Talented freshman Shareef O’Neal announced that he will miss the entire season due to heart surgery. Who replaces him in the UCLA rotation?
Earlier this week, UCLA lost a key member of their team as Shareef O’Neal announced that he will miss the season due to heart surgery. While this is a serious injury/ailment, he hopes to return for next season. Many promising players, like Baylor’s Isaiah Austin and French NBA prospect Jonathan Jeanne, have had their careers’ irrevocably effected by heart issues so everyone should hope that O’Neal can make a full recovery.
From a basketball perspective, UCLA needs to fill his spot in the rotation and this will not be an easy task. O’Neal is an athletic 6’9” PF who can also knock down perimeter shots. Shooting looks to be a major weakness for this UCLA squad and O’Neal was going to provide some necessary floor spacing.
Cody Riley and Moses Brown were the projected starters at the four and the five so UCLA’s starting lineup will go unchanged. However, O’Neal would have been the sixth man so there is a substantial role to replace. The easy choice would have been Alex Olesinski, the sharp shooting stretch four, but he is also injured and will miss the next two to three months with a stress fracture.
Olesinski played well last season in a reserve role and his experience would have been invaluable on this young Bruins squad. He averaged 4.5 ppg, 3.9 rpg, and shot 36% from three in 17.9 mpg. Hopefully, he returns for conference play, but foot injuries (especially stress fractures) are always filled with uncertainty.
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This means Riley will likely see more minutes this season, but when he is out of the game the Bruins will have to go small. Luckily, they have multiple long athletic wings who can easily slide down and act as a small-ball PF.
Kris Wilkes is the team’s best player and the starter at the SF position. He will likely see some minutes at the four which could make UCLA’s offense even more explosive, but the biggest beneficiaries of the available playing time are Jules Bernard and Chris Smith.
Bernard is a 6’6” wing who is athletic enough and strong enough to play PF for stretches. The left-handed freshman was a highly rated recruit, but was likely limited to 10-15 minutes per game as he was competing with Wilkes and junior guard Prince Ali for minutes. Bernard should be able to step in and grab some playing time at PF where his slashing ability will be even more effective.
The third and final candidate is sophomore wing Chris Smith. Smith was in the rotation last season and averaged 3.9 ppg and 1.9 rpg in just over 13 minutes per contest. He is extremely young for a sophomore since he will not turn 19 until late December and has great size for a wing at 6’9”. Bernard is not known as a great shooter and Smith only shot 5-28 from three last season, so shooting will still be a huge concern for UCLA.
In conclusion, due to Olesinski’s injury, multiple players will have to fill O’Neal’s role. Cody Riley may see more minutes as the starter, but UCLA’s trio of long athletic wings will also see their playing time increase. Starting SF Kris Wilkes could see more time at the four, but reserves Jules Bernard and Chris Smith will also see minutes at that position. Bernard and Smith might have been relegated to small roles or even have been out of the rotation, but they will now have an opportunity to make a larger impact.