Dent is definitely good, and definitely damaged at this point of the season, but it is far too early to throw in the towel with him. He has time to get healthy and figure things out.
He needs to sit. And Brandon Williams, no disrespect to him, shouldn't be starting games. Starting 5 until Bilodeau gets back should be Perry, Clark, Brown, Dailey, and Booker.
Convenient that cronin has the uncanny ability to get his players injured… who all has been injured under cronin? it’s too many to count and it’s not just a coincidence… it has to do with how the team practices, denial of this is just plain illogical
Completely agree, Cronin did not have them prepared to play. I would say this was a "coaches' loss", which with Cronin you can count on at least 2-3 games a year at the very least.
Two of the best decisions recently to come out of Westwood were made by Aday Mara and Dante Moore. They left the crap show that is men's athletics at UCLA. Mick can't seem to evaluate talent and then adapt his playing style to fit the talent he has at hand. Certainly, I can see this team improving but there is not enough talent nor enough depth for this squad to reach the 2nd weekend in March. If they don't improve, they may not make the tournament at all. I have been watching Dusty May's Michigan team with Aday Mara and many other fine players. Not only are they a good team and fun to watch, they are currently the #1 defensive team on KenPom. Even when Mara has an off night, like tonight, his teammates pick up the slack. The group has something that we haven't seen on a Cronin team in awhile. Smiles. They play together and they have fun. They aren't micromanaged. That being said, it's not all bad news in Pauley Pavilion. Cori Close has put together a great group of young women that play hard and play well. And yes, they also have fun playing an entertaining brand of basketball. So, if you're tired of the Grinch that Stole UCLA Basketball, all is not lost. Go and see the women. They're great!
The women are very good, but there is that "Cancer" named Martin Jarmond (Jelly 2.0) and its spreading like wildfire through Bruin Athletics. When Jelly 2.0 is around, the smiles on any UCLA team seem to disappear.
She is missing depth, nothing from her top six. And she has the same success as Mick (one Final Four, multiple Sweet Sixteens) with just as much to show for it. Let’s be serious for five minutes and acknowledge that Close is just as likely to bring in a national championship as Cronin is.
I’ll wait until the end if this season for a final judgement in Close, but I think she doesn’t get as much out of her teams as their talent suggests. Sometimes I think she doesn’t have the edge to push teams to their limit. Next year will be a huge test of her and the program in terms of what they have to do in the portal and recruiting to stay near the top, but at this point I’m very worried that we’re at the end of a 3 year run that fizzles out.
We are witnessing Crnin entering the End of Howland Phase.
Crnin has abandoned getting *his* kinda' guys. Dent is Crnin's Shabazz. He is left with a poorly constructed, underperforming roster that can't play to his coaching strengths, nor is he capable of running a breaking offense of his dreams anyway. He is imploding before our eyes. His NIL resources can be as rich as Croesus, but what players can he attract? Who wants to see their game emasculated?
In general, the whole of UCLA athletics is lapsing into a festering, bilious, throbbing pile of mediocrity. Football, Basketball*, Olympian level T&F, water polo, volleyball, etc. all falling out of contention and fading tarnished, into third level obscurity.
We Hoover up our NCAA titles in varsity lawn darts and women's archery while we shed tradition and forsake the legend of the Gutty Little Bruin and Coach's scrappy, hustling, fast breaking, smothering heritage.
It's pathetic and miserable and there is nothing on the horizon to even hint at hope.
*A long time ago in an SI article about one of the middle dynasty Wooden 1960s flag campaigns, the author cut to an inner city Big Apple ghetto school where the brothers played yard ball and from whence the future college heroes emerged. The scene was an English class with the sweet minority teacher asking about acronyms of colleges. She queried the class, "OK, what does UCLA stand for?"
