Good thing is the sadness and disappointment is temporary. The Bruins will be back strong again next season. And if it's any consolation, looks like Gonzaga is getting blown out by UConn. I would like to believe an injury-free Bruins at full strength would've been a better challenge. So long, Bulldogs! (again)
Happens when they beat us in the tournament. Beat us in the National Semi-Final, Baylor blows them out. Now they beat us and UConn routs them. It seems they over-extend themselves working to beat us, have little left for the next game.
I feel that too. We had delicious Mexican takeout food for dinner while watching the game. But still something's not right. Had UCLA been playing, I could have eaten everyone's leftovers even. LOL !!! I will get over it, I will, LOL !!!
This is a tough loss to take. With Clark and Bona, our defense would’ve kept us in the game during our scoring drought and maybe even ended it earlier if we could’ve gotten fast break points.
Mick in the post game sounded mad. Mad for having to wait nearly 35 minutes before he could begin the conference, mad at the refs, mad at Andrews for not playing Strauther tighter.
Love the heart our team showed down 8. Instead of jacking up 3s like any other team, Jaime mustered up every once of remaining energy he had to drive and get fouled. And cronin made a pretty genius move to foil their worst free throw shooters even when fouling wasn’t necessary and that got us the 1-point lead.
On the final play, it’s understandable why ucla didn’t press. One pass will break the press and then your defense is playing with a man down with only a one point lead. It was clear we were trying to avoid a drive or a foul as we were only up 1 in the double bonus. But sometimes lucky 3 point shots from the logo just go in I guess.
i don't think this game would have been close with either Clark or Bona in the lineup. Timme could have got Bona in foul trouble, but even 20 minutes out of him would have made a world of difference.
I think the key stat went unmentioned. We lost the rebounding battle 50-26. We easily could have survived a cold spell if we could have kept them off the offensive glass. They got way too many 2nd chance opportunities. Better rebounding may have led to better offensive opportunities as well. We definitely do not get outrebounded like that with Clark and Bona playing.
It hurts! UCLA losing hurts - I was speaking to my wife what would have been less painful, if they would have lost by 7 when there was a 1:14 left or losing this way again. There is so much to say, and again there are many what if’s, but as the saying in Spanish goes “what if’s doesn’t exist.” The refs allowed Gonzaga to harass UCLA on their offensive possessions. Some over the back, calls weren’t made. I think Nwuba wasn’t the same after he got ran over by the Gonzaga player on the foul. Some of our bench players are challenged offensively, which again, in your write up, we can attribute to coaching. In addition, we missed a few shots around the rim late in the game, when it seemed we were about to get blown away, that now in hindsight, what if Tyger would have scored that layup he missed with about 2 minutes to go. All I can conclude is this hurts. Hurts like Florida in 2006, 2008, hurts like Gonzaga en 2021, hurts like tonight.
Yes, it hurts. I also never thought UCLA was going all the way once Clark went down. Then, we lose Bona on top of that. I feel bad for our seniors because they deserved better than that. Our team kept fighting until the end. It's all you can ask of them.
I think we all feel the same way. I also feel for Dylan Andrews as it kinda seems he got called out by Cronin and Jáquez in the press conference. It hurts all across the board.
True. I mean how close do we really want Andrews on that guy 35' from the basket? Dylan's gotta play for the drive and pop or dish too. Dude just made an incredible shot - and everything sucks because of it.
Much closer. You can't allow that pass to be made. Force Sallis to continue to dribble or even better pick up his dribble. Andrews just can't go under that screen. But that didn't lose the game. As others have mentioned ucla lost this game with their poor defensive rebounding in the second half. You can't give the zags half a dozen or so trips that lead to multiple shot opportunities. Not scoring a hoop for 11 min wasn't advantageous either . .
In the previous thread, some were disappointed and frustrated with the “moral victory” but again what ifs seems to be common denominator for us. They gave it all and we were a bucket short and 32 foot jumper unlucky.
