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UCLA Sports

UCLA Gets Key Recruit, Assistant

By Steve Henson
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Coach Ben Howland began assembling the UCLA basketball puzzle Monday, getting his first commitment from a top recruit and hiring an assistant coach.

Arron Afflalo of Compton Centennial High, regarded as the best prep shooting guard in the West, made a commitment less than a week after taking an unofficial visit to UCLA.

Ernie Zeigler, 37, became the first assistant brought on board, and he probably won’t be the last who was part of Howland’s staff at Pittsburgh.

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Zeigler was a Panther assistant the last two seasons and earlier had one-season stints at Bowling Green and Kansas State. Pittsburgh assistants Jamie Dixon and Barry Rohrssen are expected to rejoin Howland at UCLA as well unless Dixon becomes the head coach at Pitt.

UCLA Sports
Steve Henson

Steve Henson is a reporter with the Fast Break sports team at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as an assistant editor and reporter in the Sports department. Henson was a leader in digital-only newsrooms from 2007-19 as a senior editor and columnist at Yahoo Sports and as senior editor at the USA Today Sports Media Group. This is his second stint at The Times, having covered the Dodgers and UCLA as well as doing enterprise, investigative and features writing from 1985-2007. Henson was awarded first place in sports features in 2021 by the L.A. Press Club and has been honored several times by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and also by the California News Publishers Assn., the Football Writers Assn. of America and U.S. Basketball Writers Assn.

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