After a brief pause, a bright-faced black lad enthusiastically chimed:
Are we rich? I’ve seen on here were top 20 in NIL but I assume the gulf between #20 and top 10 is probably orders of magnitude above what we have. The rich will get richer, but not necessarily better
Apparently, all it took was one awful performance of UCLA basketball against Cal (and the anticipated drop from the Top-25 rankings) to turn anti-Cronin fever into a potential, full-blown epidemic this season. After watching UCLA get thoroughly outplayed, outhustled, and outcoached by HC "Mad Dog" and his squad, it's quite obvious that these Bruins lack the strong leadership and toughness needed to be competitive on a regular basis. Last season, I thought HC Cronin blew it by failing to develop and then ultimately losing Mara, and this season the ailing and struggling Dent is hurting both himself and the team and has turned out to be a big disappointment so far. UCLA's exciting Final Four run seems like a distant memory and looking increasingly unlikely to be repeated again by HC Cronin, based on what's been taking place with the basketball program since then. And the total dysfunction and incompetence of the UCLA administration hasn't helped either. In any case, I wish TMB, fellow Bruins, and fans of UCLA a Happy Thanksgiving, with hopefully something good to cheer about afterwards. Go Bruins!
Dimitri, good write up and recap as normal. My frustration is with The continued failure of Cronin defense to close out on the three-point shot, make free throws, and give a solid defensive effort every night. Time after time I listened to his post game comments with Josh Lewin and the blame is always on the players; not listening to his message, not bringing the energy, not playing defense for 40 minutes. You can make that excuse 2–3 times maybe, but this has been the same storyline for three seasons. You’re recruiting the players, you’re setting the roster construction, you’re filling out the starting lineup, and you’re managing practice. if you can’t get that through to your players, then the fault lies with the person at the top. How many disappointing losses have occurred over these last three seasons to teams with far less talent where the Bruins appeared to just roll out the balls and give it a half assed effort. I admittedly have never been in love with Mara. I think his lack of physicality, poor free-throw, shooting, limited fitness and soft interior play didn’t fully offset his rim protection. I think there are players on this team that are more physical and can bring the same level of defensive benefit. However, I see their biggest problem as the inability to consistently guard the three, and the lack of commitment to rebounding. Actually, the rebounding has improved since Biladeau has been out of games. I’d love to see Cronin mix in more zone where he can extend out to cover the threes, but the lack of rebounding is his greatest liability in that defensive scheme. Bruins allowed Cal two runs; 10-2 and 12-2. At one point in the first half they gave up 6 three-point offensive sets by Cal. That’s horrible defense. There’s shared responsibility from the coaching staff and the players. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new. And until both staff and players make those improvements, you’re looking at another season of 10+ losses with potential liability for even more considering the physicality of the Big Ten.
Never been a Cronin fan and would like to see UCLA hire a solid BB coach, Not necessarily a name, much like Football. At least at UCLA, Cronin is not a winner for many reasons.
As long the stupid ass Jelly 2.0 remains as AD, you will get an underwhelming hire to replace Cronin. Ucla doesn't have the financial health to do it, and their credibility has taken a hit for not keeping their word with the Rose Bowl. What great coach would come to such a place who doesn't honor their commitments?
The fall sports had arguably their worst week in a long time, losing big time games and losing Marguerite Aozasa to Texas. Martin’s (and the ass backwards AD’s) incompetence is finally coming back to bite them in the ass. They can’t fall back on non-revenue sports success to justify keeping him around
As for Cronin, if one watched the after game presser, Cronin blamed himself but quickly mentioned that the players did not follow the instructions they practiced for all week, did not follow what was discussed in the time outs (do not foul), for an experienced team they played panicky once they got behind, and they do not play smart. With the frustration and look of hopelessness, would not be surprised if Cronin leaves on his own accord. Will not have a problem finding another program.
A word about the ladies loss to Texas today. I am in the minority (and will probably take heat) because I that think Close is not a good coach. The team plays a "wild" undisciplined style of offense--leading to many turnovers and fouls--and poor defense. Adjustments are poor or non existent. Close lives on the talent. With the talent Close had last year and this, they should show far better. UCLA clearly had the better talent than Texas but were totally out coached in today's loss to Texas.
