It hasn't been all negative, as his loss has been partially offset by the elevation of play of some of our other rotation players.
Skyy missed 7 gms in their entirety and a truncated 22 mins in a meh effort against Iowa where he got hurt.
Over that stretch UCLA went 5-3 which given the level of competition was, not surprisingly, somewhat below-trend. That said, it could have been worse, as CMC did a credible job in scheming around the loss of Skyy.
Clearly, Perry notably elevated his game with the incremental mins he played as one of our 4 double-digit scorers (Perry, Bilo, Dent & Dailey) outside of Skyy (who's currently #2 behind Bilo in pts/gm). Dent also inflated his game (not hard to do), particularly his a/to floor game since Mick gave him the orchestral keys to the O sans deferring to Skyy's place on the offense.
And, that brings me to garbage.
If you look at the one player who upped his game most notably in the absence of Skyy, in multiple ways, it was the reincarnation of our garbage man, Dailey. And, why I was dumbfounded by a couple of posters here who flat-out savaged him despite his overall, diversified contributions soaring over those SEVEN Skyy-less games.
No one raised his level of play as much as Dailey, and it wasn't all that close. I've reined in the comments about Dailey by posting front & center, multiple times, that he's no star on this team. He can't be, becuz he's our garbage man. And, I give credit to CMC to milk those attributes of Dailey. He's the most physical, strongest and top hustler on our roster. Yet he's still a garbage man since absolutely no plays are run for him.
CMC has shifted him somewhat to the coffin corner on O and whatever points he scores are what he creates on his own. A garbage collector on O and on both boards, becuz no one else on the team has his physical attributes. And, for the umpteenth time, he's not a star on this team. He's our scavenger on the floor which has led to him being one of our absolute most consistent scorers in our last 7 Skyy-less games, in which he's improbably (as the recipient of zero set plays) put up double-digit pts in 6 of those 7 games (no other UCLA player has more), as well as garbage collecting 3 straight game-high rebound totals as our top rebounder this season.
Will he be able to keep it up? I doubt it, becuz Dailey is our unequivocal garbage player, a scavenger who's the most minimally ball-centric of any of our 5 starters (6 inclusive of Skyy). What he does, is improbably stick his nose in difference-making garbage point opportunities and difference-making garbage rebound opportunities by virtue of his strength, athleticism and outright hustle.
And, my impression is he will stay in the coffin corner in Mick's halfcourt O sets, to stretch out the opponent's D schemes and to leave the lane relatively open for Dent drives & Bilo turnarounds, before triggering his rush to the paint as the possession clock winds down or a shot is released, when he can exploit his nose for the ball.......in his case, the available garbage balls.