UCLA Basketball: Top 5 non-conference games for 2018-19

DAYTON, OH - MARCH 13: Kris Wilkes #13 of the UCLA Bruins is defended by Amadi Ikpeze #32 and Idris Taqqee #1 of the St. Bonaventure Bonnies during the second half of the First Four game in the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at UD Arena on March 13, 2018 in Dayton, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

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DAYTON, OH – MARCH 13: Kris Wilkes #13 of the UCLA Bruins is defended by Amadi Ikpeze #32 and Idris Taqqee #1 of the St. Bonaventure Bonnies during the second half of the First Four game in the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at UD Arena on March 13, 2018 in Dayton, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

UCLA Basketball has 8 players making their debut this season, but expectations remain high. What are the 5 toughest games on the Bruins’ non-conference slate?

UCLA is entering a pivotal season as their coach, Steve Alford, is on the hot seat. The Bruins made the NCAA Tournament last season but suffered an ugly loss in the play-in round to St. Bonaventure. UCLA fans have much higher expectations than simply making the Tournament and the team will need to perform much better this season to calm these restless supporters.

Unfortunately, the Bruins lose three starters in Aaron Holiday, Thomas Welsh, and GG Goloman. Holiday and Welsh were selected in the NBA Draft by the Pacers and Nuggets respectively while Goloman had a solid senior season. In fact, Holiday was one of the best players in the entire country last season and averaged 20.3ppg and 5.8apg.

These players will be difficult to replace (especially Holiday), but UCLA brings in the 6th ranked recruiting class in the country and gets two key freshman back from suspension (Cody Riley and Jalen Hill). Despite the abundance of youth, UCLA is consistently ranked as a preseason top 25 team and will face extremely high expectations from the fans and the media.

Personally, I think a top 25 ranking is too high for the Bruins, but they will have plenty of opportunities to prove exactly how good they are with this challenging non-conference schedule. This is an underrated slate since there are probably four Quadrant 1 games.

This article will rank the five toughest non-conference games that the Bruins encounter taking into account location (home/road/neutral) and, obviously, quality of opponent.

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