UCLA Basketball: Can Bruins handle loss of key assistant Ivo Simovic?

Ivo Simovic was known as an elite assistant with international ties. With him set to leave, how does UCLA Basketball respond on the recruiting front?

This past weekend, UCLA Basketball landed its first commitment in the 2024 recruiting class, Eric Freeny. He’s a four-star guard prospect out of the state of California. What’s notable is that he’s a local recruit and not an international player, which is different from what they’ve been doing this offseason.

After losing four starters and multiple former five-star prospects, the Bruins went foreign to reload. They landed a pair of top-100 incoming freshmen guards in Ilane Fibleuil and Jan Vide, along with Lazar Stefanovic, a transfer from Utah. The man credited with those pickups is Ivo Simovic, an assistant on the staff with a ton of connections to international prospects.

UCLA’s plan to dominate the international pipeline has been thrown a curve, with Simovic reportedly set to go coach as an assistant to the Toronto Raptors of the NBA. It’s a blow for Coach Mick Cronin, who may prefer not to go after as many “one and dones” compared to having rosters filled with veterans with 3/4 years of experience.

One player that may be affected the most by Simovic’s decision is Aday Mara, a top-50 caliber big man from Spain that reportedly had interest in UCLA before this announcement. With the assistant gone, the Bruins might not be able to land the big man. And if Adem Bona isn’t staying longer than one more year with the program, they’ll have to go somewhere else to find their big of the future.

UCLA Basketball is a “blue blood” program so not having the international pipeline is far from a fatal blow for them. But it’s disappointing that a potential strategy didn’t have long to work out for the Bruins in the same way that it has for the other western powers, Gonzaga and Arizona.