Yray is the football GM. For basketball, you're looking at Max Feldman, who has the title of Assistant GM but is generally considered the guy in charge there.
it makes sense to have a GM, since recruiting now really has nothing to do with recruiting. Kids are not going to schools because of the coach or the school. It is, unfortunately, all about the money now and the GM needs to figure out how to best spread the budget.
Mara got a pretty good raise to go to Michigan, which is running an NIL operation operating in the top 5 of the country (that's what you get when Larry Ellison is personally bankrolling everything because his almost 50-year junior wife is a Michigan alum). Mara's camp also clearly felt Cronin was not helping him develop and was secretly shopping him around if the deal was good enough.
The way I've put it together from both sides, UCLA had an agreement with Mara to return to Westwood, and then while he was back home during spring break Michigan waltz'd in with a bigger offer to go back on that prior agreement. UCLA made the mistake of not putting pen to paper so they could hold him to his contract (or they were afraid to press their luck there, which is a common theme with NIL deals at this point), and Mara gets to look clean in the whole thing because Cronin is an asshole.
I think AD Martin Guerrero should be the first person to be fired, as he is the one who created the undeserved extension and larger than necessary buyout.
Yep, jelly is beyond incompetent, he is destructive and has been for a long time.
As I shared prior, his involvement in the SoFi nightmare will be revealed under the bright lights. His chipster fiasco, his cronin hush hush extension... and let's not forget about the tax fraud allegations case with donations, that happened on his watch.
Surely Frenk can't just ignore all of this anymore, can he?
Don't worry, if U$C beats the Bruins at the Galen Center, Tommy Trojan will gladly use his sword (no honor or self-reflection needed). And HC MuscleMan might also celebrate the victory by taking off his shirt...
My sister and her husband are longtime season ticket holders at Nevada. When she told me about this little post game "ritual" I was like what?? Then she sent me a video of it. I nearly fell out my chair. LOL
Yeah, I don't think Jamerson deserved the humiliating, Cronin-the-Barbarian treatment right in front of the entire crowd, his fellow teammates, and everyone else watching on the Peacock TV channel. Jamerson can be an uncontrollable, human fouling machine sometimes, but it looked to me like an honest attempt to chase down and try to block an easy bucket without any malicious intent. Although the body contact made it a dangerous foul and was ill-advised at that point in the game, yelling at him, yanking him off the floor, and sending him straight to the locker room made HC Cronin appear to be auditioning for a job as an SBTR, or maybe a future assistant under HC Izzo. The ironic thing is that HC Cronin wants his players to give maximum effort until the final buzzer sounds, and I think Jamerson was trying to do just that.
With the new NCAA, NIL landscape I don’t see how UCLA gets back to that top tier program. Back in the day we had decent recruits that would propel us, now that wind is gone. Cronin can’t recruit stars, in addition to the new landscape, mediocrity it is!
LOL! NIL money got a set of transfers that listed this current squad of players as the preseason 12 ranked team. Clearly that not ALL that matters… you need a competent coach who can assemble a legit roster. Keep digging, I’m excited for the next excuse… even garrido wont join you in that last opinion of yours
They've only got 5 games left and I don't think the NCAA or the NIT would want a team like this even if he wins the last 5 and beating Illinois, even at home will be tough, so let Cronin get through the 5, then deal with the buyout implications, its $22.5m.
I was not a Mick hater. He's been insightful and very strategic at times. Some of his interviews with Petros & Money have been classic.
However, yanking on Jamerson's jersey and treating him like that is completely unacceptable. I felt horrible for him. The look on his face was utterly disheartening.
I didn't even think that foul was that egregious. Yes, he was from coming from behind, but I do believe he was going for the ball. I would argue it was borderline flagrant. I was watching it in realtime, and I didn't see any shoving action other than Cooper jumping up and getting in Jamerson's face, and he just stood there staring back. Certainly not worthy of throwing him off the floor. I don't even think Jamerson knew what was going on at first.
With that behavior, it's almost as though he wants to get fired. And at this point, I would welcome his departure, one way or another. I do think he's lost the team after tonight, but beyond that, he lost someone like me, who was not a hater . . . before tonight.
Yeah, that was pretty harsh treatment for Jamerson. I don't think HC Cronin wants to get fired (that would be a first for him), but is instead taking out all of his frustrations on the players for his own lack of success in coaching them to be tougher, play defense, and shoot the ball well on a consistent basis. Nothing seems to have worked to date, short of tearing off their names from the back of their jerseys (like KSU HC Tang did), or maybe replacing the 4 letters on the front of their jerseys with "QUIT". Definitely not looking good for UCLA's future recruiting efforts, either.
