Postgame Talk: Mick Cronin’s Rotation Issues Come Home to Roost in Loss to Michigan, 94-75
The Bruins don’t have a big-man rotation that can play 20+ minutes, which is a major problem in the Big 10.
For the second game in a row, I think there is an easy way to look at this game and a much more critical one.
For a simple explanation of UCLA’s loss to Michigan, consider the following: Michigan has two 7-footers in their starting lineup, while UCLA was unable to match that height. Also consider that Michigan went 15-28 from three, while UCLA only went a paltry 2-20. UCLA’s shooting touch, which has been much-improved this season, has abandoned them in the worst way, and with the Bruins unable to match Michigan’s size inside, it meant that a valiant comeback effort was ultimately for not.
If you want a more critical view of what happened, it’s actually pretty simple: Mick Cronin got worked from both a roster construction and rotational standpoint, and he has only himself to blame.
Anyone even half paying attention could have told you that trying to play Tyler Bilodeau against Vladislav Goldin was going to be a disaster. Never mind that Bilodeau gives up three inches and 20 pounds to Goldin; the Michigan big man is an especially big problem for Bilodeau because of how bad he is at defending the pick-and-roll, which is a specialty of the Russian. Goldin ended up with 36 points on 13-18 shooting, and the only time UCLA managed to slow him down was by throwing weakside help from Kobe Johnson at him repeatedly, which helped the Bruins get back into the game until Michigan adjusted.
The more distressing part is that UCLA doesn’t really have an answer for a big like Goldin. Aday Mara provided some passable play for a bit, especially as he is much better at hedging and affecting the PnR, but he doesn’t have the cardio to play lengthy minutes yet, and Goldin was really able to abuse Mara during the end of his shifts in both the first and second halves. William Kyle III is perhaps the stoutest big man on the roster, but he’s only just come back from a surgery and has a lot of the height issues that Bilodeau has.
Now, do I think UCLA could have developed Mara and Kyle enough to provide those minutes earlier in the season? It’s hard to say, but at the same time it felt pretty clear that Bilodeau at the 5 was not a lineup that was going to be effective throughout the season. It gives up way too much on the inside and pushes Bilodeau out of position when he is better suited as a power forward that can bully similar players. The coaching staff knew this was going to be a potential problem heading into the season, and yet way too many minutes were wasted on Bilodeau at the 5 instead of giving Mara and Kyle more minutes to develop. Doesn’t hurt that moving Bilodeau up a spot would likely lead to Eric Dailey and Kobe Johnson moving up as well and partially solving UCLA’s guard problems.
(By the way, if you were wondering, Eric Dailey guarding Danny Wolf was perfectly fine because Wolf is much more agile and plays further out than Goldin. He’s much closer to a guard than he is a true center, which is a wild thing to say about a 7-footer.)
And, yet again, I’m also of two views on how this problem plays out for the rest of the season. From the pessimistic side, I do think we are well past the point in the season when UCLA can afford to give both Mara and Kyle the minutes they need to develop this season. UCLA will be stuck trying to jam a square peg into a round hole unless the light clicks for those players and they become impossible to sit.
But I want to end on some positivity, so let’s look at the flip side. From an optimistic standpoint, I remember last year’s experiment with the double-big lineup which Cronin kept trying to make work throughout the nonconference before finally abandoning it during conference play. I do think Cronin can be a bit stubborn with his approach at times, and that includes the tactics he develops in the offseason with his coaching staff, but he eventually makes a change, usually after seeing that strategy fail completely and utterly.
And as we always talk about, UCLA tends to get better as the season progresses. This could very much feel like a blip in a few weeks as players start hitting their shots and guys like Dylan Andrews regain their form. It’s a long season, anything is possible.
Anyway, I finally got power back again to post this on the internet. Stay safe out there everyone!
Go Bruins.
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So, I'm going to point something out to people in general. Eric Dailey and Tyler Bilodeau also did the postgame interviews yesterday. You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yXwzjgvED0
What stood out to me is that the players also harped on the toughness aspect, feeling they played soft throughout the game. That's a pretty good sign that the players have not tuned out Cronin by any stretch, and if anything they are reacting to Cronin's comments in the complete opposite way of people here.
I do think people get too worked up about these postgame comments that Cronin makes; when you compare them to the midweek pressers he gives, they're completely different in tone, and it makes me understand why a player would want to come play for Cronin. The guy is a tremendous competitor, and does not take losing well, and if you're a player that wants to win, it is much more appealing to play for a guy who hates to lose than someone who will act nonchalant after a loss (think Chip Kelly for this one).
To back this up on a personal level, I've mentioned before that I coach high school basketball. We had a game yesterday that we won, but given the quality of our opponent we did not play well at all and basically sleepwalked through the game. I understood why - we just came back from break and my players are not true athletes, so they did not do anything to stay in shape during the holidays - and so I was lenient with them after the game in our conversations. While I was at the UCLA game, my captains all sent me a text saying they were angry with me because I did not light into them after the game, and they wanted me to push them harder. Athletes react to the comments of their coach in a much different manner than the average fan sitting at home does, and that's why I never really have a problem with the comments Cronin makes, because he does the same thing Nick Saban and so many other great coaches do, which is use the press conference to talk to the team, no matter what the fans say.
The postgame comments are classic Cronin. In 2019, he made similar comments after ucla lost to Fullerton and even banned the team from wearing ucla jerseys during practice. It took a while for the message to sink in but ucla did go on a run that season before covid put a stop to everything. Those players that Cronin supposedly threw under the bus stayed with him for 3-4 more years, and developed into the hardworking players we grew to love.
Same thing last year. He made the same comments that were criticized here as well, and once the season ended, nobody wanted to transfer out and Cronin basically had to push players out to make room for a new crop of transfers.
I definitely think that some fans are way more offended by his comments than the players are. If these players respond like Tyger, Jaime, Jules, and Cody did, then great. If not, then they’ll be shown the door like the players from last year.