With UCLA men’s basketball’s season about to tip off, it’s time to start looking ahead to the 2021-2022 campaign and what lies ahead for the Bruins on the hardwood.
Campbell, a member of the Bob Cousy Award preseason watch list, is more than capable of taking on that kind of responsibility yet again.
After tearing his ACL a month before the start of the 2018-2019 season, Campbell returned in the 2019 offseason and has started every single one of the Bruins’ 63 games since.
Campbell is one of three Pac-12 players – the others being Colorado’s McKinley Wright IV and Oregon State’s Ethan Thompson – who has played 2,000 minutes over the past two years, and both of the others are gone to the pros now anyways.
2 in the Pac-12 over the past two seasons, but are roughly twice as much as any other returning player in the conference in that span.
Campbell played 52 minutes in the Bruins’ second game last season and he had a grand total of one turnover.
Campbell’s 3-point shooting took a dip last year, however, and it wasn’t particularly good to begin with.
Long-range scoring will likely still be a drawback to Campbell’s game this year, although he has said he’s been working on it over the offseason and his shot has looked good in practice so far.
11 in the Pac-12 with 34 steals, and his defensive box plus/minus went from -0.4 as a freshman to 1.3 as a sophomore.
With Campbell eating up roughly 80% of the minutes at the point, the Bruins don’t need a ton of depth behind him, just a solid contributor or two.
Jules Bernard is going to be the primary backup point guard, as he was in the back half of the season last year once Chris Smith tore his ACL.
Ball security and handling was also a major issue for Bernard as a freshman and sophomore, when he racked up 84 turnovers at an 18.2% turnover rate.
Getting the free throw line has always been something Bernard does well, and he is a 75% shooter from the stripe for his career.
Arguably the Bruins’ top shooter, David Singleton, will probably scoop up whatever leftover minutes there are at point guard.
Boasting a team-best 8.5% turnover rate last season, Singleton stands as a high-floor option to run the offense.
The last player who could get some time at the 1 for Cronin this year is Peyton Watson.
Cronin could decide to use him in a Chris Smith-type role early on when he’s playing around with lineups and trying to find out what Watson can give him on both ends of the floor.
Campbell is clearly going to play the vast majority of the available minutes at point guard, averaging somewhere around 34 per game again this season.
We’ll wait a bit until we try and project what Bernard, Singleton and Watson’s stats are going to be, since they’re mostly going to be wings and secondary ball-handlers this season.
When it comes to predicting what they’ll do at point guard, Bernard will probably play 4 or so minutes per game running the offense while Singleton and Watson might get a few possessions each bringing the ball up early in the season.
Campbell is the end-all, be-all at point guard though.