This post was updated April 16 at 11:53 a.m.
Scoring was not the Bruins’ bread and butter last season.
Finishing No. 328 nationally in scoring offense, they mustered 80 or more points only once and at least 70 in less than a third of their games.
Accordingly, their first offseason move was to extract production from the portal.
On Instagram, former Louisville sophomore guard Skyy Clark committed to UCLA men’s basketball on Wednesday evening. It’ll be Clark’s third destination in as many years – having played his freshman campaign at Illinois – but the latest trip will bring the 6-foot-3 Los Angeles local back to Southern California.
“It’s home,” Clark told On3’s national basketball reporter Joe Tipton. “I was raised in LA. I was recruited by (coach Mick) Cronin and the coaching staff in the past, and I trust in their vision for the team and for me.”
Clark led the Cardinals on the scoreboard during his one-year stint, racking up 13.2 points per game – more than any Bruin – while attempting more 3s than any of his teammates en route to a 35.3% clip from beyond the arc. He assembled six 20-plus-point performances and capped his stay with a career-best 36 points – including 7-for-9 from deep – in the first round of the ACC tournament.
Starting in all but four of Louisville’s games in 2023-2024, Clark was the go-to option at the point for then-coach Kenny Payne. His 31.9 minutes per contest were good for third-most on the squad, and he proved to be a reliable scoring threat with a 41.2% mark from the field.
It’s not Clark’s first opportunity to be a Bruin – Cronin and him have a rapport.
The former five-star recruit in the class of 2022 once included UCLA in his final four – along with Kentucky, North Carolina and Memphis – before signing with the Wildcats in 2020 and flipping to the Fighting Illini in 2022.
He worked his way into the primary rotation early at Illinois, averaging seven points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.1 assists across 13 appearances – 12 of which were starts. And in what became just one of six losses for the Bruins in 2022-2023, Clark pitched in 10 points and five rebounds for the opposition.
But he opted to leave the program Jan. 6 and never played another game before his eventual transfer, citing a desire to care for his father and ease his father’s struggle with diabetes.
Clark joins a six-deep room of guards in Westwood led by sophomore Dylan Andrews, freshman Sebastian Mack and junior Lazar Stefanovic, all of whom were regular starters for Cronin last season. Freshman guard Ilane Fibleuil, announcing his decision to transfer April 2, is the only Bruin to make a move this offseason, but Clark will be accompanied by four-star signee Eric Freeny next season.
The Bruins – lacking quality shooters and veteran leaders a season ago – just got both, packaged into one.
