First Look At UCLA's Amari Bailey | UCLA vs Concordia Exhibition

First Look At UCLA's Five Star Freshman Amari Bailey!

The Bruins were not going to let history repeat itself.

No. 8 UCLA men's basketball hosted Concordia University Irvine at Pauley Pavilion for a preseason exhibition Wednesday night, potentially conjuring up memories of a very similar situation over a decade earlier. The Bruins played the Eagles in an exhibition at home on the first Wednesday of November in 2009, only securing a win that night thanks to a last-second, game-winning 3-pointer by Mustafa Abdul-Hamid.

The rematch may have been tight early, but UCLA managed to play a much more stress-free game this time around, beating Concordia 93-63 to unofficially open up the 2022-2023 campaign. Superstar seniors Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell scored 25 points apiece in the contest, overcoming a slow start to bury the Eagles.

Coach Mick Cronin trotted out his expected regular season starting five of Campbell, Jaquez, Amari Bailey, Jaylen Clark and Adem Bona. That five-man group struggled to finish early, with Bona missing an alley-oop dunk off a lob from Campbell and Clark missing a two-handed slam of his own on a fastbreak.