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Dimitri Dorlis's avatar

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.

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Chenalex's avatar

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.

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