Four-star recruit Dylan Andrews commits to UCLA men’s basketball
UCLA men’s basketball picked up the commitment of Class of 2022 guard Dylan Andrews on Friday. The four-star recruit joins five-star guard Amari Bailey in coach Mick Cronin’s 2022 class.
(Courtesy of Nick Lucero/Rivals.com)
By Sam Connon
April 16, 2021 12:17 p.m.
The Bruins’ winning streak on the court stopped once the calendar flipped past March, but the success on the recruiting trail has only ramped up in April.
Class of 2022 point guard Dylan Andrews committed to UCLA men’s basketball Friday, choosing the Bruins over Arizona, Oregon, North Carolina, Arizona State, Kansas, Stanford and Louisville. Andrews is a four-star prospect and the No. 31 player in the 247Sports composite rankings but was given a five-star rating by 247Sports’ own evaluators.
Going by the composite rankings, Andrews is the second-highest rated four-star UCLA has secured a commitment from in the past seven cycles, behind only forward Shareef O’Neal.
Andrews’ commitment gives UCLA its second guard in the class of 2022, with five-star combo guard Amari Bailey committing back in February. Both have Southern California roots, as Bailey goes to Sierra Canyon in Chatsworth and Andrews goes to Windward School in Los Angeles.
Andrews is also the next piece of the Compton Magic to UCLA pipeline, following in the footsteps of rising sophomore guard Jaylen Clark, rising senior guard Jules Bernard and former UCLA guard Jaylen Hands, all of whom played for the same LA-based AAU team that assistant coach Rod Palmer co-founded in 1993.
The Bruins’ 2022 class stayed steady at No. 1 in the Pac-12 following Andrew’s commitment but jumped from No. 4 to No. 2 on the nationwide leaderboards.
Coach Mick Cronin’s first two recruiting classes were ranked 77th and 112th in the country, respectively. Counting rising sophomore forward Mac Etienne as part of his original 2021 designation, UCLA’s next two classes both rank in the top ten.
The Bruins also earned another commitment Friday, with Rutgers transfer center Myles Johnson picking UCLA over Stanford a few minutes before Andrews made his decision public. It marks the second year in a row the Bruins have attracted a top transfer, but Andrews’ latest commitment shows an emphasis on local recruiting as well.
Andrews is the No. 5 player in California and No. 6 point guard in the country and measures in at 6 feet, 3 inches.
That gives him quite the size advantage over the Bruins’ current point man, rising redshirt junior Tyger Campbell, who started all 63 of UCLA’s games over the past two seasons without a true backup to handle the ball behind him. The Bruins made the Final Four with Campbell calling the shots up top, but Cronin has said for two seasons now that he thinks he’s giving Campbell too many minutes.
How Cronin handles the rotation of Campbell, Andrews and Bailey is a problem that won’t have to be addressed for another 18 months, but one thing seems for certain – the Bruins will have a lot more guards at their disposal moving forward.
