This week on The IX Sports Podcast College Basketball Edition, hosts Melissa Triebwasser and Michael Waterloo were joined by Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic.
Merchant is based in Los Angeles and covers both the WNBA and college basketball. While on the podcast, Merchant broke down the state of the University of California – Los Angeles’ roster.
After winning the NCAA Women’s National Championship last year, UCLA lost its top six players — including Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez — and had to hit the transfer portal to rebuild the roster.
Merchant said that UCLA will lean heavily on one of those transfers, Donovyn Hunter from Texas Christian University, and before that, Oregon State University, to anchor the team’s perimeter defense.
“I don’t know like exactly what they’re hoping to unlock from her offensively that TCU didn’t or Oregon State didn’t, but I will say that there there is just a lot of ball handling on this team already, so I’m not sure that they’re going to like force her into being like pure have-to-run-the-show-every-possession kind of point guard. I don’t think that’s what anybody was looking for when she arrived at UCLA, but also like the Burns have done a very good job of expanding people’s skill sets before they head into the pros,” Merchant said.
Merchant said another key pick-up for UCLA was Addy Brown, who transferred out of Iowa State.
“Addy is like — if not the the second-most important player, like then the most important player on this UCLA team for this coming season because she is just so incredibly versatile in everything that she can do,” Merchant said. “I didn’t even talk about her defensively. Like she’s pretty solid defender on the wing too. So, yeah I think they’re going to be asking a lot of her.”
Tune in to the episode to hear Merchant, Triebwasser and Waterloo rank the Power Four conferences and discuss their picks for the top 16 teams heading into the season.
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