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UCLA men get No. 7 seed and will play UCF on Friday

March 15, 2026

LOS ANGELES — The UCLA men’s basketball team will enter the NCAA Tournament as a seven seed, playing 10-seeded Central Florida on Friday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rounding out their East regional, includes two-seeded UConn and 15-seed Furman.

A seven seed encapsulates the Bruins’ up and down season. Early on, they teetered on the bubble as they dealt with injuries to key players and couldn’t defend with consistency. But over the last two weeks, they’ve played as well as any team in the nation between a scorching offense and a gritty defense.

Seeding reflects a team’s entire season, and a seven-seed does that for the Bruins. But UCLA enters March Madness playing at a level above that measurement, making it dangerously underseeded.

“Coaching them all year to try to get them to perform at the right time at the highest level,” head coach Mick Cronin said after Friday’s Big Ten Tournament win against Michigan State.

Cronin has a history of getting his teams to play at their best when their best is needed. Since returning from a disastrous trip to Michigan, UCLA has reached that level.

The Bruins’ three-guard lineup is powering a potent offense. They’re communication and toughness on defense is compensating for a lack of athleticism. They’ve increased their depth with contributors off the bench.

“We’ve definitely been coming together as a team down the stretch of the season, and we just need to keep this momentum going into next week,” forward Eric Dailey Jr. said on Saturday.

Despite ending the regular season with a defense ranked outside of KenPom’s top 50, UCLA has held five of its last eight opponents under 43% shooting from the field, and the Bruins have won six of their last eight games, earning a trip to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.

Their defensive improvement has been a result of effort.

“We just have a whole different mindset of our whole team,” guard Donovan Dent said after Friday’s 88-84 win against Michigan State. “We have always been able to score the ball, that’s not the problem. We just changed our mindset on the defensive side.”

The disparity in UCLA’s two matchups with Michigan State proves that. The Bruins allowed the Spartans to make a season-high 14 3-point shots in an 82-59 defeat on Feb. 17. But on Friday, UCLA jumped out to a 13-point first half lead, won the turnover battle and earned the respect of Spartans’ coach Tom Izzo.

“They played harder and tougher, and that doesn’t happen to my team very often,” Izzo said Friday.

UCLA has done that consistently since that blowout in the Breslin Center. A mindset that wasn’t present earlier this season, and isn’t entirely baked into their seeding.

Along with the improvement in defense, UCLA’s three-guard starting lineup is confounding defenses.

Over the last eight games, the Bruins have averaged 79.3 points on 49.1% shooting. They’ve deployed what sophomore Trent Perry referred to as a “dribble drive offense,” in which all five starters space on the perimeter and play off each other’s actions.

UCLA’s also been boosted with performances from reserves Eric Freeny and Brandon Williams. Two players who embraced a redshirt season in 2024-25 have developed into playing crucial minutes, providing toughness off the bench.

Adding to the illusion of their seeding, is the status of UCLA’s best two offensive players, Dent and Tyler Bilodeau. Dent strained his calf in the first half against Purdue on Saturday, while Bilodeau sprained his knee in the first half against Michigan State on Friday. Neither returned in each respective game, and Bilodeau was “held out” by the team for Saturday’s game. Cronin emphasized, however, Dent could have returned and Bilodeau could have played Saturday, but “they’d have been playing hurt.”

Dent and Bilodeau will be available for UCLA’s game on Friday. They have six days to recover and prepare, but there’s no telling how those injuries will impact them on the court.

In particular, Dent struggled to begin the season as he played through injuries to his oblique and lower body. Playing at full strength has correlated to his recent breakout as he averaged 15.9 points and 11 assists over the seven games before injuring his calf Saturday. So he’ll have to maintain that level of play while managing an injury.

But that’s what finding success in March Madness is all about, can UCLA carry over the factors that led to a late-season push and Big Ten Tournament run?

The Bruins aren’t sneaking up on anyone, but their recent surge isn’t reflected in their seeding, and that can catch an opponent off guard.

Orange County Register

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UCLA men get No. 7 seed and will play UCF on Friday

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