Postgame Talk: Cronin Tossed As Wheels Come Off for UCLA in Loss to Maryland, 79-61

The Bruins did, in fact, showed they are lacking in toughness, though the rotations have moved past questionable to incoherent.

Kobe Johnson (Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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There’s a lot to break down here, so let’s go point by point, starting with:

Mick Cronin Gets Ejected

Let me start by saying that I don’t really have a problem with a coach getting a technical or being ejected. In the course of a season, I think coaches can use that as a way to send a message, either to future referees and the league or to their team regarding their play. In this case, it was a bit of both. On the one hand, the refereeing in this game was not great, with Cronin at one point having to point out an egregiously missed call that was ultimately overturned. The ejection itself came after the referee missed another clear foul take place in front of him that led to a turnover and did not want to be big-timed by Cronin, hence the ejection. Still, I can’t fault Cronin for getting on the Big Ten refs, who have generally not been very good.

On the flip side, Cronin’s ejection was a message to a team that too often was disinterested in doing any of the little things required to play winning basketball. UCLA at this point feels like a team that bought into their own hype after their run in December capped off by a victory over Gonzaga, and while some would say this team is coming back to earth, this feels as much like a team that is going through the motions way too often. This is not a team with exceptional, NBA-level talent, but a team that really does need to grind and limit the mistakes, and this three-game win streak has been marred with bad play by too many players. I noted before that many of the transfers this year were coming from losing programs, and it was going to take some time to break some of those habits. Yet we still have lazy rotations from players like Skyy Clark and Kobe Johnson, or soft play from guys like Tyler Bilodeau and Lazar Stefanovic.

At this point, I think it is fair to say that Cronin is a good but flawed coach, and perhaps his biggest issue is roster construction. Cronin is a developmental coach, but increasingly that does not seem like the way forward in modern NCAA basketball. There’s a question of whether he is capable of righting the ship, but he has earned the right to try (especially because I do not trust Martin Jarmond to make a good coaching decision). The question for him will be whether the short-term loss of this game will be worth it long-term, or if it is the start of a spiral.

The Tyler Bilodeau at the Five Experiment Needs to End

Something we have harped on this season is that Tyler Bilodeau is not a center, but a power forward, yet Mick Cronin has repeatedly and consistently played Bilodeau as UCLA’s big on the floor. It is a strategy that worked in the non-conference for the most part, as Bilodeau was able to match up well enough with opposing bigs. Still, the Big Ten slate always loomed as a major problem, as the Big Ten is full of bigs who will punish undersized interiors.

We are now stuck in a situation where we see this problem coming home to roost in real-time. Maryland spent the entire game hunting Bilodeau on defense, which was bad enough when Bilodeau was trying to match up with Julian Reese on the interior. Bilodeau lacks the size to matchup on the interior, but the bigger issue is taking place on the perimeter because he also has no clue on how to defend against the pick-and-roll. Bilodeau is a liability defending that action, which becomes even more problematic because Maryland still hunted him with great success when he was on the court with William Kyle III. Cronin has crafted a lot of his offense around Bilodeau, so UCLA is going to have to find a way to live with him on defense, but when Bilodeau is out on the court without an actual big, it is hampering his offense, as he lacks the athleticism to take advantage of the bigger players guarding him. There were way too many instances of Bilodeau trying to settle for a floater or a fadeaway instead of getting to the basket and attacking. Bilodeau’s softness also led to a series of bad turnovers, as Maryland found it easy to swipe the ball out of his hands. Bilodeau finished with a team-high four turnovers, which maybe doesn’t stand out on a night that UCLA finished with a ridiculous 21, but felt bigger just due to his impact on offense. Bilodeau’s lack of physicality also shows itself in rebounding; in 35 minutes, Bilodeau grabbed only four rebounds. As a comparison, Aday Mara grabbed two rebounds in the three minutes he was on the court.

Bilodeau led the team in scoring, but the advanced analytics paint him as one of the worst players on the team for this game, and I can’t say the Eye Test doesn’t say the same thing. I’m not saying Tyler should be kept from playing the five for the entire game, but he needs to be on the floor with a big much, much more than he currently is. Of course, that would also require playing the bigs much more than they are, and yet Cronin still refuses; William Kyle finished with 10 minutes, while Aday Mara somehow only got three minutes despite helping anchor the defense when he came in. Cronin may be searching for a Cody Riley moment for Bilodeau, where the lightbulb clicks and he figures out how to play as an undersized five.

