For all intents and purposes, UCLA’s preseason men’s basketball game against San Diego State on Friday did not count.
Don’t tell that to the fans, packing the bowl inside Viejas Arena. Don’t tell that to Bruins coach Mick Cronin and SDSU’s Brian Dutcher, micromanaging the game in midseason form. Certainly, don’t tell that to the players who went at breakneck speed from the tip.
When the Bruins jumped out to a double-digit lead, the Aztecs could have called it. Instead, they ratcheted up the intensity and forced the Bruins to respond. What could have been a meaningless preseason game, featured a battle of two West Coast giants going down to the wire. UCLA held on to win 67-60.
“I wanted the toughest game we could get without getting on an airplane,” Cronin said.
The Bruins and Aztecs have held closed-doors scrimmages year after year. But a contingency of the NCAA’s House Settlement allowed for them to open the doors for the 2025 season.
Everyone who walked through saw two teams with a high ceiling, two teams that could learn from one another to maximize that ceiling.
“That’s why Coach Cronin took this game,” UCLA guard Donovan Dent said. “We knew it was going to be a tough challenge.”
Dent, a New Mexico transfer making his unofficial UCLA debut in front of a Mountain West crowd, received the loudest boos of any Bruin. He took it coolly, leading UCLA with 18 points, shooting 10 of 10 from the free-throw line.
“We knew they were a physical team,” Bruins guard Skyy Clark said of SDSU. “They play like us on defense. So our main emphasis was winning the fight.”
Clark, though, said he didn’t expect the intensity level that was present in Friday’s preseason game, and that UCLA responded to SDSU setting the tone. If that’s the case, it didn’t take too long for the Bruins to find a gear.
The Bruins held the Aztecs without a point for the first 7:15, building a 17-0 lead. They fought through off-ball screens to disrupt the Aztecs’ actions, creating 10 turnovers in the first seven minutes.
Clark, who said before the season that he wanted to be considered for all-conference defensive awards, backed that up. On the third possession of the game, he drew a defensive foul. Four minutes later, he jumped an inbounds pass, passed it to Jamar Brown, followed his teammate’s missed layup and slammed home a putback dunk.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Clark said.
Clark hit a stepback 3-pointer and smiled at the crowd as UCLA took a 16-point lead.
The Bruins finished the first half with 14 forced turnovers, 15 points in transition and a 39-23 lead.
Cronin said UCLA scheduled this preseason game with SDSU because he wanted them to “teach us what we need to get better at.” At the break, the Bruins weren’t getting much of that lesson.
But in the second half, San Diego State took care of the ball, forcing UCLA to play in the half court. The Bruins, accustomed to transition, became stagnant, turning the ball over, forcing attempts early into the shot clock.
Forward Tyler Bilodeau, who led UCLA in scoring last season, could have offered an outlet in those half-court possessions. Instead the Bruins seldom looked to him, and when he got the ball, he failed to finish.
The Aztecs went on a 15-5 run to cut the margin to three with 7:36 remaining.
“I was happy they made the run at us,” Cronin said. “I wanted to see how Donny, Skyy and the guys were going to react and I purposely didn’t call a timeout. You can do that when you have maybe the best two guards in the country.”
UCLA responded with poise. Dent and Clark found their way to the foul line, stared the raucous Aztecs’ student section in the soul, and knocked down the freebies with ease. The Bruins ended the game 20 of 23 on free throws, Dent posted a perfect 10, Clark was 2 for 2 and sophomore Trent Perry went 5 of 6.
Perry played crunch-time minutes as Clark dealt with cramps and, along with his free throws, he hit a right-wing 3-pointer that halted the Aztecs’ momentum.
“There’s no dropoff in terms of guard play,” Perry said. “You know, Skyy goes out and I’m ready to play.”
Moving forward, Cronin said he “can sleep at night” knowing he has three ball-handlers – Dent, Clark and Perry – who can handle the pressure in the intense games UCLA expects to be in throughout the regular season.
It’s also clear that Brown will offer UCLA something it simply didn’t have last year in a knockdown shooter. He hit all three of the 3-point shots, including a corner triple to restore an 11-point lead with 3:20 to play, essentially putting the game away.
“Jamar’s the one I talked about at Big Ten media,” Clark said. “He’s going to surprise people.”
The Bruins’ area of struggle came on the inside as they lost the rebound battle and allowed 22 paint points in the second half as the Aztecs made their run.
Overall, UCLA can look back at this game positively. The Bruins got the test they wanted. They set the tone in a raucous environment. They got punched in the mouth and punched back. They found reliability in Dent and Clark and new contributors in Perry and Brown.
“We didn’t stop and stand and panic and get scared,” Cronin said. “We stayed on the attack. We stayed confident. As a coach, you can let them play and do this when you have confidence in guys.”