(Photo credit: uclabruins.com) Welcome back to the Whip-Around, our offseason catch-all to help you keep up with the latest events in UCLA Athletics. This time out, men’s volleyball is taking the top spot, we talk about the NFL Draft, update on the latest roster news for the basketball teams, and maybe glance at softball for a hot minute. Let’s get into it. The Mighty Bruin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Men’s Volleyball Well, I said last time that the men’s volleyball team was essentially guaranteed ..read more

Lazar Stefanovic is not mentioned in this article, but I hadn’t used him in a picture in awhile so here you go. (Photo credit: Scott Chandler/uclabruins.com) Welcome to the Whip-Around, our yearly answer to putting out content in the Spring when things start slowing down. The Whip-Around exists as a catch-all for anything happening in UCLA Athletics at that present moment, so I would not expect in-depth discussion in the articles (we save those for stand-alone articles) but rather just an easy way to keep track of as many things as possible. Feel free to join in the comments to talk about wh ..read more

UCLA may be have to play Creighton tonight without center Lauren Betts who missed the game against Cal Baptist with an unspecified injury. (Photo Credit: Jenny Xu/uclabruins.com) This evening, the UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team will host the Creighton Blue Jays in a second round game of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Tip-off for tonight’s game is at 5:30 pm and the game will be broadcast on ESPN2. Admittedly, I didn’t follow the women’s basketball team as closely through the season as I might have if we still had a large enough staff to cover more than just football and men’s h ..read more

(Photo credit: uclabruins.com) It’s tournament time for one UCLA basketball team at least, which means we can now fully turn our attention to the women’s team, which mostly did what it was supposed to this year. I say mostly because Coach Cori Close’s best team yet still managed to come up short in winning the Pac-12 regular season title and the Pac-12 Tournament, which isn’t a great look especially considering Southern Cal under their new head coach was able to do at least one of those this year. I’ve mentioned multiple times here that I have my doubts when it comes to Coach Close’s ability ..read more

Dylan Andrews (Photo credit: Scott Chandler/uclabruins.com) Welcome to Part 2 of our UCLA men’s basketball post-mortem. In Part 1, we discussed the major problem at the heart of this year’s failed season and took a look at each player and how they developed throughout the season. Part 2 will focus on a more macro look at how the team developed on offense and defense, followed by an early primer for what the offseason could look like for UCLA. A Question of Strategy Let’s start this section by talking about the offense because that was often the biggest topic of consternation among fans and o ..read more

Dylan Andrews (Photo credit: Jan Kim Lim/uclabruins.com) And so ends one of the more turbulent seasons I’ve ever covered. I honestly did not know what to expect late in this game, as Oregon pushed their lead out to 10 points and looked like they were on the verge of putting the UCLA Bruins away for good. We’ve seen this team collapse and quit in these situations, and we’ve seen this team claw its way back and make a run at winning, so it was a question of which UCLA team was going to show up in this final stretch. The Mighty Bruin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and ..read more

Dylan Andrews scored a career-high 31 points yesterday against the Beavers. (Photo Credit: Jan Kim Lim/uclabruins.com) It was the Dylan Andrews Show yesterday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as the sophomore guard scored almost half of the Bruins’ points against Oregon State yesterday. It was as though Andrews was determined to will UCLA into the next round. As the Bruins advance, they will need other guys to start picking it up. To be sure, Andrews had some big time help from Adem Bona who scored 17 yesterday, but that was it. No other Bruin was in double figures. In tournament pla ..read more

Dylan Andrews (Photo credit: uclabruins.com) Dylan Andrews would like to keep playing basketball. The UCLA Bruins are officially in win-or-go-home mode, needing to win out at the PAC-12 Tournament to make March Madness, and Andrews clearly understood the gravity of the situation. Andrews finished with 31 of UCLA’s 67 points as the Bruins won a fairly comfortable first round matchup with Oregon State by the final of 67-57. Andrews will get most of the flowers for this one, and with good reason. Those 31 points came on a wildly-efficient 11-15 shooting, including 7-9 from deep. Andrews was com ..read more

2024 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Adem Bona (Photo Credit: Jan Kim Lim/uclabruins.com) The final Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament kicks off today in Las Vegas and the UCLA Bruins will take on the Oregon State Beavers at 2:30 pm this afternoon. Of course, Oregon State is one of just two teams that the Bruins defeated twice during the regular season. The other one was Arizona State. UCLA beat the Beavers by seven in Corvallis back on December 28th and the Bruins followed that up with a 71-63 win at home on February 1st. That should make UCLA a 7.5-point favorite this afternoon. Oregon ..read more

Adem Bona and Berke Buyuktuncel (Photo credit: Jan Kim Lim/uclabruins.com) I’ve never actually polled our readership on this front, but I’d assume the average age of the community here at The Mighty Bruin skews on the older side, so I know there are times when I need to explain the slang of the younger generation. So let me be the first to teach you about the word mid. mid - Used to insult or degrade an opposing opinion, labeling it as average or poor quality. When I call the game between UCLA and Arizona State a mid-off, I am referring to the fact that both teams did not play a good game. I ..read more