I'm starting to believe that HC Cronin had lost his team not during this recent Michigan road trip, but much earlier in the season. It might help explain the lack of consistent team effort, absence of any mental toughness, and minimal individual improvement this far into the season.
I think both the players and coaching staff had also bought into the preseason AP #12-ranking hype, only to learn the hard way that it wasn't going to match reality without constantly putting in the required amount of effort, both individually and as a team, to achieve that high level of competitiveness. The players are getting paid and HC Cronin got his extension, so all is good for them money wise, but the UCLA basketball program itself appears to be trending in the wrong direction in Year-3 of the transfer portal/NIL era, and looks nothing close to what the Bruins were like when HC Cronin first took over.
I think the most amazing thing to me is that the Cronistas continue to make excuses for this a$$hole of a human being that they continue to refer to as a ‘good’ coach.
I also read someone say that the major donors ‘still’ support cronin. Anybody still supporting the clown show clearly hasn’t been watching any basketball. This program will be an absolute disgrace by the time cronin is finished with it. At least howland and Alfie will leave with some dignity. Cronin will leave with bags of cash for having completely destroyed a once reputable basketball program
Cronin reminds me of that 1986 movie “Money Pit,” featuring Tom Hanks and Shelly Long. They kept dumping money into their house thinking it would get better but it never did. That’s what we’re living under the Cronin project. We keep believing but it ain’t never going to get better. Oh, and just like the movie - a box office flop - so too is the state of UCLA basketball under Cronin - a flop. Time to cut losses and truly do a proper search and hire.
I agree with all of this except the “thinking it will get better” part. I know lots of people still on some hopium, but I stayed away from the drugs personally
I know I know, I only show up in a loss to bag on cronin. I didn’t even watch either of these games, just a few highlights are all that you need to tell the story.
The haters like myself show up in droves after the losses, but I really wanna hear from the cronistas, the fan boys, those willing to lay it all on the line for this excuse of a human… where are you? Let me know why it is you’re still supporting this loser, I really would like to know what you’re holding onto? Could it be next years portal transfer? The recruiting was already in the dumps and I don’t see this helping. Is it some sort of moral victory? Where’s the dog bone these boys are fighting for? I haven’t heard anything about that. Maybe it’s the radiant smiles that emanate from the players? I’m at a loss, I guess I’m just an idiot that doesn’t understand anything about basketball as many of the fan boys have let me know so many times over the last few years
The rallying cry of endless second chances for the Howlers and Alfordistas was, "Next year's recruits!"
But YoungestTo500™ is toxic in California, the recruiting pipeline is bone dry, I can't imagine anyone in the portal thinking, "THIS is a coach I want to play for," and it's not a given that Perry, Skyy and EDJr return.
He recruited 2 footballers in his first year at Cincinnati to fill his depleted roster, so it's not out of the question. Double NIL might be a recruiting sell!
HC Mick Howland has complained that he needs bigger, tougher players to better compete in the Big-10, so some of the JMUcla guys may be good candidates.
I was thinking this morning about how humiliating, how degrading it must have been for Jamerson last night and then I saw this post on X and it really is spot on...
Coming home battered and deflated, no doubt. I imagine that every flight home this season has been a long one. Still 2 more flights left, to Minnesota and then the conference tourney in Chicago...
Yes, Cooper was heated but his teammates cooled him off. I do not believe that was the reason Jamerson was ejected.
Cronin lost control as he often does, but he was way out of line last night, and ejected a player for a foul that may have been a hard foul but there was no ill intent by Jamerson.
I think you're seeing the frustration of a coach who is struggling to adapt to a changing landscape. As I've said before, I think it is disingenuous to consider Cronin to be a bad coach, and he's clearly well-respected in the coaching community, given that guys like Izzo, Kevin Sampson, and others call him out as such.
But at the same time, the game has changed dramatically in the past few years. Not so much the tactics on the court, but everything off-court. The Westwood that Cronin came to is completely different from the one he is at now; back then, he had an easy sell to local players wanting to be showcased at the highest level, but now those players are more likely to leave to the highest bidder, and because there's an ease of movement for players, you aren't guaranteed to have players for more than a year. That's a dangerous position to be in when your claim to fame is as a developmental coach who helps players grow into their best versions. Cronin said the quiet part out loud a few weeks ago regarding this fact, that he's struggling to rebuild relationships on a yearly basis and having to essentially rebuild the roster every year, and on some level, I do sympathize with that.