If you get rid of Cronin, who are you going to get? Are you going to hire a coach with a ridiculously high buyout who may or may not succeed? At least Cronin has been to the final four and has some passion. (unlike Chip Kelly and Steve Alford)
I’ve thought about this too. There’s some coaches that I think are better than Cronin but I wouldn’t want near our school - like Nate Oats, Chris Beard, or Pitino. Rick Barnes’s ceiling seems to be the elite 8. He’s 71 but when he was 20 years younger he couldn’t even make the FF with Kevin Durant. Kelvin Sampson is also a great coach but he’s 70 now. Maybe Todd Golden would like to come back west but he also has those stalking and sexual harassment allegations that need to be thoroughly vetted. So just looking at the coaching landscape it’s almost better to just stick with the devil you know at this point.
As mentioned in my post above, I sensed from listening and watching Cronin's presser that he may be gone because he is done with UCLA and wants to coach elsewhere.
If this season doesn’t turn around for ucla, then I agree we should think about replacing Cronin.
I think prior to NIL and transfer portal, Cronin could’ve led ucla to #12 but now, that’s definitely in question. A lot of success is dictated not just by how much money you spend on players, but making the right investments. I think that’s a hard adjustment to make even for elite coaches. Because quick, in the last 3 years, who’s had more NCAA tournament wins, Cronin or Bill Self? The answer may surprise you. Guys like Bill Self and John Calipari have struggled to meet expectations in recent years.
So what needs to change: sometimes relying on the highest rated transfer doesn’t work: just ask Bill Self and Hunter Dickinson. In the two years he had transferred to Kansas, he was the reason they were preseason #1 and both years they failed to make it out of the first weekend of the ncaa tournament. I won’t go as far as to say that Dent is a missed evaluation from Cronin because Dent was rated the #1 PG transfer in the class so if he had Cronin fooled then he had the whole country fooled. Cronin needs to be less gunshy about spending NIL on freshmen. Based on a lot of reporting, ucla is missing out on freshmen recruits because Cronin prefers spending NIL money on players that has a track record of success in college vs untested freshmen. Logically that makes sense but look at Arizona - their two freshmen aren’t lighting the world on fire but they’re doing just enough to supplement upperclassmen and they’ve beaten the last two national champions as a result, with one of those wins in Connecticut.
Now, for a point of optimism - I think this UCLA team is actually further along than prior Cronin teams that came together as the season went on. The Arizona game showed what we can do at full strength - it was a loss, but they played Arizona better than UConn and especially Florida did. The team that came out against Arizona is an elite 8/final four team and that was with Dent struggling to find his shot. I choose to believe that Dent hasn’t simply duped every single expert and recruiting service in the country and that he is indeed one of the best PGs in the country, and once he gets fully healthy he can show that off. As poorly as we played on defense against Cal, if we had Bilodeau and a healthy-ish Dent, I think we win that game easily.
Rational response here. My concern is that Dent’s leadership has been awful. The injury was masking the fact that his body language and his rapport with the team has looked questionable at best with the broadcast.
Even when he’s calling out the correct play he’s still grilling his guys on live TV which looks horrible. I wonder how much they trust him.
Not gonna argue the kids effort though, especially when he’s gutting it out with an injury that hopefully isn’t that serious.
What always gets me with Cronin is his lack of a decent offense. It’s the same two or three sets in the non-conference with maybe a few more sprinkled in when we get to conference play, plus iso ball. When you can’t manufacture good shots you lead to easy rebounds and leak outs and it makes your defense worse. We’re not playing complementary basketball and it shows.
That’s on Mick to get guys better looks as much as it is them knocking their shots down, otherwise you need to run a principle based offensive system like the motion or flex.
Haters gonna hate, and ainters gonna ain’t… but it’s high time you trash talkers who said I was an idiot fess up. I’ve been right all along.
- cronin is the wrong coach for ucla
- dent made the mistake of his life
- Mara is a fine young player and had good people helping him make good decisions.
- cronin is not a good coach
- cronin takes the fun out of the room he is in
- cronin makes basketball boring
I could go on with hundred of more things I was right about, but now everybody is seeing what I was saying from the very beginning. Hurts to be so good. I should apply to coach this team… I’d certainly be better than cronin.