My friend, if you watched their Madison Square Garden games in NYC last November - I know you did - you would agree with my statement then that UCLA would go a long, long way if not all the way to Final Four, barring the unexpected injuries. But what can I say. Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. These are such indelible, prophetic lyrics by none other than John Lennon.
I thought was absolutely the key. It seemed like Gonzaga had like 48 offensive rebounds in the second half alone. Every time the Bruins got a stop, the Zags got it back and inevitably scored. Sooooo frustrating! Everything from the slow offense to lack of rebounding seems traceable to fatigue...really really tough to take.....
I was very disappointed in the lack of adjustment to Timme. Frankly I am surprised he didn't drop 50 with Mac getting so many minutes no offense to Mac. Also, during that 11 minute slump Bailey should have been more involved at least trying to get to the foul line. Last, what the hell was Will McClendon doing?
Mac only had four minutes, so it's hard to blame him. Like I said, it was more shocking they chose not to be more physical in the second half considering both bigs had all of their fouls to give.
The Bailey thing is more of a Cronin issue, because he's the one calling for Jaime and Tyger isos and the two-man game. It's one of the things that's going to be required to change for the program to get better (especially because those two won't be here next year).
I totally agree with the comment about the lack of physical play on Timme. We had 10 fouls to challenge and wear him down, and he's not a great FT shooter. Should have bodied that guy hard when he started into his moves, but we just let him roll easily to the hoop.
Also, do you think Bailey is back next year? I'd be very very happy if he were, and very very very surprised.
seemed like a lot more. 4 too many though. The Bailey thing is incredibly frustrating. Jaime is the most polished player on the roster, but Bailey has the most talent. When that shooting slump entered like its 3rd minute, Cronin should have been calling iso for Bailey and told him to just get to the line.
I'm less than thrilled with Dimitri's recap of this game.
He wasted a lot of precious words whining about rotations. In a game of this importance, against a perennial tournament powerhouse team, nobody should be surprised that Cronin was going to lean heavily on his seniors, players who are battle-tested and tournament tough.
He said McClendon played similar minutes to Andrews. McClendon played for 4 minutes; Andrews played 10 minutes, more than double McClendon's minutes. How exactly is that similar?
But the fact is, Cronin was going to live and die with Jaime, Tyger, Amari, and Dave, even if it meant playing them for nearly 40 minutes each. IMO, the minutes were not an issue nor should it be a point of criticism. In the gametime group text with my UCLA classmates, a few guys were saying UCLA was gassed in the 2nd half. I really didn't understand those remarks because the Gonzaga players of any importance (Watson, Strawther, and Timme) played the same number of minutes. Exhaustion is part of part of the game. You fight through it and you find a way to overcome it.
IMO, minutes wasn't a factor. I've seen Tyger and Jaime go more than 50 minutes in several OT games. Like Tyger and Jaime, Amari and Singleton are strong young men. I don't think they were bothered by the minutes. They weren't tired. They simply went cold. And we've seen this time and again this season, this team is streaky as hell and they have a tendency to go completely flat. And that's exactly what they did for an 11-minute stretch in the 2nd half.
The only story here is UCLA had a one-point lead with 12 seconds left and they lost. That's all that needs to be discussed. All they needed was one stop and they would be playing UConn on Sunday.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Singleton or Jaime didn't pick up Strawther at the half court line and face guard his ass. Strawther, one of the best 3-pt shooters in the country, walks into virtually uncontested shot at the 3-pt line. Singleton was 4 feet away and tried to recover, but he had too much distance to cover and came nowhere close to applying any pressure to Strawther.
How does that happen after a timeout?
With 12 seconds left and after a UCLA timeout, did Mick call for the Bruins to pack the paint to keep the ball out of Timme's hands? If he did, that was the wrong play. If you pass the ball into Timme on the low block, the ball could get tipped. Or Timme could get fouled and it's a known fact that Timme is a certified brick layer at the free throw line. To me, it was apparent the last shot was going to be Strawther's and it was almost as if UCLA rolled out the red carpet for him to take it.