The sad fact is that Cronin was exactly who UCLA needed when he was hired, and that 2022-2023 team will go down as one of the biggest what-ifs in UCLA basketball history. But it's also a fact that the changes to college basketball have not been kind to Cronin, and that a proactive AD would have recognized this fact rather than hand out an extension when one was not warranted.
If he does not fit the era, then he can do as Jay Wright and Roy Williams did--leave the scene. He can coach hs for the teaching element and purity of the game. He doesn't need the money.
YoungestTo500™ coaching at the HS level? Imagine the shock on the faces of the basketball moms when their kids are being yelled at, yanked out of games, and sent straight to the showers! :-)
I haven’t seen the whole game, basically only the clip of Jamerson’s foul and aftermath but I know there were a few fights in NBA and NCAA the last few weeks. The most charitable explanation would be that Cronin was trying to prevent a potential fight in the handshake line.
But yeah I can’t get into the mind of someone who would publicly throw his players under the bus like that. Yes, Cronin has criticized his teams in the past in the press but the only person who sees that are diehard fans. His behavior last night was out in the open for the entire country to see
i don't think it had anything to do with the handshake line. i think he was pissed off about the mad dogging when Cooper popped up. It was a hard foul. I don't think there was ill-intent but the flagrant rules are what they are. So it was not the foul all by itself.
I wouldn't think any apologies are forthcoming. Social media didn't exist back in my day, so I can imagine that only makes the embarrassment from the incident worse. Perhaps a favorable move for HC Cronin would be to consider putting Jamerson in the starting lineup on Saturday. Illinois sure pummeled U$C earlier tonight, so it may not matter who actually starts for UCLA against the #10 Illini, anyway...
That's never going to happen. UCLA will be on the hook for more than the 18-22million that is Cronin's buyout if they tried to fire him for cause over what transpired in the Michigan St game.
Kansas St. is going to learn this lesson the hard way for their firing of Jerome Tang and we don't need to follow them down that hole.
I didn’t say that nor did I say anything about Mick’s behavior. In fact in a previous thread I mentioned ucla should negotiate a lower buyout and get rid of him this year.
The rabbit hole is getting into another expensive litigation over firing Mick “for cause” in a case that would be much weaker than UCLA’s case for breaking the Rose Bowl contract.
The thing to note is that buyouts are usually paid through donors, who do the equivalent of passing a hat around to have the money put together. If UCLA wants to fire Cronin and gets enough donors with enough money on board, then those finances don't matter.
Which is where Jarmond still being the AD becomes the problem, but that's a whole nother story.
I don't believe Cronin's job is in jeopardy. That changes if we miss the tournament. But if we win the remaining games against non-ranked teams, and lose the remaining games against ranked teams, we will go into the conference tournament at 20 wins with a pretty easy opening game. So we should have at least 21 wins which should be good enough to get us in. This goes out the window if we lose to USC or Minnesota which is definitely possible. We'll know a lot by how this team comes out of the gate Saturday against Illinois.
For what it's worth - I outlined this near the end of the Michigan thread, but in that scenario, we'd be mid-40s in NET and 3-9 vs Q1 (assuming a win at Just $C and the win at UDub remains a Q1 win) going into the B1G tournament, which compares very closely to the resumes of last year's play-in 4 in & first 4 out... in other words - that scenario is at best very bubblicious and we'd be hoping for few bid stealers to emerge or few other bubble teams making longer runs in conference tournaments. Even if the committee seems to love placing a "struggling blueblood" in the play-in most years - I think the scenario you described Evan would be pretty precarious for the Bruins.
We also lose the tiebreaker to every other team that is currently in the 7-10 slots in the B1G standings (Iowa & OSU who we're currently tied with and Indiana who's currently a game behind) going 3-2 probably doesn't get us into the top 8 and in that scenario, winning just one game against a bottom 4 team wouldn't matter much...
Yeah... only after he used the "I was only following orders" defense at his intro press conference, after 11 years of defending Pierce and was rightfully called out for it - he got around to "apologizing" 9 days later, likely to save his ass after the resultant firestorm. Whatever you think of Cronin's personality - it is miles away from being an apologist for a rapist.
Unless Cronin is throwing chairs at players, there won’t be anything close to cause. The courts have consistently ruled against schools who tried firing a coach for being too mean. Hell, LSU tried that with Brian Kelly, one of the most universally unliked coaches in college football history, and got laughed at by every news publication around before having their claim dismissed and Kelly getting his buyout.
Apparently Cronin doesn't record/video practices because he doesn't want any evidence to come out about how he bullies his players. NBA scouts seem to be in the know about his behavior and it's way beyond just being a hardnosed coach.