It is true, there is a lot of that when it comes to the man in charge of the basketball team…
We can all be thankful today that this should be the end the cronin era. Whether he leaves of his own accord is up to him now. Unfortunately, the hiring squad will probably find a replacement worse than cronin
Well, I am one of the few who has stood behind you Baskets.
Cronin is not a good fit, and frankly, I can't stand his inability to match the right verb with its subject 🤣 But I digress.
Cronin is the antithesis of Coach Wooden...
His demeanor is deplorable and his tantrums got old a long time ago. He is entirely hypocritical, taking the blame for a loss, and then proceeding to blame his players for everything 🤣
But overall, Cronin does not have the capacity to create an offense that maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of his players. And the scoring droughts cost us game after game.
And don't get me started on his recruiting and mishandling of players. This year Cronin's flaws are glaring as his team is mostly seniors, and they are who they are. It's hard to 'develop' the older guys during their last season. And with so many new players, it's very difficult to build chemistry.
Lastly, I disagree with those who are willing to accept Cronin because somehow we can't do better. Not very Wooden like at all.
But first things first. We need to rid ourselves of Donut Head Jelly 2.0 and his Holes in Morgan.
Then the Blue and Gold sky may just have a chance to shine again, and we can fix the dumpster fire Hell that UCLA Athletics has become.
Dent is damaged goods at this point.
Dent is definitely good, and definitely damaged at this point of the season, but it is far too early to throw in the towel with him. He has time to get healthy and figure things out.
He needs to sit. And Brandon Williams, no disrespect to him, shouldn't be starting games. Starting 5 until Bilodeau gets back should be Perry, Clark, Brown, Dailey, and Booker.
I do like aspects of Jameson's game. Problem is all these guys are seniors. Pretty tough to 'develop' a decent center during the season.
Convenient that cronin has the uncanny ability to get his players injured… who all has been injured under cronin? it’s too many to count and it’s not just a coincidence… it has to do with how the team practices, denial of this is just plain illogical
I was at the game-no hustle, no heart, limited movement. UCLA manufactures NBA stars, that well has gone dry.
Completely agree, Cronin did not have them prepared to play. I would say this was a "coaches' loss", which with Cronin you can count on at least 2-3 games a year at the very least.
Two of the best decisions recently to come out of Westwood were made by Aday Mara and Dante Moore. They left the crap show that is men's athletics at UCLA. Mick can't seem to evaluate talent and then adapt his playing style to fit the talent he has at hand. Certainly, I can see this team improving but there is not enough talent nor enough depth for this squad to reach the 2nd weekend in March. If they don't improve, they may not make the tournament at all. I have been watching Dusty May's Michigan team with Aday Mara and many other fine players. Not only are they a good team and fun to watch, they are currently the #1 defensive team on KenPom. Even when Mara has an off night, like tonight, his teammates pick up the slack. The group has something that we haven't seen on a Cronin team in awhile. Smiles. They play together and they have fun. They aren't micromanaged. That being said, it's not all bad news in Pauley Pavilion. Cori Close has put together a great group of young women that play hard and play well. And yes, they also have fun playing an entertaining brand of basketball. So, if you're tired of the Grinch that Stole UCLA Basketball, all is not lost. Go and see the women. They're great!
The women are very good, but there is that "Cancer" named Martin Jarmond (Jelly 2.0) and its spreading like wildfire through Bruin Athletics. When Jelly 2.0 is around, the smiles on any UCLA team seem to disappear.
It’s only halftime, but Cori Close is never beating the allegations that she can’t win games without a huge talent advantage, huh?
She’s done better than Mick overall and she recruits well. Missing 2 players right now as well . Tough game so far.
She is missing depth, nothing from her top six. And she has the same success as Mick (one Final Four, multiple Sweet Sixteens) with just as much to show for it. Let’s be serious for five minutes and acknowledge that Close is just as likely to bring in a national championship as Cronin is.
Crnin does not draw the talent, AND he is out coached.
I’ll wait until the end if this season for a final judgement in Close, but I think she doesn’t get as much out of her teams as their talent suggests. Sometimes I think she doesn’t have the edge to push teams to their limit. Next year will be a huge test of her and the program in terms of what they have to do in the portal and recruiting to stay near the top, but at this point I’m very worried that we’re at the end of a 3 year run that fizzles out.
