Bracket Breakdown: UCLA Bruins

Photo Credit: @UCLABaseball on X

The 2025 College World Series fires up Friday afternoon.

Charles Schwab Field will be buzzing for what feels like a wide-open event. LSU’s side of the bracket, which includes No. 3 seed Arkansas, No. 15 seed UCLA and Murray State, gets things rolling Saturday as part of a double header.

One of those four teams will emerge from the bracket and play in the championship series beginning Saturday June 21.

We’ll take a look at all four teams as part of our Bracket Breakdown series, examining their path to this point, strengths, weaknesses and more.

We continue with the No. 15 national seed–UCLA

HOW’D THEY GET HERE

The travel won’t be anything new to UCLA. In their maiden Big Ten voyage, the Bruins have flown to Corpus Christi, Texas; College Park, Maryland; West Lafayette, Indiana; Eugene, Oregon; and Champaign, Illinois before the Big 10 Tournament at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.

The Bruins tied Oregon at 22-8 in Big Ten play, but the Ducks won the series between the two teams in Eugene to claim conference bragging rights. That dropped series was one of only two for John Savage’s club on the season, the other being a weekend loss to crosstown rival USC.

UCLA won three games at Charles Schwab Field to advance to the Big Ten Tournament final where Nebraska beat them 5-0.

The Bruins haven’t really been tested in NCAA play to this point. They clobbered Fresno state 19-4 and then beat Arizona State 11-5 to take control of the regional. An 8-5 win over UC-Irvine sent them to supers where they held UTSA to two runs over two days to get back to the College World Series for the first time since they won it in 2013.

WHY THEY’LL ADVANCE

The offense, the defense and the bullpen are all elite.

That offense starts with Roch Cholowsky who is probably the best player in the CWS. The Bruin shortstop, who could have played quarterback at Notre Dame, is hitting .367 on the year with 23 home runs and 73 RBI. He’s getting on base at a .494 clip. All of that leads UCLA.

The conditions at Jackie Robinson Stadium this weekend will be hitter-friendly. What could that mean for Roch Cholowsky?

The @UCLABaseball star is tied for fifth nationally with 23 homers, and with only one slugger ahead of him still playing, he could become the national leader. pic.twitter.com/9Tvn7ZHSzU

— D1Baseball (@d1baseball) June 5, 2025

Five UCLA regulars hit .313 or better, and one of their most impressive attributes as a lineup is strikeout avoidance. Only 22 teams in the country strike out less frequently than UCLA. LSU and Arkansas are in the top five in the country in pitching strikeouts, so that matchup on Monday, whether winners’ bracket or losers’ bracket, should be interesting.

The Bruins enter the CWS with a stellar .982 fielding percentage. That’s seventh in the nation, tied with Oregon State and behind just Arkansas, who leads the country, in the field.

UCLA leans on its bullpen heavily. In the regional, no UCLA starter finished the fifth. The bullpen recorded 49 outs to the starters’ 32.

In game two of the super against UTSA, No. 2 starter Landon Stump was pulled after four shutout innings in a one-run game. The bullpen fired five no-hit innings of shutout ball to slam the door.

WHY THEY WON’T

I’m not overly impressed with the UCLA rotation.

Ace Michael Barnett is 12-1, but his batting average against is .294 for the season. He’s got an 89 mph fastball and lives on deception and changing speeds.

Stump, the No. 2, can bump 95 with the fastball at times and has a pretty good slider. Those two started games one and two of the home regional and neither registered a strikeout. That’s a wild statistic.

Barnett is likely to get the ball Saturday against Murray State. Over two regional weekends, he allowed 12 hits over 10.1 innings and only struck out one hitter.

It’s a good thing UCLA’s defense is excellent, because Barnett puts them to the test.

The bullpen has better stuff than the starters, and Savage will go to relievers early and often. With the built-in off days for winners, Savage can deploy that bullpen liberally. If UCLA gets into the losers’ bracket and needs to win Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, it could be an issue.

Also, the Bruins don’t walk much. They’re 112^th in that metric which is better than only Coastal Carolina, Arizona and Louisville. All three of those teams are on the other side. Free bases can be crucial, and UCLA doesn’t take many of them.

HOW LSU IS AFFECTED

Stump is an average arm, to me. LSU would have an advantage with Anthony Eyanson on the mound in that Monday matchup. Kade Anderson, too, for that matter, should LSU start Eyanson on Saturday.

LSU’s lineup is No. 22 in the country in OPS vs. right-handers and No. 58 vs. lefties. LSU is 71^st in the country in strikeout rate against righties and 158^th against lefties. The Tigers generally prefer to see right-handed pitching.

UCLA’s rotation relies on a pair of right handers, and the bullpen is very right-handed. Only Chris Grothues and Ryan Rissas are southpaws among the eight relievers with 19-plus appearances.