His true self has been on display behind closed doors for some time, but now that he likely feels the heat is increasing, he is fully imploding in the public's eye.
As Zach at Locked On said, Cronin is the antithesis of Coach Wooden and is 'The Pyramid of Failure.'
I’m pretty sure you would be shocked by the Wooden that the public didn’t see. Multiple players are on record saying the calm, patient Wooden wasn’t the one you saw at practice.
There is no "cause," at least not with this incident. With 4:26 left and Michigan State leading 77–50, Jamerson fouled Carson Cooper from behind while Cooper was defenseless, in the air, on a breakaway dunk attempt. Post-game, Cronin explained that "true toughness" is competing hard for rebounds and box-outs, not committing dangerous fouls late in a decided game." He stated, "the guy was defenseless in the air... when it’s a 25-point game, you don’t do that".
We all know Cronin has a deep, well-documented friendship with Izzo; facing a mentor and friend likely heightened Cronin's desire to maintain the player safety aspect of that call. By ejecting his own player, he took accountability for a play that Cronin interpreted as a violation of the mutual respect shared between the two coaches. I don’t think any of Cronin’s response to the foul takes place if Izzo is not the opponent.
In watching the play, and having seen Jamerson play all season, I personally did not believe that the foul was malicious. Cronin overreacted; and in a blink, played judge and jury, treating/embarrassing Jamerson for a play that did not warrant that level of discipline. He and, unfortunately, the UCLA program will have to suffer the fallout for his actions…….but, as mentioned above, this does not rise to the level of “cause” for firing
Perry's trey with a minute left made the score respectable...
And if you discard the 1st half, the Bruins lost the game by a respectable 39-36 score.
LOL
Cronin has gone past his sell by date. we all know it. a GM is not going to save the Bruins next year.
Re: GM and sell by date
Max Feldman to Mick Cronin is the equivalent of Bartow2.0 to Alfie.
I hope we're about to find out.
Yray is the football GM. For basketball, you're looking at Max Feldman, who has the title of Assistant GM but is generally considered the guy in charge there.
Corrected Thank you.
The point remains.
it makes sense to have a GM, since recruiting now really has nothing to do with recruiting. Kids are not going to schools because of the coach or the school. It is, unfortunately, all about the money now and the GM needs to figure out how to best spread the budget.
Honest question here… did aday get paid more to go to Michigan? Or was his move about more than money?
Bit of both.
Mara got a pretty good raise to go to Michigan, which is running an NIL operation operating in the top 5 of the country (that's what you get when Larry Ellison is personally bankrolling everything because his almost 50-year junior wife is a Michigan alum). Mara's camp also clearly felt Cronin was not helping him develop and was secretly shopping him around if the deal was good enough.
The way I've put it together from both sides, UCLA had an agreement with Mara to return to Westwood, and then while he was back home during spring break Michigan waltz'd in with a bigger offer to go back on that prior agreement. UCLA made the mistake of not putting pen to paper so they could hold him to his contract (or they were afraid to press their luck there, which is a common theme with NIL deals at this point), and Mara gets to look clean in the whole thing because Cronin is an asshole.
I feel bad for Jamerson...
The scene of Cronin throwing him out is going viral. From the comments on X, people are really angry and want him gone.
I do not believe he can return from this...
I hope you are right. UCLA needs to pull the trigger now and just deal with the consequences.
Perhaps jelly 2.0 should be required to personally fund a portion of the buyout... accountability needs to be enacted at some point.
I think AD Martin Guerrero should be the first person to be fired, as he is the one who created the undeserved extension and larger than necessary buyout.
Yep, jelly is beyond incompetent, he is destructive and has been for a long time.
As I shared prior, his involvement in the SoFi nightmare will be revealed under the bright lights. His chipster fiasco, his cronin hush hush extension... and let's not forget about the tax fraud allegations case with donations, that happened on his watch.
Surely Frenk can't just ignore all of this anymore, can he?
The DEI Director and CFO have been fired, so I think there's at least some hope...
He should fall on his sword, but that would require honor and self reflection.
Don't worry, if U$C beats the Bruins at the Galen Center, Tommy Trojan will gladly use his sword (no honor or self-reflection needed). And HC MuscleMan might also celebrate the victory by taking off his shirt...