YoungestTo500© has said that he hasn't suddenly forgotten how to coach. In fact, he has forgotten. He no longer does what he does (defense), and The $3M Difference Maker he got, as Baskets predicted, has lost his mojo.
We are witnessing Crnin entering the End of Howland Phase.
Crnin has abandoned getting *his* kinda' guys. Dent is Crnin's Shabazz. He is left with a poorly constructed, underperforming roster that can't play to his coaching strengths, nor is he capable of running a breaking offense of his dreams anyway. He is imploding before our eyes. His NIL resources can be as rich as Croesus, but what players can he attract? Who wants to see their game emasculated?
In general, the whole of UCLA athletics is lapsing into a festering, bilious, throbbing pile of mediocrity. Football, Basketball*, Olympian level T&F, water polo, volleyball, etc. all falling out of contention and fading tarnished, into third level obscurity.
We Hoover up our NCAA titles in varsity lawn darts and women's archery while we shed tradition and forsake the legend of the Gutty Little Bruin and Coach's scrappy, hustling, fast breaking, smothering heritage.
It's pathetic and miserable and there is nothing on the horizon to even hint at hope.
*A long time ago in an SI article about one of the middle dynasty Wooden 1960s flag campaigns, the author cut to an inner city Big Apple ghetto school where the brothers played yard ball and from whence the future college heroes emerged. The scene was an English class with the sweet minority teacher asking about acronyms of colleges. She queried the class, "OK, what does UCLA stand for?"
After a brief pause, a bright-faced black lad enthusiastically chimed:
BASKETBALL!
Alas, no longer.
Are we rich? I’ve seen on here were top 20 in NIL but I assume the gulf between #20 and top 10 is probably orders of magnitude above what we have. The rich will get richer, but not necessarily better
Apparently, all it took was one awful performance of UCLA basketball against Cal (and the anticipated drop from the Top-25 rankings) to turn anti-Cronin fever into a potential, full-blown epidemic this season. After watching UCLA get thoroughly outplayed, outhustled, and outcoached by HC "Mad Dog" and his squad, it's quite obvious that these Bruins lack the strong leadership and toughness needed to be competitive on a regular basis. Last season, I thought HC Cronin blew it by failing to develop and then ultimately losing Mara, and this season the ailing and struggling Dent is hurting both himself and the team and has turned out to be a big disappointment so far. UCLA's exciting Final Four run seems like a distant memory and looking increasingly unlikely to be repeated again by HC Cronin, based on what's been taking place with the basketball program since then. And the total dysfunction and incompetence of the UCLA administration hasn't helped either. In any case, I wish TMB, fellow Bruins, and fans of UCLA a Happy Thanksgiving, with hopefully something good to cheer about afterwards. Go Bruins!
Well stated Dimitri. PS. Thanks for removing the hub3 account. Happy Thanksgiving.
Dimitri, good write up and recap as normal. My frustration is with The continued failure of Cronin defense to close out on the three-point shot, make free throws, and give a solid defensive effort every night. Time after time I listened to his post game comments with Josh Lewin and the blame is always on the players; not listening to his message, not bringing the energy, not playing defense for 40 minutes. You can make that excuse 2–3 times maybe, but this has been the same storyline for three seasons. You’re recruiting the players, you’re setting the roster construction, you’re filling out the starting lineup, and you’re managing practice. if you can’t get that through to your players, then the fault lies with the person at the top. How many disappointing losses have occurred over these last three seasons to teams with far less talent where the Bruins appeared to just roll out the balls and give it a half assed effort. I admittedly have never been in love with Mara. I think his lack of physicality, poor free-throw, shooting, limited fitness and soft interior play didn’t fully offset his rim protection. I think there are players on this team that are more physical and can bring the same level of defensive benefit. However, I see their biggest problem as the inability to consistently guard the three, and the lack of commitment to rebounding. Actually, the rebounding has improved since Biladeau has been out of games. I’d love to see Cronin mix in more zone where he can extend out to cover the threes, but the lack of rebounding is his greatest liability in that defensive scheme. Bruins allowed Cal two runs; 10-2 and 12-2. At one point in the first half they gave up 6 three-point offensive sets by Cal. That’s horrible defense. There’s shared responsibility from the coaching staff and the players. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new. And until both staff and players make those improvements, you’re looking at another season of 10+ losses with potential liability for even more considering the physicality of the Big Ten.