The defense in that one possession was what lost the game.
It's fine. I'm okay with the outcome. Losing Clark and Bona was killer, but injuries are part of the game. For them to get within an eyelash of beating Gonzaga was an accomplishment. The team played great. Coach Cronin was great. The refs sucked, but when don't they suck?
I look forward to next season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Bailey and Bona will be back, along with Andrews and Canka. With the incoming freshmen, Coach Cronin will have a new opportunity to build a juggernaut in Westwood and hopefully, the incoming kids will live up to their billing.
Yup, I'm super looking forward to next season.
But most importantly, I wish the departing seniors a fond farewell. Tyger, Jaime, Dave, and Kenny wore the blue and gold well and they earned a place in UCLA basketball history. It will be interesting to see where these guys go and what they do in their future beyond UCLA. I'm wishing them the best.
BTW I disagree that Timme is the best low post player in the country. Let's see how he fares against Adamo Sanogo of UConn next Sunday. I love watching Sanogo play. There's nothing I'd love to see more than Sanogo destroy Drew Timme.
Minutes are a factor because UCLA plays hard on both ends of the court. It's fine for Timme and the Gonzaga players to play those large minutes because they don't give the same defensive effort (seriously, watch Timme on defense). And I'm not sure how you say they didn't get tired when those guys were hitting the front iron in the second half. That's a tell-tale sign of not having your legs under you. (Also if everyone around you is saying minutes is a problem and that the guys are looking gassed and you are confused by the statement, that's more of a you problem than an all of us problem)
I get that Cronin was going to ride his seniors, I really do. But it's been a problem all season and it bit him again in a big moment. Even given the injuries, the fact that this game came down to a last-second shot means it was a game won on the margins, and on that front Mark Few did a much better job of having his guys ready for a full game compared to Cronin. It's a problem that really should be fixed in the future.
Give me a break. It is not a "me" problem. I have opinions, not problems.
I was on the bandwagon early in the season to play the bench and if you want me to pull my quotes, I can do that. I might have been one of the earliest commenters here saying the preseason schedule of cream puffs that Cronin needed to weaponize his bench because of the very evident lack of depth on the bench.
I stated last year's team had Singleton, Clark, Riley, Kyman, and Nwuba as experienced players off the bench, and this season, the team was limited to Singleton and Nwuba. And I stated, as so many others have, that Watson was never got the experience he needed to become a weapon due to his lack of playing time. IMO, it was a rather urgent need for Andrews, McClendon, Canka, and Etienne.
But what I'm saying here is your first immediate comment after this loss, after a heroic effort by a remarkable team that has been short on talent but equal, if not exceeding, every challenge is to pin the loss on a coaching strategy that Cronin has deployed since the day he was hired as the UCLA coach? We know exactly what he was going to do in terms of playing time allocation and that he wasn't going to change his philosophy at this point in the season.
Yes, they were gassed in the 2nd half, but Cronin wasn't going to take them out of the game. Timme, Watson, and Strawther played about the same number of minutes? Are they better conditioned than the Bruins? Of course not. But they maintained their composure and focus. They executed their plays and made shots down the stretch. UCLA didn't.
Exhaustion is not an excuse at this point in the season in a do or die game. It simply isn't.
The bottom line is that UCLA lost because they didn't have Clark and Bona. They couldn't rebound the ball and they couldn't defend in all areas of the floor because they were missing 2 all-world defenders. Without Clark and Bona how far exactly was this team going to go? IMO, I don't think they were capable of going much further.
IMO this team was not as good as last season's team which had Juzang and Bernard and depth on the bench. Yet, they had a better season than last year's team because they played with effort, energy, and grit. Sure, the freshman outside of Bailey should have played more, but throughout the season, UCLA was not blowing away teams, getting comfortable leads to allow the youngsters to play garbage time minutes. More often than not, Cronin had to lean on Campbell and Jaquez to take back games where UCLA had surrendered big leads in the 2nd half.
