UCLA men’s basketball has brought in a solid transfer portal haul this spring, and it all started with the addition of Donovan Dent.
Dent was this year’s Mountain West Player of the Year. He averaged a league-best 20.4 points per game, 6.4 assists, 2.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals for New Mexico this season.
There’s no question that landing Dent was one of the best moves the Bruins could have made this spring, and because of it, they may just be considered one of the top teams in the Big Ten once again next season.
Dent was recently ranked No. 4 on 247Sports’ Isaac Trotter’s list of “top 100 players in the college basketball transfer portal,” a highly regarded placement, to say the least.
Here’s what Trotter had to say about the new Bruin:
“Donovan Dent possesses a God-like feel in pick-and-rolls. The New Mexico transfer is the king of no-look dimes, and he gets two feet in the paint religiously. Over half of Dent’s shots last season came at the rim.
“He’s lightning quick off the bounce, and the 6-foot-2 junior constantly generates great looks for himself or his teammates. Dent is not a high-volume 3-point shooter (40% on 65 attempts), but his offensive bag is deep and he lives at the charity stripe.
“Dent transferred to UCLA to embrace the hard job of playing point guard for Mick Cronin. The Bruins have floor-spacing forwards like Eric Dailey Jr. and Tyler Bilodeau who should keep the paint open for Dent’s turbo drives, giving this portal marriage an opportunity to thrive.”
Dent is one of four transfers to have committed to UCLA so far this spring. The others were center Steven Jamison II, power forward Xavier Booker and small forward Jamar Brown.
UCLA is currently ranked eighth in 247Sports’ team transfer rankings. The Bruins are the fourth-best Big Ten team in the rankings, trailing only Washington (7), Maryland (6) and Michigan (1).
UCLA brought in six transfers last year, and it clearly paid off for it, especially with Bilodeau and Dailey leading the way. If the Bruins should have that same level of success with this transfer class, they could be in for an even better 2025-26 season.
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