Pac-12 Basketball: Ranking of 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)
By Joey Loose
16. Johnny Juzang
A Top 40 recruit from the Class of 2019, Juzang picked Kentucky but didn’t spend a long time with the Wildcats. This 6’6 wing from Los Angeles played brief minutes as a freshman before deciding to transfer, heading to UCLA, back to his hometown. Suffice to say Juzang had a massively important role with the Bruins for the next two years, far exceeding anything he did with the Wildcats before the pandemic.
As a sophomore, he’d average 16.0 points and 4.1 rebounds, finally getting opportunities to star at UCLA, but the numbers alone didn’t tell the story. He was one of the primary cogs in a historic postseason run for the Bruins, who advanced from the First Four to the Final Four in 2021, with Juzang scoring 28 points against Michigan in the Elite Eight and 29 in their loss to Gonzaga. He’d put up very similar numbers in his junior season and led UCLA back to the Big Dance, this time getting to the Sweet Sixteen.
Clearly, Juzang was much better off on the west coast and earned the First Team All-Pac-12 nod as a junior after making incredible contributions in his two seasons. He emerged as a fantastic scorer, averaging nearly 23 points a game in that Final Four run as a sophomore. He did plenty of great stuff for UCLA during that period before heading off to the NBA at the end of his junior season, though not before becoming a part of history.