Personally, I'm so proud of this team. I think they overachieved. I think Cronin did a spectacular job. We should be celebrating the seniors because their contributions to Bruin Basketball. Celebrate, not denigrate. That's how I feel about this team.
I think the difference here starts in our perception of the team. You think they overachieved and are lacking talent. I don't. I think they played exactly as good as their talent dictated that they should. There are multiple NBA guys on this team (Jaquez, Bailey, Bona, Clark) and a bunch of the kind of role players you need to be successful in college. Just on a sheer talent level, this team was the best one that Cronin has had since arriving in Westwood, while last year's team coasted on reputation. You can have your opinion as to the talent level of this team relative to last year, but I am of the opinion that it's wrong.
On top of that, I'm not criticizing the effort of the players - they certainly gave it there all. But one of the longest beliefs on this site has been to speak the truth, even if it hurts, and we are have now had two tournaments in a row where Mick Cronin's poor substitution patterns have cost the team a winnable game. Last year, he continued to let Cody Riley get cooked instead of turning to Myles Johnson, who was a better interior defender and rebounder (can't help but think that choice may have played a part in Johnson choosing to end his playing career rather than use his COVID year), and this year he rode his seniors instead of trying to find them rest opportunities.
I'll highlight something Mark Few did that was really smart as an example here. With about 45 seconds to go before the eight-minute timeout in the second half, Few pulled Timme and put him on the bench. The game was tied at that point, but Few was smart because he ended up buying Timme about 10 minutes of real-time rest while only losing his presence on the court for a minute. On the flip side, Jaquez only really sat at the end due to his fouls, which meant he was having to play hard the entire time. The end result is that Timme and Jaquez both played the same number of minutes, but one was much fresher for the stretch run.
You keep saying exhaustion should not be an excuse, but in a game like this where the Bruins already play a brand of basketball with small margins, the exhaustion level of the players is absolutely a factor. It explains why the UCLA defense started to crumble in the second half, and why Gonzaga was able to really dominate the boards late in the game. If this was a one-off problem isolated only to this game, sure, we can move on, but it very clearly is a multi-year long problem that Cronin is going to need to fix.
I'm not calling for Cronin to get fired by any stretch - far from it - but if he's going to take this program to the next level, he's got to do a better job of self-scouting and identifying his weaknesses. It's easy for me to see what they are because I coach basketball in a similar way; I love coaching defense and getting guys to give 100% effort but my offensive sets leave a lot to be desired (I blame Howland for this, personally). But I got better this year of playing my younger players more minutes to give them experience because I knew it would help me out down the line. That's the kind of change Cronin is going to essentially have to make, as next year's team will be much younger. It's why I think this offseason will be fascinating.
Mick went 9 deep this year. One could argue he should have gone 10 and played Canka more. I would have liked to see more minutes for Andrews. McClendon was a huge liability on offense. So, I’m not sure who would have filled in last night, given that 2 starters were out and Singleton’s ankle was likely a factor. No, we didn’t overachieve this year. We may have overachieved last night by being 12 seconds away from a win.
In regards to a team that features the first All-American since Lonzo in Jaquez, a 3-time All Pac-12 player in Tyger, and 2 5-star recruits in Bona and Bailey, why misconstrue my words portraying me as someone who believes this team lacks talent? My point has always been this season’s team lacked DEPTH and EXPERIENCE playing behind Tyger, Jaime, Dave, and Jaylen. Depth and experience are two separate components of team success. Talent is another component. They are separate and distinct inalienable characteristics.
