Player development.

Coach Mick Cronin lives by it.

The Bruins have shown flashes of it.

And No. 6 seed UCLA men’s basketball (21-10, 13-7 Big Ten) will get the chance to show it when it faces No. 14 seed Rutgers (14-18, 6-14) Thursday night at the United Center in Chicago for the Bruins’ first round of the Big Ten tournament. The Scarlet Knights upset the No. 11 seed Minnesota Golden Gophers – who beat the Bruins on Feb. 28 – to advance to the third round of the conference tournament.

Chief among Cronin’s 2025-26 player development is senior guard Donovan Dent.

The All Big-Ten honorable mention has recorded 53 assists to just two turnovers across the last five games – leading to a 7.5 assist-per-contest tally, which ranks fourth in the nation.

Dent averaged 6.4 assists to 3.1 turnovers last season at New Mexico – a year that earned him Mountain West Player of the Year and an AP All-American honorable mention nod.

And after just 30 games in Westwood, Dent has doubled his assist-to-turnover ratio, logging just 1.9 turnovers per contest. Cronin has consistently touted Dent for the work he has put in since coming to UCLA in improving his ball security.

Cronin tabbed Dent as a “walking turnover” earlier in the season and said mitigating his turnovers would be crucial to his post-collegiate career.

“Donnie Dent’s assist to turnovers is almost four to one. Okay, it was two to one last year,” Cronin said. “He didn’t play here. It’s almost four to one, and he’s playing at a much higher level.”

But it’s not just his scoring that has taken off, either.

Dent has garnered five 20-plus point scoring games since the new year, compared to the two he logged in 2025 wearing a blue and gold uniform.

The days of fans and critics alike calling for the benching of Dent in favor of senior guard Skyy Clark and sophomore guard Trent Perry are seemingly over, as Dent has spearheaded the Bruins’ late-season climax.

But ball protection has not been a responsibility for just Dent, either.

Junior guard/forward Eric Dailey Jr. said Cronin consistently echoes the importance of ball security as a key to success for the program – a philosophy that results in an assist-to-turnover ratio that ranks ninth in the nation.

“The ball is your baby, and that means you’re not going to give your baby up, so protect your baby, protect your family,” Dailey said. “And this is not just your ball. It’s the team’s ball. So don’t lose the team’s ball. We need that to go get points.”

Outside of winning the turnover battle, Perry and redshirt freshman guard Eric Freeny also lie on the upward slope.

The former has exploded onto the scene since Clark’s hamstring injury Jan. 3, which caused Clark to miss 10 consecutive games and thrusted Perry into the starting five ever since the turn of the calendar.

Perry is averaging 12.4 points on 41.2% shooting from long range and has four 20-plus point outings since the start of 2026 – a stark contrast from the 11.4 minutes and 3.7 points per game Perry endured last season.

“Trent’s great, a very highly intelligent guy,” Cronin said. “He’s made great strides in how hard he plays, and he’s still making strides. … Trent’s very much like our managers who are the smartest guys and the hardest-working guys on campus.”

Freeny, on the other hand, has hit his stride more recently.

After redshirting all of last season and playing more than 10 minutes just twice until Jan. 6, Freeny has produced strong contributions off the pine in three of his last four matchups, combining for 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting alongside 13 rebounds and five steals through just 55 minutes of gameplay.

He may not dominate the stat sheet, but his presence is felt through the defensive tenacity, toughness and hustle plays he brings to the table.

But the Bruins are not the only team developing.

In fact, Rutgers has won five of it last eight games, including a win over Minnesota on Wednesday night, despite riding a seven-game losing streak from Jan. 17 to Feb. 7.

Imperative to the team’s rise is the coming-out party of guard Tariq Francis. The senior dropped 29 points in the Scarlet Knights’ Big Ten tournament victory and has scored double-digit points in 20 of his last 21 contests.

Central to limiting Francis is mitigating his ability to get to his shot and get into a rhythm.

Despite the Bruins’ inconsistency as a whole on defense all season, the squad has seemingly found its rhythm in the home stretch, holding teams to less than 70 points in three of its last four games.

“Just keep doing what we’ve been doing, outside of Pauley, even at the Galen Center,” Perry said. “Just keep carrying that momentum and keep executing the game plans, defensive efforts, all those type of things and intangibles to the Big Ten tournament, even March Madness.”