UCLA Basketball workouts start Monday

The UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team is back on campus, according to a UCLA spokesperson.

The Bruins are set to return to campus and work out together, as a team, for the first time since their 2019-20 season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic. This marks their first time together, on a court as a team since March.

They were together last week when they returned for COVID-19 testing as they prepared for this week, though.

The NCAA announced last week that the 2020-21 season will begin on November 25 and ‘transitional period’ workouts can run from September 21 to October 13. Programs can then begin full practices on October 14.

While the Pac-12 itself hasn’t announced a schedule for the proposed 2020-21 season as all athletic activities have been postponed until January 1, the conference is actively trying to return to the football field much earlier than that, and as such, one would assume that basketball returns around the same time as the rest of the country.

Though the Pac-12 CEO Group met last week with no official vote from school presidents as to when to return to the football field, they’re set to meet again this week with eyes towards allowing a return-to-play schedule for football with obvious intentions of also tackling the other big questions like basketball and other fall sports.

This week, though, the Bruins will workout together. They’ll have workouts consisting of 12 hours of skill work with some strength and conditioning mixed in on a per-player, per-week basis. The coaching staff and S&C staff can conduct the workouts and this can and will be done only inside the Mo Ostin Center.

The Bruins are back on the hard court and this is certainly promising signs for a program that absolutely no one wanted to face in March.