NCAA Basketball: Impact of USC and UCLA set to join the Big Ten in 2024

What does the future hold for USC and UCLA?

For the UCLA Bruins and the USC Trojans, things will be quite different in the Big 10. As if dealing with the revamped transfer portal wasn’t enough change for these programs, they’ll ship off to play the majority of their games in an unfamiliar location against unfamiliar opponents.

Jake Kyman (UCLA), Max Agbonkpolo (USC), and Ethan Anderson (USC) all announced they would be transferring up to Wyoming to be coached by Jeff Linder a few months back. Most thought that would be the biggest news regarding these two programs we’d get this offseason. Boy, were we wrong.

A quick word of advice, be careful what you wish for, folks. Starting with UCLA, this program wasn’t in great shape under Steve Alford a few years ago. They haven’t won a title since the mid-90’s and have only been higher than an 11-seed in the NCAA Tournament twice since 2015. So, not exactly earth-shattering stuff as of late.

Then, Mick Cronin burst onto the scene and took UCLA to the Final Four in 2021 after being in a play-in game. Then, last year the highly-touted Bruins had a quality 27-8 season behind Johnny Juzang and Jaime Jaquez. However, much of Cronin’s success in the Pac-12 has been in credit to their defensive efforts in a very offense-forward league. Now, they head over to the Big Ten, where defensive minded teams are a dime a dozen. The Bruins had a good thing going with Arizona and USC as lynchpins atop the Pac-12 standings. Now, it’s likely they fall back a step or two in the Big Ten ranks.

For USC, their unmatched length and athleticism has been partially what has propelled them as of recently. These things may even stand out a bit more in the Big Ten than they did in the Pac-12, which is good. However, they, along with UCLA, will realize the Big Ten is quite different than the Pac-12. It is refereed differently, played differently, and coached differently. They’ll have to adjust accordingly.