Ah the tearing off of the shirt....but will his wife write on his skin in Sharpie ink? Ugh
Oh my BruinMom17, the images came roaring back 🤣
Yes, I forgot about his wife too--what a couple... :-)
My sister and her husband are longtime season ticket holders at Nevada. When she told me about this little post game "ritual" I was like what?? Then she sent me a video of it. I nearly fell out my chair. LOL
Yeah, I don't think Jamerson deserved the humiliating, Cronin-the-Barbarian treatment right in front of the entire crowd, his fellow teammates, and everyone else watching on the Peacock TV channel. Jamerson can be an uncontrollable, human fouling machine sometimes, but it looked to me like an honest attempt to chase down and try to block an easy bucket without any malicious intent. Although the body contact made it a dangerous foul and was ill-advised at that point in the game, yelling at him, yanking him off the floor, and sending him straight to the locker room made HC Cronin appear to be auditioning for a job as an SBTR, or maybe a future assistant under HC Izzo. The ironic thing is that HC Cronin wants his players to give maximum effort until the final buzzer sounds, and I think Jamerson was trying to do just that.
With the new NCAA, NIL landscape I don’t see how UCLA gets back to that top tier program. Back in the day we had decent recruits that would propel us, now that wind is gone. Cronin can’t recruit stars, in addition to the new landscape, mediocrity it is!
sure it can. all we have to do is get our NIL program top tier. That's all that matters anymore.
LOL! NIL money got a set of transfers that listed this current squad of players as the preseason 12 ranked team. Clearly that not ALL that matters… you need a competent coach who can assemble a legit roster. Keep digging, I’m excited for the next excuse… even garrido wont join you in that last opinion of yours
Is there a mbb Tim Skipper who can carry this team through the end of the season?
They've only got 5 games left and I don't think the NCAA or the NIT would want a team like this even if he wins the last 5 and beating Illinois, even at home will be tough, so let Cronin get through the 5, then deal with the buyout implications, its $22.5m.
I was not a Mick hater. He's been insightful and very strategic at times. Some of his interviews with Petros & Money have been classic.
However, yanking on Jamerson's jersey and treating him like that is completely unacceptable. I felt horrible for him. The look on his face was utterly disheartening.
I didn't even think that foul was that egregious. Yes, he was from coming from behind, but I do believe he was going for the ball. I would argue it was borderline flagrant. I was watching it in realtime, and I didn't see any shoving action other than Cooper jumping up and getting in Jamerson's face, and he just stood there staring back. Certainly not worthy of throwing him off the floor. I don't even think Jamerson knew what was going on at first.
With that behavior, it's almost as though he wants to get fired. And at this point, I would welcome his departure, one way or another. I do think he's lost the team after tonight, but beyond that, he lost someone like me, who was not a hater . . . before tonight.
Yeah, that was pretty harsh treatment for Jamerson. I don't think HC Cronin wants to get fired (that would be a first for him), but is instead taking out all of his frustrations on the players for his own lack of success in coaching them to be tougher, play defense, and shoot the ball well on a consistent basis. Nothing seems to have worked to date, short of tearing off their names from the back of their jerseys (like KSU HC Tang did), or maybe replacing the 4 letters on the front of their jerseys with "QUIT". Definitely not looking good for UCLA's future recruiting efforts, either.
Things I have heard this year, without attribution, from a variety of sources:
This is my most talented team ever.
Donovan Dent is the long sought Difference Maker.
Dent is the X factor. This team will go as far as he is able to carry them.
Dent has elite speed and will play at the next level.
Xavier Booker is the X factor. This team will go as far as he is able to be a rim protector and serviceable scorer.
Eric Dailey Jr is due for a breakout season.
It's not as if I've forgotten how to coach. After all, I've won 500 of 'em.
I can't shoot the ball for them.
#12 preseason ranking.
S16 minimum, then anything can happen.
Many programs would be delighted to have Mick Cronin for coach.
Each can be categorized under widespread regression and huge disappointment...
Still unable to discern whether or not the team is improving?
So far, it's hard, very hard, but the season isn't over yet...
LOL
But I think you can add another nickname for HC Mick Howland:
"First to Eject His Own Player"
I'm starting to believe that HC Cronin had lost his team not during this recent Michigan road trip, but much earlier in the season. It might help explain the lack of consistent team effort, absence of any mental toughness, and minimal individual improvement this far into the season.
The players, recruited and hand selected by Cronin, are not a fit to his style of play, and have checked out. But they still are collecting checks.
I think both the players and coaching staff had also bought into the preseason AP #12-ranking hype, only to learn the hard way that it wasn't going to match reality without constantly putting in the required amount of effort, both individually and as a team, to achieve that high level of competitiveness. The players are getting paid and HC Cronin got his extension, so all is good for them money wise, but the UCLA basketball program itself appears to be trending in the wrong direction in Year-3 of the transfer portal/NIL era, and looks nothing close to what the Bruins were like when HC Cronin first took over.