Since we’re on the subject, having the perceived talent to play in the NBA does not necessarily correspond to playing winning college basketball. Classifying a player to be of NBA caliber is doing a disservice to the player and results in players who begin to believe the unwarranted media hype. Moses Brown and Jaylen Hands are perfect examples of that; both should have stayed in school, but they instead departed as projects who were behind the developmental curve behind their peers at the pro level. Sure, we can easily say that Bailey, Bona, and Clark are projected NBA talents, but the hard facts are all three are under-developed as NBA players; all 3 have holes in their games that is more than evident at the college level. Yes, they will all develop into good NBA players, but they’re not at that level yet, so at this point, it’s a useless moniker.
It’s like saying Bronny James, future NBA player. It is a measure of nothing.
And if we’re going to ride the NBA hype train, let’s not forget that last year’s team featured 2 players who debuted this season in the NBA in Watson and Juzang, and Bernard is in line for a 2-way spot with the Wizards next season.
Let’s also set the record straight on Myles Johnson. He did not quit the team because Cronin was giving Cody Riley significant minutes. He left to focus on the completion of his Masters degree and to better position himself in his chosen field of endeavor, computer engineering. I have never seen or heard Myles Johnson complain about Cody Riley starting or playing crunch time minutes. Myles Johnson may have been a good defender, but offensively he had no game.
You stated that “he (Mark Few) ended up buying Timme about 10 minutes of real-time rest while only losing his presence on the court for a minute…” by resting him overlapping what I assume to be a TV timeout. If that’s the case, then all the players on the floor received 9 minutes of rest because you’re saying the clock was stopped for 9 minutes. Drew Timme played 38 minutes. I’d love to hear your explanation as to how you came up with the supposed 10 minutes of rest time.
Yes, I keep saying exhaustion is not an excuse and I’ll keep repeating it as needed until enough folks comprehend the point I’m trying to emphasize. The bulk of the offense was going to come from Jaquez, Campbell, Bailey, and Singleton. The only playable subs for these 4 players were Andrews and McClendon. And as I have stated repeatedly, neither player had acquired enough experience during the regular season to be reliable players in crunch time situations. Resting the starters in the 2nd half was going to be a risk in a do or die situation, Cronin chose to fight on with his starters, rather than utilizing Andrews and McClendon.
Exhaustion is an excuse used by second-guessers who were not on the floor playing the game. If you asked any of the 4 starters if fatigue was a factor in their poor 2nd half play, the answer would be a resounding “NO” because they themselves know that the problem wasn’t exhaustion. It was poor execution and shots not dropping. These are 4 guys who have played long minutes often. Jaime, Tyger, and Singleton all have a history of playing 35+ minutes a game. These are young guys who can run their butts off all day long.
If the folks are going to say the Bruins were exhausted, why not take it one step further and say they’re not getting enough carbohydrates in their diet? Both are unsubstantiated speculatory statements that serve no purpose.
John Wooden is probably turning over in his grave over these exhaustion comments. In 1974, his Bruins with Walton and Wilkes lost a Final Four game to NC State featuring David Thompson and Tom Burleson in double overtime. Greg Lee and Walton each played 50 minutes. Wilkes played 49 minutes. Wooden had 4 future NBA players sitting on his bench in that game and they totaled only 14 minutes of playing time.
I wonder if the fans were on Coach Wooden’s ass for leaving his starters in.
The fact is, and I stated this before, the Bruins simply went flat and it’s something they’ve done often. This is a team that goes flat for long periods of time, but can also pour in a massive amount of points in a short amount of time, especially when the defense, led by Jaylen Clark, forces the opposing team into turnovers.
Who here has not seen this team go through scoring droughts often this season? Newsflash: That’s what happened in the 2nd half.
Let’s also not conflate “poor substitution patterns” with “lack of freshman playing time.” I don’t have a problem with Cronin’s substitution patterns and I consider it a non-issue. There is not a coach alive who doesn’t have detractors of his substitution patterns.