They were missing Bilodeau last night on offense.
Never been a Cronin fan and would like to see UCLA hire a solid BB coach, Not necessarily a name, much like Football. At least at UCLA, Cronin is not a winner for many reasons.
Cronin needs to go back to "It's hard to coach players who are delusional. They're nice kids." 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 They won 7 of 8 in the Big Ten after that.
I suggest asking Coach Wooden for guidance.
Wooden is 6 feet under. Maybe Harrick can give them some pointers.
Over a steak dinner 🤣
Poor Harrick. The cover up was worse than the crime. 🤣
Yes, but he's watching from above 🙏💙💛
I personally hope so. I've never thought Cronin was any good.
As long the stupid ass Jelly 2.0 remains as AD, you will get an underwhelming hire to replace Cronin. Ucla doesn't have the financial health to do it, and their credibility has taken a hit for not keeping their word with the Rose Bowl. What great coach would come to such a place who doesn't honor their commitments?
I guess that's true sadly.
Solution: get rid of Donut Head Jelly 2.0, yesterday.
The fall sports had arguably their worst week in a long time, losing big time games and losing Marguerite Aozasa to Texas. Martin’s (and the ass backwards AD’s) incompetence is finally coming back to bite them in the ass. They can’t fall back on non-revenue sports success to justify keeping him around
As for Cronin, if one watched the after game presser, Cronin blamed himself but quickly mentioned that the players did not follow the instructions they practiced for all week, did not follow what was discussed in the time outs (do not foul), for an experienced team they played panicky once they got behind, and they do not play smart. With the frustration and look of hopelessness, would not be surprised if Cronin leaves on his own accord. Will not have a problem finding another program.
A word about the ladies loss to Texas today. I am in the minority (and will probably take heat) because I that think Close is not a good coach. The team plays a "wild" undisciplined style of offense--leading to many turnovers and fouls--and poor defense. Adjustments are poor or non existent. Close lives on the talent. With the talent Close had last year and this, they should show far better. UCLA clearly had the better talent than Texas but were totally out coached in today's loss to Texas.
If you get rid of Cronin, who are you going to get? Are you going to hire a coach with a ridiculously high buyout who may or may not succeed? At least Cronin has been to the final four and has some passion. (unlike Chip Kelly and Steve Alford)
I’ve thought about this too. There’s some coaches that I think are better than Cronin but I wouldn’t want near our school - like Nate Oats, Chris Beard, or Pitino. Rick Barnes’s ceiling seems to be the elite 8. He’s 71 but when he was 20 years younger he couldn’t even make the FF with Kevin Durant. Kelvin Sampson is also a great coach but he’s 70 now. Maybe Todd Golden would like to come back west but he also has those stalking and sexual harassment allegations that need to be thoroughly vetted. So just looking at the coaching landscape it’s almost better to just stick with the devil you know at this point.
As mentioned in my post above, I sensed from listening and watching Cronin's presser that he may be gone because he is done with UCLA and wants to coach elsewhere.
If this season doesn’t turn around for ucla, then I agree we should think about replacing Cronin.
I think prior to NIL and transfer portal, Cronin could’ve led ucla to #12 but now, that’s definitely in question. A lot of success is dictated not just by how much money you spend on players, but making the right investments. I think that’s a hard adjustment to make even for elite coaches. Because quick, in the last 3 years, who’s had more NCAA tournament wins, Cronin or Bill Self? The answer may surprise you. Guys like Bill Self and John Calipari have struggled to meet expectations in recent years.
