Five-Star PF Ron Holland Includes UCLA Men's Basketball in Top 3

The Bruins will have to compete with Texas and Arkansas for the consensus top-12 player in the country.

One of the top uncommitted prospects in the country is one step closer to making his decision.

Class of 2023 power forward Ron Holland trimmed his list of finalists to three on Friday, including UCLA men's basketball alongside Texas and Arkansas. Kentucky and the NBA G League were previously options for Holland, but the Duncanville (TX) product crossed them off when narrowing his field of contenders.

Holland also had Auburn, Houston and Memphis in his top eight in May before going down to five in June, and he had offers from Kansas, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Prairie View A&M, TCU, SMU, Tennessee State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech heading into his junior season.

3️⃣ @TiptonEdits pic.twitter.com/h5yhsvxaPl

— _ronhoops (@ron2kholland) October 28, 2022

The Wildcats and coach John Calipari had been making a serious push for Holland – hosting him for an official visit on June 13 and visiting him in his home on Sept. 12 – only for those efforts to go unrewarded. The hometown Longhorns hosted Holland for an official visit on Aug. 20, while the Razorbacks hosted him on June 9 before bringing him back in October.

Holland took his first official visit to Westwood back on May 13 alongside fellow uncommitted five-star Isaiah Collier, who also has UCLA in his top four. Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell posed for photos alongside Holland and Collier that day, pairing the Bruins' two current stars with two potential future ones.

In his junior season, Holland averaged 15.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, leading Duncanville to a 35-1 record and third-straight Texas state title before securing MaxPreps' National Junior of the Year honors. Holland is a career 59% shooter from the field, 32% shooter from deep and 69% shooter from the free throw line.

Holland was one of the top prospects at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in July, helping lift Team USA to its sixth-consecutive gold medal with his 11.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. At the FIBA U16 Americas Championship in 2021, Holland averaged 19.0 points and 10.2 rebounds with a 27.2 player efficiency rating.

Back stateside, Holland showed off his shooting and passing skills at the Coach Wootten Top 150 Camp earlier in October. Holland also impressed on the Nike EYBL circuit in the spring with Drive Nation, cementing the 6-foot-8, 195-pound forward among the top players in the nation.

Holland is a five-star prospect, according to 247Sports, Rivals, ESPN and On3. According to the 247Sports Composite, Holland is the No. 10 recruit in the country, No. 3 power forward in the nation and No. 1 player in Texas.

247Sports and ESPN have Holland pegged as the No. 3 uncommitted player in his class, behind only Collier and combo guard DJ Wagner Jr.

Wagner is widely expected to commit to Kentucky, while UCLA is right in the thick of things with both Holland and Collier. The latter is heavily considering USC, Cincinnati and Michigan as well, though, so coach Mick Cronin and his staff are facing stiff competition on both fronts.

The Bruins have two commits for their class of 2023 at the moment – four-star power forwards Devin Williams and Brandon Williams. UCLA currently has the No. 27 class in the country and No. 2 class in the Pac-12, but that is likely to change in the coming weeks.

Holland and Collier would boost those rankings drastically by committing, as would five-star small forward Andrej Stojakovic, who has the Bruins in his top four and told On3's Joe Tipton in September that he was aiming to make his decision on Oct. 31, but that the date was not set it stone.

Adding any one of those targets would vault UCLA into the top 10, while securing a commitment from two of them would make it a top-three class. Bringing in all three, however unlikely, could bump the Bruins up to No. 1 for the first time since 2012.

Holland told Tipton that he will make his decision within the next couple of weeks.

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