Big Ten Basketball: Biggest storylines for each team entering 2024-25 season
UCLA Bruins: Deepest team in the country?
It’s safe to say that Mick Cronin and the UCLA Bruins will not have a repeat of what transpired last season.
Shooting struggles? Addressed. Finishing woes? Fixed. Mick Cronin aggressively targeted every major weakness the Bruins endured last season in the portal. Sure, this group has not played a single game yet, so it is not a guarantee that all problems are solved.
However, given the talent Cronin has assembled from the portal, it is difficult to imagine the Bruins repeating last year’s tribulations. Entering the 2024-25 season, The UCLA Bruins are loaded with depth. They can even make the case for being the deepest team in the country.
UCLA will (likely) start: Dylan Andrews, Skyy Clark, Kobe Johnson, Eric Dailey Jr. & Tyler Bilodeau.
— Cole Amundson (@playformarch) July 29, 2024
That means Sebastian Mack & Lazar Stefanovic — two starters last season — may come off the bench.
And we’re not even not including William Kyle, Dom Harris & Aday Mara… https://t.co/TKwBEPmf5h
The most pressing question mark will be how Mick Cronin can define roles amidst a flurry of transfers who played substantial roles at their previous schools. However, of all the personnel issues in CBB, this is as good of a problem to have, making the Bruins’ depth their key storyline entering the 2024-25 season.
USC Trojans: Fitting the veteran-laden transfers together.
Returning just 6.7% of their minutes, according to BartTorvik’s preseason projections, first-year head coach Eric Musselman (unsurprisingly) went to work in the portal, landing a plethora of experienced, veteran-laden transfers looking to make an immediate impact. According to 24/7 Sports, USC will welcome a staggering total of 11 transfers.
To highlight this portal-heavy group, Desmond Claude (Xavier), Bryce Pope (UCSD), Terrance Williams (Michigan), Chibuzo Agbo (Boise State), Clark Slajchert (Penn) and Saint Thomas (Northern Colorado) join the mix.
With an abundance of experienced transfers, the storyline for the 2024-25 USC Trojans will be how Eric Musselman pieces the high-scoring veteran talents together.
Fielding a roster made of transfers is a risky game to play. It is likely that many of the lineups Musselman deploys will be clunky at first. However, given Musselman’s experience meshing transfer portal pieces together, it's entirely plausible that the Trojans hit their stride at the right time this season, but they must be careful that they don’t dig themselves into too deep of an early hole.