[ But this season isn't over yet, LOL... ]
I think the most amazing thing to me is that the Cronistas continue to make excuses for this a$$hole of a human being that they continue to refer to as a ‘good’ coach.
I also read someone say that the major donors ‘still’ support cronin. Anybody still supporting the clown show clearly hasn’t been watching any basketball. This program will be an absolute disgrace by the time cronin is finished with it. At least howland and Alfie will leave with some dignity. Cronin will leave with bags of cash for having completely destroyed a once reputable basketball program
Honestly, I think the program is a disgrace right now.
Speaking for myself, D, this road trip did not raise any more questions about Mick Cronin's program. It, in fact, answered all my questions.
Cronin reminds me of that 1986 movie “Money Pit,” featuring Tom Hanks and Shelly Long. They kept dumping money into their house thinking it would get better but it never did. That’s what we’re living under the Cronin project. We keep believing but it ain’t never going to get better. Oh, and just like the movie - a box office flop - so too is the state of UCLA basketball under Cronin - a flop. Time to cut losses and truly do a proper search and hire.
I agree with all of this except the “thinking it will get better” part. I know lots of people still on some hopium, but I stayed away from the drugs personally
I know I know, I only show up in a loss to bag on cronin. I didn’t even watch either of these games, just a few highlights are all that you need to tell the story.
The haters like myself show up in droves after the losses, but I really wanna hear from the cronistas, the fan boys, those willing to lay it all on the line for this excuse of a human… where are you? Let me know why it is you’re still supporting this loser, I really would like to know what you’re holding onto? Could it be next years portal transfer? The recruiting was already in the dumps and I don’t see this helping. Is it some sort of moral victory? Where’s the dog bone these boys are fighting for? I haven’t heard anything about that. Maybe it’s the radiant smiles that emanate from the players? I’m at a loss, I guess I’m just an idiot that doesn’t understand anything about basketball as many of the fan boys have let me know so many times over the last few years
The rallying cry of endless second chances for the Howlers and Alfordistas was, "Next year's recruits!"
But YoungestTo500™ is toxic in California, the recruiting pipeline is bone dry, I can't imagine anyone in the portal thinking, "THIS is a coach I want to play for," and it's not a given that Perry, Skyy and EDJr return.
Next year will be brutal.
Again, no worries---he can still recruit from the football team to fill the roster.
Is double NIL money possible?
LOL
He recruited 2 footballers in his first year at Cincinnati to fill his depleted roster, so it's not out of the question. Double NIL might be a recruiting sell!
HC Mick Howland has complained that he needs bigger, tougher players to better compete in the Big-10, so some of the JMUcla guys may be good candidates.
I was thinking this morning about how humiliating, how degrading it must have been for Jamerson last night and then I saw this post on X and it really is spot on...
https://x.com/ryanjmoore4/status/2024126890353856781?s=46
Also, I saw a photo that shows the emotional pain on the players' faces as cronin is ejecting Jamerson.
If a picture is worth a 1000 words... 😞
What a long flight home.
Coming home battered and deflated, no doubt. I imagine that every flight home this season has been a long one. Still 2 more flights left, to Minnesota and then the conference tourney in Chicago...
Jamerson was sent off because it looked like a fight may break out getting him off the scene was good.
Hi my friend...
Yes, Cooper was heated but his teammates cooled him off. I do not believe that was the reason Jamerson was ejected.
Cronin lost control as he often does, but he was way out of line last night, and ejected a player for a foul that may have been a hard foul but there was no ill intent by Jamerson.
All, imho.
Thank you, Tamara. It was getting mouthy, and I agree Jamerson meant no harm. Is CMC stressed out over fear of losing his job?
Hard to say... He actually may want to get fired so he can collect $22 milion as he knows he has lost this team. I just don't really know.
I think you're seeing the frustration of a coach who is struggling to adapt to a changing landscape. As I've said before, I think it is disingenuous to consider Cronin to be a bad coach, and he's clearly well-respected in the coaching community, given that guys like Izzo, Kevin Sampson, and others call him out as such.
But at the same time, the game has changed dramatically in the past few years. Not so much the tactics on the court, but everything off-court. The Westwood that Cronin came to is completely different from the one he is at now; back then, he had an easy sell to local players wanting to be showcased at the highest level, but now those players are more likely to leave to the highest bidder, and because there's an ease of movement for players, you aren't guaranteed to have players for more than a year. That's a dangerous position to be in when your claim to fame is as a developmental coach who helps players grow into their best versions. Cronin said the quiet part out loud a few weeks ago regarding this fact, that he's struggling to rebuild relationships on a yearly basis and having to essentially rebuild the roster every year, and on some level, I do sympathize with that.