So what needs to change: sometimes relying on the highest rated transfer doesn’t work: just ask Bill Self and Hunter Dickinson. In the two years he had transferred to Kansas, he was the reason they were preseason #1 and both years they failed to make it out of the first weekend of the ncaa tournament. I won’t go as far as to say that Dent is a missed evaluation from Cronin because Dent was rated the #1 PG transfer in the class so if he had Cronin fooled then he had the whole country fooled. Cronin needs to be less gunshy about spending NIL on freshmen. Based on a lot of reporting, ucla is missing out on freshmen recruits because Cronin prefers spending NIL money on players that has a track record of success in college vs untested freshmen. Logically that makes sense but look at Arizona - their two freshmen aren’t lighting the world on fire but they’re doing just enough to supplement upperclassmen and they’ve beaten the last two national champions as a result, with one of those wins in Connecticut.
Now, for a point of optimism - I think this UCLA team is actually further along than prior Cronin teams that came together as the season went on. The Arizona game showed what we can do at full strength - it was a loss, but they played Arizona better than UConn and especially Florida did. The team that came out against Arizona is an elite 8/final four team and that was with Dent struggling to find his shot. I choose to believe that Dent hasn’t simply duped every single expert and recruiting service in the country and that he is indeed one of the best PGs in the country, and once he gets fully healthy he can show that off. As poorly as we played on defense against Cal, if we had Bilodeau and a healthy-ish Dent, I think we win that game easily.
Rational response here. My concern is that Dent’s leadership has been awful. The injury was masking the fact that his body language and his rapport with the team has looked questionable at best with the broadcast.
Even when he’s calling out the correct play he’s still grilling his guys on live TV which looks horrible. I wonder how much they trust him.
Not gonna argue the kids effort though, especially when he’s gutting it out with an injury that hopefully isn’t that serious.
What always gets me with Cronin is his lack of a decent offense. It’s the same two or three sets in the non-conference with maybe a few more sprinkled in when we get to conference play, plus iso ball. When you can’t manufacture good shots you lead to easy rebounds and leak outs and it makes your defense worse. We’re not playing complementary basketball and it shows.
That’s on Mick to get guys better looks as much as it is them knocking their shots down, otherwise you need to run a principle based offensive system like the motion or flex.
I am so smart, I am so smart… SMRT!
Haters gonna hate, and ainters gonna ain’t… but it’s high time you trash talkers who said I was an idiot fess up. I’ve been right all along.
- cronin is the wrong coach for ucla
- dent made the mistake of his life
- Mara is a fine young player and had good people helping him make good decisions.
- cronin is not a good coach
- cronin takes the fun out of the room he is in
- cronin makes basketball boring
I could go on with hundred of more things I was right about, but now everybody is seeing what I was saying from the very beginning. Hurts to be so good. I should apply to coach this team… I’d certainly be better than cronin.
Wow. Somebody has some real hate going on (as always).
It is true, there is a lot of that when it comes to the man in charge of the basketball team…
We can all be thankful today that this should be the end the cronin era. Whether he leaves of his own accord is up to him now. Unfortunately, the hiring squad will probably find a replacement worse than cronin
Well, I am one of the few who has stood behind you Baskets.
Cronin is not a good fit, and frankly, I can't stand his inability to match the right verb with its subject 🤣 But I digress.
Cronin is the antithesis of Coach Wooden...
His demeanor is deplorable and his tantrums got old a long time ago. He is entirely hypocritical, taking the blame for a loss, and then proceeding to blame his players for everything 🤣
But overall, Cronin does not have the capacity to create an offense that maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of his players. And the scoring droughts cost us game after game.
And don't get me started on his recruiting and mishandling of players. This year Cronin's flaws are glaring as his team is mostly seniors, and they are who they are. It's hard to 'develop' the older guys during their last season. And with so many new players, it's very difficult to build chemistry.
Lastly, I disagree with those who are willing to accept Cronin because somehow we can't do better. Not very Wooden like at all.
But first things first. We need to rid ourselves of Donut Head Jelly 2.0 and his Holes in Morgan.
Then the Blue and Gold sky may just have a chance to shine again, and we can fix the dumpster fire Hell that UCLA Athletics has become.
Thanks Tamara! And seaucla! Hope everyone had a lot to be thankful for today!
Peak Crnin.