Alexander: UCLA might need to solve Drew Pember riddle against UNC Asheville.

SACRAMENTO-- Maybe it's just pregame buzz or a pointer to his gamers of the risks of undervaluing a 15 seed. But to hear UCLA coach Mick Cronin tell it Wednesday afternoon, the star of UNC Asheville's Bulldogs might too be the second coming of two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic.

Drew Pember is 6-foot-11, a senior forward who transferred from Tennessee after his sophomore season and has become Asheville's important man. He was the Big South Conference's preseason, regular season and Defensive Player of the Year in addition to the conference tournament MVP, balancing 21.2 points and 9.4 rebounds and shooting 37.3% from 3-point range throughout the routine season, and balancing 29.6 points and 11.3 rebounds in the conference competition.

And at (approximately) 7:05 on Thursday night, in the opening round of the NCAA competition in the Golden 1 Center, he ends up being UCLA's problem.

" Nobody (comparable among the Bruins' previous challengers) comes off the top of my head," Cronin stated, noting Arizona's 6-11 Azuolas Tubelis as "terrific at driving the ball, but he doesn't shoot the ball from the boundary. I think (6-9 Matthew) Mayer from Illinois, if you were to put him in the same position as Pember plays, he's got the exact same abilities, however he's a guard.

" They use (Pember) a lot like we use Jaime (Jaquez Jr.). You're dealing with the basket, so you can see double-teams coming."

Pember led his conference in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots, earned elections for the Lute Olson Award (for finest Division I player) and Lou Henson Award (finest mid-major player), and had a 48-point game in January in which he was 8 for 10 from 3-point range, 12 for 13 from the nasty line and had 12 rebounds. According to the Asheville game notes, no one's done that in college basketball in 25 years.

And there's this, too: An 83.4% foul shooter, he led the country in both free throws attempted (314) and made (262 ).

If you're overaggressive before he gets the ball, he gets a backdoor. If you gap him, he makes a shot. He's not even a fantastic athlete and he leads their league in obstructed shots (78, or 2.29 a video game) since of his timing.

And he likely will be Jaquez's obligation.

" I'm excited to take on that difficulty," he said.

Asheville is here after winning simply 4 games in Mike Morrell's first season as head coach in 2018-19, building to this peak-- a 27-7 record and a Big South championship-- under a coach who had been Shaka Smart's lead assistant at Virginia Commonwealth and Texas.

" Any time I talk with him, most of the discussion is me saying sorry to him, (saying) 'Coach, you utilized to say I'll know when I get in this chair,'" Morrell quipped. "I understand now.

"… … I'm truly happy with the development that we've made as a program. It's just not easy. It's hard to get to this location, but here we are."

It helps to have a fantastic player fall into your lap, but it also helps to figure out how to get him going.

Pember moved from Tennessee after 2 seasons of little playing time. He wound up at Asheville due to the fact that high school colleague Trent Stephney was already there, which turned out to be an unanticipated recruiting coup for Morrell. It was a discussion in December of 2021, in Pember's junior year, that may have lit a trigger.

" It took Drew, I would state, probably six to eight months to truly be comfy in his own skin," Morrell stated. "We had a conversation in December. I'm like, 'Drew, ultimately, guy, you're going to need to sort of take this thing by the reins.'

" If you take a look at his statistics, his junior year he only averaged 10 and 5 (specifically, 10.8 points and 5.8 rebounds) entering into January. I felt like over that break he made incredible growth. The biggest growth that he made is his head coach began doing a much better task of putting him in areas offensively."

Something clicked. In 18 games after Jan. 1 of his junior year, Pember balanced 19.2 points and 7.2 rebounds, with eight 20-plus scoring video games including a 41-point night. That worked as a jumping-off point for this season's pyrotechnics.

Pember's inside/outside game, complemented by 6-5 guard Taijon Jones, could position issues for UCLA Thursday night. Another element might be the health of Bruins big guy Adem Bona, whose injured shoulder has actually improved enough that he was a participant in UCLA's open exercise on the Golden 1 Center flooring Wednesday afternoon. The Bruins lost the Pac-12 Tournament title video game to Arizona on Saturday mostly because they ran out of size, with Bona not available and Kenneth Nwuba and Mac Etienne both fouling out.

" We'll see how (Bona) feels," Cronin said. "He's simply sore, so every day's a progressive day for him. We'll see tomorrow.

" I'm not trying to play coy. Actually, we'll see."

For the 15th-seeded Bulldogs, the concept of being this year's Saint Peter's and writing their own Cinderella story is their fuel. Do they approach this task with chips on their shoulders?

" No," Pember said. "You just play like you got nothing to lose. We're the underdogs, and that's kind of what it will be for the remainder of the tournament if we continue to move on."

The other hand of that? Proceeding may be possible, however the possibilities aren't great since of the challenge in their course. The Bruins are skilled, competition tested and have a coach who will not be passive if he feels like they're taking the challenger or the video game gently.

" Everything we do at UCLA," Cronin stated, "is to get ready for this competition."

The Bulldogs have been alerted.

jalexander@scng.com