61 percent from the field and tallied nine double-doubles for Centennial High School (Corona, Calif.).
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BRUINS DOWN UNDER
UCLA spent 10 full days in Australia in August 2016, going 2-1 in three preseason games (NCAA rules allow college programs to take a foreign trip once every four years). The Bruins spent four days in Sydney, three in Melbourne and three in Gold Coast before returning to Los Angeles the morning of Aug. 31. UCLA cruised past Sydney University, 123-76, in its first game. The Bruins followed with two games against professional teams in Australia's National Basketball League (NBL), losing to the Melbourne United (89-84) and defeating the Brisbane Bullets (94-91).
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SEASON OPENERS
UCLA head coach Steve Alford has guided his teams to season-opening wins in 19 of his 21 seasons while coaching at the NCAA Division I level. Prior to last season's 84-81 overtime loss to Monmouth in the Bruins' season opener, Coach Alford's teams had won 17 consecutive season openers. His teams had not lost a season-opening contest since Nov. 16, 1997, when Missouri State lost at TCU, 78-67. Entering his 26th season as a college basketball head coach, Coach Alford will face Pacific for the first time on Friday evening in UCLA's season opener.
