The Bruins have spots on their roster, and they may be looking to big names to fill them.
UCLA men’s basketball has been in regular contact with Kentucky transfer forward Keion Brooks, CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported Friday morning. Brooks is currently in the NBA Draft Pool, but his brother reportedly told Rothstein he heard about 16 different schools as potential landing spots if he played his fourth year of college hoops.
Other schools reportedly courting Brooks include Arizona, BYU, DePaul, Florida, Iowa, Kansas State, Maryland, Memphis, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio, South Carolina, UNLV and Washington.
Rothstein’s report comes a week after 247Sports’ Bruin Report Online’s Tracy Pierson wrote about how the Bruins could target Brooks in the portal.
Brooks was a five-star freshman fresh out of high school, according to 247Sports and Rivals, and he even made an official visit to Westwood in August 2018. Choosing Kentucky over Indiana and North Carolina, Brooks became one coach headliners. John Calipari’s No. 2 recruiting class of 2019.
Johnny Juzang was also part of that recruiting class from Kentucky, and he ended up transferring to UCLA a few months after arriving in Lexington.
Brooks went to La Lumiere School (IN), a consistently top-ranked high school program that also produced UCLA point guard Tyger Campbell. Brooks and Campbell didn’t actually overlap in La Lumière, as the former only played there during his senior year.
Once he arrived in Kentucky, the 6-foot-7 Brooks became a bench piece for the Wildcats. Brooks averaged 4.5 points and 3.2 rebounds per game in his freshman year, appearing in 31 games and starting in six while playing 15.1 minutes per night.
Brooks took a step up in the rotation as a sophomore, despite missing every non-conference game in the COVID-shortened season. Again, picking up a few starts along the way, Brooks averaged 10.3 points and 6.8 rebounds in 23.6 minutes per game.
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Last year, Brooks finally rose to full-time starter status — making the top five in his 33 appearances — and he averaged 10.8 points and 4.4 rebounds per game for a Kentucky team that finished the regular season 26-7. .
For his career, Brooks is a 47.4 percent shooter from the field and 74.9 percent from the free throw line. Brooks is shooting 23.4 percent from beyond the arc, but he’s only averaged one 3-point attempt per game the past three seasons.
Based on his statistical output and physical attributes, Brooks would project himself as a winger for coach Mick Cronin — the position Jaime Jaquez Jr. has held for the past few seasons.
Minutes can be hard to come by for any transfer interested in the Bruins. When Cronin spoke to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times about the prospects for next year, he reportedly laughed at the idea of a transfer fitting into the current wing rotation.
Jaquez is guaranteed one of three starting wing spots, and the other two are expected to go to a combination of Jules Bernard, Jaylen Clark and McDonald’s All-American Amari Bailey. Bernard is currently in the NBA draft pool alongside Brooks, but after the two were passed over for NBA Draft Combine invites following stellar performances at G League Elite Camp, they could both most likely return to the NCAA.
There are also bench players David Singleton and Will McClendon, who is already back on the pitch after having surgery last fall to repair his torn ACL.
So with a full starting lineup, a sixth man and two role players already in-house on the wing, playing time and a concrete role can be hard to promise a transfer of the caliber of Brooks who just started over 30 games for a 26-win blue blood in the SEC.
Still, UCLA is keeping tabs on Brooks, who could be a major contributor in a new role should he move to Westwood for next season.
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