UCLA restocks roster with commitments from two centers and a wing
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On what likely will be its busiest day of the offseason, UCLA replenished its post depth with two transfer centers and added a sharpshooting wing player who has completed an unlikely rise from junior college to the highest echelon of Division I basketball.
The Bruins received commitments Friday from centers Xavier Booker and Steven Jamerson II as well as swingman Jamar Brown, providing necessary replacements for a host of departures.
Booker, the top-rated recruit of Tom Izzo in three decades at Michigan State, will try to reboot his career under a coach with a similar hard-nosed style. The 6-foot-11 center who failed to live up to his high school billing in two seasons with the Spartans is now the presumed replacement for Aday Mara.
Jamerson II, a wiry 6-10 center with one season of remaining eligibility, will likely slot into a role as the primary backup big man after spending the last three seasons playing for coach Steve Lavin at the University of San Diego.
Brown, who could help offset the losses of Kobe Johnson and Lazar Stefanovic, is leveling up once again after spending two years at Phoenix College and two more at the University of Missouri Kansas City.
The roster additions bring the Bruins to 10 scholarship players for next season, well under the 15-scholarship limit. But there’s a chance the team might bring in only one or two more players — likely including a wing — and leave the rest of the spots for walk-ons.
UCLA 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara, who proved to be one of the biggest game-changers for the Bruins last season, has decided to leave Westwood.
Extremely athletic and versatile, Booker brings plenty of potential, not to mention questions, after making only incremental improvement from his freshman to sophomore seasons after being ranked as the No. 11 prospect nationally by 247 Sports out of high school. In his final season at Michigan State, Booker averaged 4.7 points, 2.2 rebounds and 0.7 blocks in 12.8 minutes per game while playing mostly off the bench.
His shooting percentages were uncharacteristically low for a big man — Booker made 41.7% of his shots and 17 of 73 three-pointers (23.3%). He was far better from the foul line, making 22 of 28 free throws (78.6%).
Booker’s role diminished after he started the season’s first three games and was a regular part of the rotation into February. He logged single digits in minutes in eight of his last nine games and did not appear in the Spartans’ final three games of the NCAA tournament.
Now Booker will try to revive his career under a coach who — just like Izzo — is known for a demanding and defensive-oriented approach. Areas for improvement include rebounding and assertiveness around the basket. Booker was sometimes criticized for too much outside shooting and not enough using the advantage of his 7-5 wingspan closer to the rim.
Playing alongside point guard Donovan Dent, a top playmaker known for getting his teammates the ball in favorable spots, could help Booker become a bigger factor on offense. There’s also hope that Booker could blossom given that college centers typically develop more slowly than their smaller counterparts.
Should Booker fail to deliver what coach Mick Cronin wants, Cronin could always go back to using Tyler Bilodeau as his starting big man even though the coach acknowledged late in the season that Bilodeau was not a center.
Jamerson brings length, persistence and high-level rebounding. As a junior for the Toreros, Jamerson averaged 10.0 points, 7.8 rebounds and 0.8 blocks while making 55.7% of his shots. He started 30 of 31 games, averaging 24.1 minutes.
Former Corona Centennial and New Mexico standout Donovan Dent is transferring to UCLA, giving the Bruins a dynamic playmaker to bolster their title aspirations.
Jamerson’s move to UCLA will represent a homecoming for the Los Angeles native who played for Crespi High in Encino. Andrew Moore, who coached Jamerson in high school, said he envisioned his former player being a great fit with the Bruins.
“He’s come a long way in a short time,” Moore said. “He really wants to be coached and you can coach him hard and he wants to get better. Steven’s got an edge to him that fits that program and that culture and what they’re looking for and he can bring that edge that coach Cronin wants.”
Constant improvement is a theme for Jamerson, who was the last player to make his freshman team before being lightly recruited out of high school and spending his freshman year as a student at Michigan State without being a member of the basketball team. He then transferred to San Diego, where he became a part-time starter in his first season and continually worked his way into a bigger role.
“He’s still not done getting better,” Moore said, “and that’s the theme of the last five years. He developed so rapidly and you could see him picking up concepts and making instinctive plays at USD as he gained more experience.”
One question surrounding the 210-pound Jamerson will be his ability to contend with the Big Ten’s legion of physical 7-footers who gave the Bruins problems last season.
Known primarily as a shooter, Brown made 40.2% of his three-pointers last season while averaging a team-leading 17 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals for the Roos, who competed in the Summit League. Brown also made 89.9% of his free throws, which tied for No. 10 nationally in accuracy among Division I players.
A native of Chandler, Ariz., Brown was selected the Summit League’s newcomer of the year in 2023-24 after spending two seasons at Phoenix College. He can play an additional season for UCLA after a recent court challenge granted extra eligibility to players who previously competed at the junior college level.
A turning point came after his first year at Phoenix College. Coach Duane Eason, noting that only Division II and NAIA schools were interested in him as a transfer, told Brown that he needed to get his shot off a lot faster to play at a higher level.
“The bottom line,” Eason said he told Brown, “the window on a closeout closes a lot faster and the closeout on your shot is by a guy who’s bigger and more athletic. You have to stop dipping the basketball and get it in the shot pocket and get it off right away.”
Eason took Brown to a shooting coach who worked with him on the mechanics of his release, leading to a season in which he made 50% of his shots and 44% of his three-pointers on the way to becoming the National Junior College Athletic Assn. Division II Region I player of the year.
Brown will be trying to reverse a trend given that the last two Bruins who came from lower college levels did not make much of an impact — center William Kyle III (a transfer from South Dakota State) averaged 2.9 points and 1.8 rebounds in 9.8 minutes per game last season, and guard Dominick Harris (a transfer from Loyola Marymount) barely played. Neither player will return next season after Kyle transferred to Syracuse and Harris entered the transfer portal.
It’s also possible that the Bruins could slide Eric Dailey Jr., who played power forward last season, to the wing for part of his time on the court next season. Eric Freeny, who redshirted last season, also could play some on the wing next season.
Brown’s contributions will be closely watched by those rooting for players from smaller schools to come up big.
“I’d be lying if I told you I thought it was going to end up where we are right now with this phone call,” Eason said, “but I definitely believed he could be a D-I player, it was just a matter of if someone was going to give him a chance.”
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