Mac Etienne spent Christmas alone in a dorm room. Chris Smith ate chicken, salmon and mashed potatoes with his older brother in their Westwood apartment. Jaime Jaquez Jr. drove across Southern California for a small gathering limited to immediate family.
Home for the holidays took on a new meaning for UCLA’s basketball players.
“Bad things about a pandemic, man,” coach Mick Cronin said Wednesday, referring to Etienne having to isolate while in quarantine after traveling from out of state to join his new teammates.
Etienne emerged from quarantine Wednesday, a sunny metaphor for a team trying to turn the page after an unintentional layoff spanning nearly two weeks.