The problem? Given the lack of development minutes given to the other bigs on the roster, this might be the only path forward for the team.

Trent Perry Breaks Out, Dylan Andrews Starts To Figure It Out

Look, if you want some positives from this game, I’d say that UCLA has a clear guard combination it should ride with going forward.

Trent Perry saw the court early in this game thanks to early foul trouble for Dylan Andrews and Skyy Clark, and he made the most of it. Perry finished with 10 points on 4-11 shooting, but what stood out to me was how many of the little things Perry was doing well, from moving the ball on offense to hustling for loose balls to trying to rotate to cover for his teammates. One play that stood out for me was in the first half when Kobe Johnson committed a turnover and gave up on the play, while Perry hustled back to try and defend the fast break.

The other guard who played well was Dylan Andrews. He only played 17 minutes due to early foul trouble, but the second half saw some glimpses of last year’s Dylan Andrews. Notably, that also came with Perry on the court, which makes a ton of sense; Andrews works best with the ball in his hand, while Perry operates well off-ball. Pairing Andrews with Skyy Clark and Sebastian Mack does not work nearly as well because both of those players are also ball-dominant guards, and Andrews at his best is a much better scorer than both. In hindsight, it makes sense that Andrews emergence last season coincided with Mack’s drop-off in the second half of the year.

UCLA needs to start limiting Skyy Clark’s minutes and turn him into the backup point guard, and I’m personally reaching the point where Sebastian Mack should be seeing the court less and less. Both of these guards were terrible in this game, combining for almost as many points (six) as they had turnovers (five) and pairing it with poor defense the entire time. Andrews and Perry are better defenders and complement each other, and seemingly give the Bruins a higher ceiling on both ends of the court.

Of course, we also saw a lineup where Perry was the only true guard on the court, sharing ball-handling duties with Kobe Johnson, and the lineup did not feel that bad. That should help Mick Cronin become more comfortable with the idea of shifting Johnson up the lineup, and running a lineup of Andrews/Perry, Johnson, Eric Dailey, Tyler Bilodeau, and one of Aday Mara/William Kyle should see more play going forward.

What Needs to Happen Going Forward?

UCLA has a quick turnaround on the road to face Rutgers, so I would imagine there is not much that changes heading into that game, but I think there are some obvious changes that need to take place for the Bruins to get out of this funk. And, let’s be clear, this is a funk; this team is nowhere near as bad as they’ve played the past few games, and I would imagine things will level off at some point.

First, rotations need to be fixed. UCLA should be at a “damn the torpedoes” state with the interior defense and should be playing Aday Mara and William Kyle III around 30 minutes a game. The defense also needs to be readjusted to better protect Tyler Bilodeau, or he needs to figure out how to defend a screen at least a few times a game. At the guard spot, Dylan Andrews and Trent Perry should start seeing more of the minutes. Skyy Clark can play as the backup point guard, while Sebastian Mack should have his minutes restricted if he does not have it on offense, as he does not bring enough on the defensive side if the offense is not working. Lazar Stefanovic can be the super-sub for the three, and Cronin should be more willing to play with only one guard and go “big”.

Second, and this may be harder given who Cronin is, the leash needs to be loosened. The team is playing tight, which is leading to a lot of turnovers and finger-pointing when things go wrong. As I repeat: a lot of these players came from bad programs, and there is some level of self-preservation taking root with more than a few of them. There are gamers on the roster, especially Eric Dailey and Trent Perry, and Cronin needs to be more willing to trust guys to play through mistakes. The bench is a tool, but the overuse of that tool has seemingly hurt the development of a few players while others are given free rein.

A lot was made of Cronin’s post-game comments following the Michigan game, so I figured I would wait to listen to him before finishing this postgame article. Cronin was much more level-headed in this one - clearly heading to the locker room early allowed him to cool off - and Cronin did seem more positive on the play of the team in this game. He mentioned that adjustments were needed and that he had to be better at getting the team prepared on both ends. He spent a lot of time discussing the fires currently raging throughout Los Angeles, making the point that sometimes basketball isn’t the most important thing in the world. Baby steps.

I don’t think this season is lost - again, this team already has impressive wins against Oregon, Gonzaga, and Arizona - but there do need to be some changes going forward. The question is whether Mick Cronin makes them or not.

Go Bruins.

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