UCLA Basketball: New Bruin Even Impressed Himself With Excellent Shooting Night

This is huge for the team.

Entering a season of more uncertainty than past years under head coach Mick Cronin, your UCLA Bruins look for who to expect to pick up the scoring output, offensive load, and leadership responsibility left by Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell, both of whom were program staples that left at the end of last season.

Among the candidates to do that are Sebastian Mack and Lazar Stefanovic, both of whom were great in UCLA's 97-56 exhibition victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Mack finished with 23 points on 9-14 shooting, while Stefanovic was ridiculously efficient, putting up 19 on 6-7 from the field and 3-3 from 3-point range. 

When asked about where the increase in efficiency came from, here's what Stefanovic had to say, per uclabruins.com:

"It’s pretty crazy. I’ve been working a lot on my shot, off-season, especially. With the coaches every day I’m shooting, and I ask the coaches to stay after practice. I know not every game is going to be like this, but I’ve just got to keep shooting and keep working, and hopefully the ball’s going to go in more than it doesn’t.”

Stefanovic's improvement is huge, as it provides a strong indication of what UCLA's offense could be capable of even without some of their key contributors of the past few seasons. 

Most importantly, with UCLA's size in the frontcourt (Adem Bona at 6-foot-10, Aday Mara at 7-foot-2), expect defenses to be put in a stranglehold, as they'll have to choose between leaving shooters like Stefanovic open if they double-team the big men, or stay out on the shooters leaving Bona and Mara in single coverage, which they should be able to exploit. 

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