Donovan Dent Secures Preseason All-Big Ten Accolades
October 07, 2025 | Men's Basketball
CHICAGO โ UCLA senior guard Donovan Dent has been selected as one of 10 student-athletes to the preseason All-Big Ten Men's Basketball Team, as announced by the conference office on Tuesday.
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Dent, a 6-foot-2 guard from Riverside, Calif., averaged a team-leading 20.4 points and 6.4 assists per game as a junior last season at New Mexico. Dent transferred to UCLA in the summer of 2025 after having secured honorable mention AP All-America acclaim last spring. He was honored as the 2025 Mountain West Player of the Year and earned first-team all-league honors.
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Purdue guard Braden Smith has been named the conference's preseason Player of the Year, as the sole unanimous selection on the preseason all-league team.
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In addition to Dent and Smith, the preseason All-Big Team includes Iowa's Bennett Stirtz, Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg, Northwestern's Nick Martinelli, Ohio State's Bruce Thornton, Oregon's Nate Bittle and Jackson Shelstad, Purdue's Trey Kaufman-Renn and Wisconsin's John Blackwell.
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UCLA will play a pair of exhibition games in October before opening the regular-season schedule against Eastern Washington in Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial on Monday, Nov. 3. The Bruins' exhibition games include a road contest at San Diego State the night of Friday, Oct. 17, before UCLA hosts UC Irvine in Pauley Pavilion on Tuesday, Oct. 28.
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MORE ON DONOVAN DENT: Dent has averaged 13.5 points, 2.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game through three collegiate seasons, all at New Mexico. He has shot 50.3 percent from the field in three seasons, including a 36.8 clip from 3-point range (46-for-125). Dent has scored at least 10 points in 67 career games โ six as a freshman in 2022-23, 26 as a sophomore in 2023-24 and 35 as a junior in 2024-25. In addition, he has scored at least 20 points in 27 career games โ eight during his sophomore season and 19 as a junior. He enters his senior year having totaled seven career double-doubles, all of the point-assist variety.
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Last season, Dent scored a career-high 40 points in New Mexico's 78-71 win against VCU on Dec. 18, 2024. He finished that contest with career highs in shots made (14) and shots attempted (26). Of the 28 basketball players who earned All-America or honorable mention All-America acclaim in 2024-25, six of those student-athletes are returning to college this season (including Dent).
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