Postgame Talk: Mick Cronin Sends Message, UCLA Responds with 79-48 Rout of Sacramento State

Cronin sat four of his usual starters, and the team responded with their best defensive performance of the year.

(Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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You never know what you’re going to see when it comes to an early-season Mick Cronin basketball game. Sometimes you watch a coach tinkering with rotations and trying to find pairings that click. Other times, he spends the entire game having the team practice a defensive scheme that might not be right for that game but will come in handy in future matchups against tougher opponents.

And sometimes you get a situation where Cronin decides to send a message to his team by benching four of the five regular starters, as he did tonight against Sacramento State.

It is hard to say that Cronin’s message did not get through to the team, at least for the first half. UCLA paired regular starter Eric Dailey with bench pieces Trent Perry, Jamar Brown, Brandon Williams, and Steven Jamerson to start the game, and the lineup rolled out to a quick 13-0 lead, playing selfless, high-effort basketball that led to an early Sacramento State timeout. That translated for most of the first half, as bodies went to the floor and shooters kept passing up good shots in search of better ones (to the point where both Eric Dailey and Jamar Brown got pulled to the bench so that Cronin could succinctly tell them to shoot the ball when they were open), and played with an effort that we hadn’t seen against the cupcakes so far this year, as the Bruins opened up a 42-17 halftime lead and ultimately won by the final of 79-48.

Look, I know Cronin said in the postgame that the lineup change was not a message sent to the starters but rather an acknowledgement that that group beat the starting group by 20 in an intra-squad scrimmage on Sunday, but let’s be adults here: this was absolutely a message being sent by Cronin that the effort that group has shown in the nonconference has not been up to the standard required. Take the Arizona game out of the equation and ask yourself a question: Do you think UCLA has played up to its potential so far this season? The answer for most of you is undoubtedly no (unless, of course, you are that much of a Cronin hater, at which point I wonder what you're even doing reading an article about a game UCLA won by 31 points), and that is in no small part because the team was not showing the necessary effort in those games. I caught a bit of Tracy Murray talking after the game, and went on at length about how Cronin had done the right thing by benching the starters, stating that it was holding players accountable for their actions, and that a player getting paid did not give them carte blanche to not give the requisite effort in games where the team should win handily.

Clearly, Tracy Murray did not get the memo that benching your starters was actually a bad coaching move and a sign that Cronin was in over his head. Neither did the players who started the game, who clearly took the assignment to heart and set the tone early. Neither did Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark, who were much more focused on defense, with Clark in particular having his best defensive effort of the year (he ended up fouling out, but I felt he was robbed a few times).

The team, in general, held Sacramento State to 24.1% shooting on the night, and this wasn’t a case of one good half bringing the number down; Sacramento State was better in the second half, but only to the tune of a 25.8% shooting half. The Hornets were miserable from deep, finishing 3-24 on the night, but unlike other games, the Bruins were rarely giving up open looks from distance. I don’t think Sacramento State is a great shooting team in general, but there is a lot of former Power Four talent on this roster, so I’d be willing to call this UCLA’s best defensive effort to date.

UCLA let up in the second half for a variety of reasons. For one, Mick Cronin went with the usual starters in the second half, hoping they could prove something, but it just wasn’t happening, specifically because of one Tyler Bilodeau. Bilodeau was a disaster, finishing with only six points on 1-5 shooting before fouling out. He had three rebounds, which is better than he did against Arizona, but Sacramento State was able to guard him pretty effectively, and if he’s not pouring it in on offense, then he becomes a major liability. I have to imagine the leash is starting to get shorter with Bilodeau, especially since Cronin can slide Dailey down to the four and rock with a three-guard lineup that gets Trent Perry on the floor alongside Dent and Clark. I have gone on record about how I think +/- is a bad stat, but I will note that Bilodeau was the only Bruin to finish in the negative in that regard, which correlates to what it felt like watching the game, which was that the defense struggled much more when he was on the court than when he was off it.

Another limiting factor in the second half was the absence of Steven Jamerson, who injured his left leg during the first half and was kept out in the second. Jamerson was moving around gingerly but without any aid throughout the second half, and seemed to want back into the game at various points, but given how Sacramento State approached the second half (which is to say, excessively physical), I can’t blame the staff for sitting him and preventing a real injury from taking place. Jamerson’s line in the first half won’t feel impressive - no points, only three rebounds, and two turnovers - but his effort and energy were contagious, and his two blocks and a steal highlighted him as an anchor for defense that held the Hornets to 21.7% from the field in the first half. This is not to say his counterpart, Xavier Booke,r was unplayable - I was encouraged by his eight rebounds and a few interior moves on offense, which are things he should be working on in these kinds of games - but he had five turnovers and looked more lost on defense than he has in other games.

Donovan Dent had a pretty solid game, all things considered. He finished with seven assists and no turnovers, and as I said earlier, played perhaps his best defense so far. His scoring, however, is a problem, and this looks like a case of a player dealing with an injury that is throwing some mechanics off. It would be one thing if Dent was only taking contested shots, which would be indicative of a broken offense, but he got several open looks and failed to convert them. Worse still, Dent went 1-5 from the free-throw line, not ideal for a guy shooting 78.6% on the season heading into this game. My guess at this point is that Dent is more hurt than initially let on, and probably should have taken the week off to rest and get back to something resembling healthy, as the injury is sapping him of some athleticism and shot form, and he’s looking more tentative as a result. UCLA doesn’t have a long layoff until December 23, when it gets 10 days between its last non-conference game and a visit to Iowa. UCLA could also consider making this a longer break for Dent by sitting him for Cal Poly and UC Riverside, but this means you’re hoping he’ll be healthy enough for the Gonzaga game, which feels like a bad bet.

The good news is that Eric Dailey looks fully back. Dailey was a force, as you would hope given the opponent, but it was still great to see, as he finished with a team-high 15 points and 10 rebounds. He also finished with four assists to only one turnover, and did this in 30 minutes, which led the team. I was not surprised that Dailey was the lone starter to keep his spot for this one, given that Dailey is slowly morphing into Cronin’s latest spirit animal, and the only blemish for him was his 0-4 outing from deep. Still, it would behoove UCLA if Dailey emerges as the vocal leader, and if he can build on the strong outings from last year while minimizing his bad outings.

Trent Perry also had a solid outing, to the point where I think you have to at least consider him taking a starting spot from someone. Perry still makes mistakes at times, but he’s showing more confidence on offense and more of a willingness to be physical on defense. One thing I’d like to see Perry focus on is his rebounding, as he tends to shy away from mixing it up, and I think UCLA needs its guards to be more active on the boards in general. Skyy Clark is already a generally decent rebounder, and if Perry can similarly improve in that regard, it would free Dent up more to be the outlet and initiate the offense quicker.

UCLA has another tune-up game on Friday against Presbyterian. We’ll see if the team takes Cronin’s message to heart.

Go Bruins!

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