The sad fact is that Cronin was exactly who UCLA needed when he was hired, and that 2022-2023 team will go down as one of the biggest what-ifs in UCLA basketball history. But it's also a fact that the changes to college basketball have not been kind to Cronin, and that a proactive AD would have recognized this fact rather than hand out an extension when one was not warranted.
If he does not fit the era, then he can do as Jay Wright and Roy Williams did--leave the scene. He can coach hs for the teaching element and purity of the game. He doesn't need the money.
YoungestTo500™ coaching at the HS level? Imagine the shock on the faces of the basketball moms when their kids are being yelled at, yanked out of games, and sent straight to the showers! :-)
That's what's so incongruent. HS moms would demand his head on a pike, no NBA team would tolerate it, but it is protected and lauded at UCLA.
I haven’t seen the whole game, basically only the clip of Jamerson’s foul and aftermath but I know there were a few fights in NBA and NCAA the last few weeks. The most charitable explanation would be that Cronin was trying to prevent a potential fight in the handshake line.
But yeah I can’t get into the mind of someone who would publicly throw his players under the bus like that. Yes, Cronin has criticized his teams in the past in the press but the only person who sees that are diehard fans. His behavior last night was out in the open for the entire country to see
i don't think it had anything to do with the handshake line. i think he was pissed off about the mad dogging when Cooper popped up. It was a hard foul. I don't think there was ill-intent but the flagrant rules are what they are. So it was not the foul all by itself.
It's time for Frenk to open up an investigation of Cronin and look for evidence to support a termination with cause. Enough is enough.
I'm waiting for the apology (or excuses) for yanking Jamerson. What a role model.
I wouldn't think any apologies are forthcoming. Social media didn't exist back in my day, so I can imagine that only makes the embarrassment from the incident worse. Perhaps a favorable move for HC Cronin would be to consider putting Jamerson in the starting lineup on Saturday. Illinois sure pummeled U$C earlier tonight, so it may not matter who actually starts for UCLA against the #10 Illini, anyway...
That's never going to happen. UCLA will be on the hook for more than the 18-22million that is Cronin's buyout if they tried to fire him for cause over what transpired in the Michigan St game.
Kansas St. is going to learn this lesson the hard way for their firing of Jerome Tang and we don't need to follow them down that hole.
Of course it's never going to happen. That requires maturity and class. Even Alfie publicly apologized for his defense of Pierre Pierce.
Is preserving the status quo better than going down that rabbit hole?
I didn’t say that nor did I say anything about Mick’s behavior. In fact in a previous thread I mentioned ucla should negotiate a lower buyout and get rid of him this year.
The rabbit hole is getting into another expensive litigation over firing Mick “for cause” in a case that would be much weaker than UCLA’s case for breaking the Rose Bowl contract.
The thing to note is that buyouts are usually paid through donors, who do the equivalent of passing a hat around to have the money put together. If UCLA wants to fire Cronin and gets enough donors with enough money on board, then those finances don't matter.
Which is where Jarmond still being the AD becomes the problem, but that's a whole nother story.
I don't believe Cronin's job is in jeopardy. That changes if we miss the tournament. But if we win the remaining games against non-ranked teams, and lose the remaining games against ranked teams, we will go into the conference tournament at 20 wins with a pretty easy opening game. So we should have at least 21 wins which should be good enough to get us in. This goes out the window if we lose to USC or Minnesota which is definitely possible. We'll know a lot by how this team comes out of the gate Saturday against Illinois.
For what it's worth - I outlined this near the end of the Michigan thread, but in that scenario, we'd be mid-40s in NET and 3-9 vs Q1 (assuming a win at Just $C and the win at UDub remains a Q1 win) going into the B1G tournament, which compares very closely to the resumes of last year's play-in 4 in & first 4 out... in other words - that scenario is at best very bubblicious and we'd be hoping for few bid stealers to emerge or few other bubble teams making longer runs in conference tournaments. Even if the committee seems to love placing a "struggling blueblood" in the play-in most years - I think the scenario you described Evan would be pretty precarious for the Bruins.
We also lose the tiebreaker to every other team that is currently in the 7-10 slots in the B1G standings (Iowa & OSU who we're currently tied with and Indiana who's currently a game behind) going 3-2 probably doesn't get us into the top 8 and in that scenario, winning just one game against a bottom 4 team wouldn't matter much...
how does that negotiation work? Hey Mick, we want to fire you, but your buyout is is $20 mil. How about we give you $15?
