Report: Gonzaga, UCLA finalizing two-year series starting next season

The West Coast rivalry between Gonzaga and UCLA has been renewed for at least the next two years.

According to college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, the Bulldogs and Bruins are finalizing a two-year series starting next season at the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers located in Inglewood, California. Rothstein reported the two programs will face off in Seattle during the 2025-26 season as well.

Fans have become accustomed to seeing Gonzaga and UCLA battle in recent years, with the latest installment of the budding rivalry coming this past season at the Maui Invitational. Anton Watson scored a career-high 32 points and shot 14-of-15 from the field in a narrow 69-65 victory at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, back in November. 

The two West Coast programs have met in the regular season and NCAA Tournament a combined four times in as many years, with the Zags coming out victorious in every meeting since 2021. Two of those wins came in thrilling fashion — Jalen Suggs’ deep 3-pointer at the buzzer in overtime knocked off the Bruins in the 2021 Final Four, followed by Julian Strawther’s go-ahead triple in the Sweet 16 round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament gave Gonzaga a 79-76 victory. 

The Zags also came out with a 20-point win over the Bruins in Las Vegas during the 2021-22 season.

The fifth head-to-head meeting between Mark Few and Mick Cronin features another interesting storyline — Dominick Harris, a former five-star recruit at Gonzaga who transferred to Loyola Marymount before last season, committed to UCLA as a grad transfer on April 27. The 6-foot-3 guard who grew up less than 100 miles away from his new campus led the West Coast Conference in 3-point percentage (44.8%) while averaging a team-high 14.3 points.

Harris was one of many additions to the Bruins’ roster this offseason. Two-time Pac-12 All-Defense selection Kobe Johnson from USC, former four-star recruit Eric Daily Jr. from Oklahoma State, former Kentucky commit Skye Clark from Louisville and 6-foot-9 forward Tyler Bilodeau from Oregon State make up most of UCLA’s transfer portal class that ranks top 10 in the country on 247Sports. 

Four-star recruit Trent Perry, the No. 27 player in the 2024 class according to ESPN, committed to UCLA after decommitting from USC in April. The Harvard-Westlake (CA) product had Gonzaga in his final list of schools before he chose the Trojans in October.

The revamped Bruins rank No. 19 in ESPN’s way-to-early top 25 rankings for the 2024-25 season.

As for the Zags, they’ll be without their leading scorer from that Nov. 22 matchup against the Bruins, though for the most part the roster is relatively the same except for a few key additions. Few added Pepperdine transfer and All-WCC wing Michael Ajayi and Arkansas grad transfer Khalif Battle to a team that’s bringing back seven of its top eight scorers from last season’s Sweet 16 run. 

Watson is the only player who played in that Maui Invitational game that won’t be on Gonzaga’s roster this time around. For the Bruins, they’ll return four of five starters from that matchup.

Gonzaga has won six of the past seven head-to-head meetings with UCLA dating back to 2015.

The Bulldogs’ nonconfernce schedule for next season now features games against back-to-back champion UConn, at San Diego State, Kentucky (Seattle), Washington, UCLA and the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament (Arizona, Indiana, Louisville, Creighton, WVU, Oklahoma and Davidson).