An up-and-down season, constantly fluctuating between potential and disappointment, concluded in the only way it could.
With a big, fat question mark.
What if Tyler Bilodeau had played?
The leading scorer for the UCLA men’s basketball team had averaged 18.2 points over the final five games of the regular season and scored 21 in the Bruins’ Big Ten Tournament victory over Rutgers before injuring his knee in the first half of their quarterfinal win against Michigan State on March 13.
Head coach Mick Cronin said Bilodeau was “held out” of the semifinal against Purdue the next day as a precaution. He was certainly expected back for the NCAA Tournament. But after returning to practice on Thursday, Bilodeau experienced soreness and was unable to play in UCLA’s first-round win against No. 10 seed UCF on Friday, and on Sunday in its 73-57 season-ending loss to No. 2 seed UConn.
A humble, hard-working player watched his college career conclude from the bench.
It was deja vu for Cronin, who “sadly has a lot of practice” seeing postseason runs derailed because of late-season injuries to key players, and a fitting way to end a season for a UCLA team that simply never saw its full roster click. Another Bruins team that will be remembered for glaring questions.
What if Skyy Clark hadn’t missed 10 games? What if Donovan Dent have been slowed by injury, or if he had started the season the way he finished? Why couldn’t a team so connected off the court find its chemistry on it?
When UCLA brought in Dent after leading New Mexico to its first NCAA Tournament win in 11 years, Cronin told him: “We both got beat in the second round (in 2025). The difference is [New Mexico] celebrated it, [UCLA] was pissed.”
“We didn’t bring you here to lose in the second round,” Cronin said of Dent back at Big Ten media day.
Five months later, that’s the ceiling UCLA (24-12 overall, 13-7 Big Ten) reached. Thus, this season didn’t meet expectations.
The Bruins started slow. They toyed around with mid-major opponents that shouldn’t have competed with them. They couldn’t build chemistry as key players such as Eric Dailey Jr., Dent and Bilodeau, sporadically, missed time because of minor injuries.
They lost resume-building matchups to quality nonconference programs – Arizona, Gonzaga and Cal. They struggled in the early part of Big Ten play, especially playing outside of the Pacific time zone. They dropped road games to Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio State. At that point, an NCAA Tournament appearance was in real doubt.
“You get your (butt) kicked physically, you don’t defend, in the Big Ten, you’re going to lose,” Cronin said after the 86-74 loss to Ohio State on Jan. 17.
Through the first half of the season, UCLA’s offense hummed, but it couldn’t string together quality defensive performances.
In the second half of the season, the Bruins played complementary basketball, and brought euphoria to Westwood.
They held Purdue, with the best offense KenPom has ever tracked, to 67 points, as Bilodeau hit a game-winning 3-point shot. They trounced Rutgers. Crosstown rival USC might as well not have made the trip down the 10 freeway. They channeled history as Dent mimicked UCLA great Tyus Edney with a coast-to-coast buzzer-beating layup to beat Illinois in overtime.
But UCLA was inconsistent. The Bruins didn’t play a lick of defense in their only home loss of the season – a 98-97 overtime defeat against Indiana. And all hopes were jeopardized during an embarrassing trip to Michigan, where Cronin and the Bruins unraveled.
Instead, UCLA rallied around the turmoil to spark a late-season surge, growing closer on the court and off of it.
“How I look at adversity? You can go one of two ways,” sophomore Trent Perry said on Feb. 24. “You can either fold or you can push through it and come out stronger.”
The Bruins banded together to ensure the latter. They held a pair of players-only meetings before the win against Illinois. They emphasized connectivity and words of encouragement. It translated to the court, especially on defense, as communication and effort compensated for a lack of athleticism and size.
Everything clicked in UCLA’s victory over Nebraska on March 3. The Bruins held the Cornhuskers, a team headed to the Sweet 16, to 52 points, heeding Cronin’s message to adopt Nebraska’s attitude. That 72-52 victory boosted beliefs internally and externally that the Bruins were capable of contending. Then those feelings were solidified when UCLA proved it could win outside the Pacific time zone, beating Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals after Bilodeau went down, and sticking with Purdue in the semifinals without its best two players as Dent sustained a calf injury.
“That Nebraska game really kicked it off for us,” Perry said on March 16. “Our intent on the defensive end, the intensity, the talking. … After that game, it was up from there.”
“Since whenever we played Nebraska, there’s been a noted change with our team,” Cronin said. “We just got to keep it up. … You guys are going to think that I’m crazy, but we’re at UCLA, and no matter who we take the floor against in the NCAA Tournament, we’re going to run out there, and we’re going to be the ones wearing the baby blue and the four letters, so we believe in ourselves.”
Those were the Bruins’ words before they headed East for their NCAA Tournament games in Philadelphia, strapped with the same optimism they brought into the season. But without Bilodeau, UCLA was a different team.
“You feel like you’re so close to getting all the pieces flowing,” Dailey said after Sunday’s loss. “It’s hard. At the end of the day, there’s a winner and a loser, man.”
At a program like UCLA, built on the pedigree of 11 national championships, an exit in the second round of the NCAA Tournament is a failure. But times have changed in college basketball. Fellow Blue Bloods such as North Carolina, Kansas and Kentucky saw their dances cut short for similar reasons. In this era, a brand doesn’t hold much weight if the program can’t maximize its resources.
Cronin said he would need “five more million” to build a contending roster.
That’s this day and age in college basketball. Players are assets. If you don’t get the best out of those assets, or they become diminished, seasons are lost, teams are left with questions.
For three straight seasons, UCLA hasn’t found those answers, and instead has to ask itself what comes next.
The two best players – Bilodeau and Dent – are graduating. Clark, a senior, filed for a fifth year of eligibility on the basis of his freshman season at Illinois being cut to 13 games because of familial health reasons. He’s now waiting for a decision, and if it’s granted, he intends to stay at UCLA.
Perry, a sophomore, and Dailey, a junior, could return, but both will have to come to agreements with UCLA on NIL deals. Keeping redshirt freshman Eric Freeny, who emerged late in the season, will also be a priority. Junior Xavier Booker and redshirt sophomore Brandon Williams improved as the season progressed and would offer value.
The Bruins earned the commitment of incoming freshman Joe Philon III, a four-star wing prospect out of Montverde Academy, and Javonte Floyd, a three-star big man, out of Cedar Grove High in Georgia. Like Freeny, both are likely developmental projects.
Perry could become UCLA’s centerpiece, but the Bruins must make splashes in the transfer portal. They need to replace the offense Dent and Bilodeau brought, land a rim protector and another defensive tone-setter.
The process starts now for UCLA to ensure it doesn’t find itself back here next year, asking the same questions, wondering where it went wrong.