Maybe work out a deal with Syracuse or Cincinnati?
Ah so. Thanks, Chen.
Yeah... only after he used the "I was only following orders" defense at his intro press conference, after 11 years of defending Pierce and was rightfully called out for it - he got around to "apologizing" 9 days later, likely to save his ass after the resultant firestorm. Whatever you think of Cronin's personality - it is miles away from being an apologist for a rapist.
Yeah...it was scripted. So the Athletic Department does have staff who can write a mea culpa for Mick.
Alfie learned from "Just lie back and enjoy it" Bobby Knight, so I would expect such.
I believe there is evidence for cause, it just needs a courageous, bold leader to uncover it. Where there's a will, there's a way...
The jury is still out...
But the rabbit hole is 💯 worth it, or the long term impact could potentially be far more damaging than $22 million. All imho.
And I have always been curious where the $$$$$ is coming from to pay for the Rose Bowl fiasco law suit and potential outcome...
Unless Cronin is throwing chairs at players, there won’t be anything close to cause. The courts have consistently ruled against schools who tried firing a coach for being too mean. Hell, LSU tried that with Brian Kelly, one of the most universally unliked coaches in college football history, and got laughed at by every news publication around before having their claim dismissed and Kelly getting his buyout.
Well the buyout drops to $18 million after April 6th, I believe, which is another option. Frenk needs to find a way.
I just read an interesting article by Gregg Doyel in the Indy Star that sheds light on the cruelty of cronin...
https://x.com/greggdoyelstar/status/2024206877513380326?s=46
Apparently Cronin doesn't record/video practices because he doesn't want any evidence to come out about how he bullies his players. NBA scouts seem to be in the know about his behavior and it's way beyond just being a hardnosed coach.
His true self has been on display behind closed doors for some time, but now that he likely feels the heat is increasing, he is fully imploding in the public's eye.
As Zach at Locked On said, Cronin is the antithesis of Coach Wooden and is 'The Pyramid of Failure.'
The Indy Star article has a great contrast between Painter and Cronin
I’m pretty sure you would be shocked by the Wooden that the public didn’t see. Multiple players are on record saying the calm, patient Wooden wasn’t the one you saw at practice.
Unless there is a massive smoking gun, UCLA isn’t getting off the hook for that buy out
what is the "cause." What section of the contract did he breach?
There is no "cause," at least not with this incident. With 4:26 left and Michigan State leading 77–50, Jamerson fouled Carson Cooper from behind while Cooper was defenseless, in the air, on a breakaway dunk attempt. Post-game, Cronin explained that "true toughness" is competing hard for rebounds and box-outs, not committing dangerous fouls late in a decided game." He stated, "the guy was defenseless in the air... when it’s a 25-point game, you don’t do that".
We all know Cronin has a deep, well-documented friendship with Izzo; facing a mentor and friend likely heightened Cronin's desire to maintain the player safety aspect of that call. By ejecting his own player, he took accountability for a play that Cronin interpreted as a violation of the mutual respect shared between the two coaches. I don’t think any of Cronin’s response to the foul takes place if Izzo is not the opponent.
In watching the play, and having seen Jamerson play all season, I personally did not believe that the foul was malicious. Cronin overreacted; and in a blink, played judge and jury, treating/embarrassing Jamerson for a play that did not warrant that level of discipline. He and, unfortunately, the UCLA program will have to suffer the fallout for his actions…….but, as mentioned above, this does not rise to the level of “cause” for firing
Jarmond and Cronin both need to be fired ASAP. Another awful look for the university.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2026-02-18/ucla-must-eject-mick-cronin-if-he-cant-respect-his-players
Wonder if the "pyramid of poop" came from a rat's a**
LOL
Based on all comments, I’m beginning to wonder the same.
I do think CMC is fundamentally a decent person, but a coach who is either unwilling or incapable of adapting to the current environment.
I’m not convinced that he has “lost the team” but I do believe the team is pissed with his behavior.
How he chooses to rectify himself will go a long way in determining his future at UCLA.
The bull dog behavior on the sidelines has gotten awfully old.
Good coaches like Roy Williams and Duke’s Coach K never threw the anger fits that we see consistently coming from CMC.
Being on a seat that once belonged to COACH requires a certain maturity and a certain demeanor.
I’m sorry, but CMC’s behavior is not working for me.
It is definitely unbecoming of anyone that occupies the office that coach Wooden once held.
I believe Plashke is CORRECT. Thoroughly disappointed in CMC.
Enough of this “bull dog” look on the sidelines.
No is any longer impressed!