What I do have a problem which I’ll repeat again for posterity is Cronin’s reluctance to give his freshman bench players significant minutes to get reps and build experience during the regular season. However, that is also a byproduct of lack of depth on the bench. Bona and Canka were late enrollees, McClendon wasn’t available at the beginning of the season, Bailey was out for a substantial amount of time, then Clark got hurt. Cronin never had a good set rotation in place because he didn’t have lineup consistency with his 2nd unit. But if we were to look at it as the cup being half-filled, Cronin did a good job of integrating the new players and injury returnees into his system.
The bottom line here is I dislike all the useless criticism about Cronin’s substitution patterns, lack of adjustments, overuse of isolation plays, etc.
Why can’t we simply enjoy what took place this season? The team was ranked 9th in the preseason. The 2021-2022 team was ranked 3rd in the preseason poll. I’ll stick with my argument that this team overachieved compared to the prior year’s team. There are hard stats that would validate my statement, such as Win Share and PER, but I’m a bit too busy to pull them up.
Excellent points raised here. During that cold spell, I think we missed an opportunity to get Bailey more involved. Whether that was Jaime forcing things a bit or lack of movement by players standing around, I don’t know. Sometimes Jaime gets into a bit of a crowd and ends up turning it over. A bit more movement with cutters could have helped, but we needed better spacing.
"a coaching strategy that Cronin has deployed since the day he was hired as the UCLA coach." No idea where this is coming from. We played quite possibly the national player of the year last night and the game plan was trash. I get the let Timme score at well but nobody else.....while the strategy is working and not a minute longer. It worked in the first half. It got out of control in the second half and there was no adjustment whatsoever by our head coach. We should have won that game and it's going to go down as one of our worst losses in program history.
Pretty sure Timme had more points in the first half when UCLA took a 13 point lead. What changed was our lack of rebounding, creating turnovers and shooting percentage.
Got to agree with misterioso regarding rotations. Mac has never lived up to what was thought to be his potential and Nwuba is just not a talented player; hence, Timme was basically unstoppable. Andrews and particularly McClendon were not effective in the game. Missing two starters made shortened the rotation and made it extremely difficult (for any coach). Tyger and Jaime got some good looks during the second half melt down but just could not hit them--that is part of basketball and happens to the best teams.
Regarding al the comments criticizing Coach Cronin. I was at UCLA during Coach Wooden's rise to greatness. But it did take Coach, I believe, fourteen years to win his first national championship at a time when the field was far smaller. Since then, with littler exception , I have seen the parade of coaches being criticized and second guessed even when they had excellent seasons. Before Harrick won the national championship he was roundly criticized by the press and UCLA fans for not knowing how to coach. Howland brought a toughness to his teams with two final four appearances, but his slow, blue collar style was a subject of disdain. Now comes Cronin who turned the program around from an Alford catastrophe to elite status in a matter of four years (one shortened by Covid). Yet, there are fans who regularly criticize the way Cronin coaches. The ghost of Coach still hangs over the UCLA program. An BTW, how did the coaches who were considered before Cronin do without the injury problems of UCLA this round of 16--Calipari; Barnes; Dixon? Be grateful we have Coach Cronin, not hateful , my brother Bruins
Coming back from ACL injuries is tough. look at Derrick Rose - went from nba mvp to 7th-8th man in a rotation because of his ACL injury. It’ll definitely take some time for them - they’re young and coming back from a major injury. I expect big steps for ward for both Mac and McClendon next year
I can't say for everyone. But who's being hateful ?!? Cronin is the right person for UCLA . Of course the name Wooden still casts a giant shadow over our hoops program. He should be in my view. He is peerless for all ages. This is why his statue is erected on campus. Please don't mention Steve Alford anymore. That name is synonymous with mediocrity.
I agree with the decision not to press on the big Gonzaga 3. It was Andrews guarding Strauther and Jaime guarding the guy bringing up the ball, I think it was Sallis. The matchup was right - put Andrews on their best shooter, but it must have been drilled into them during the timeout - don’t let them drive, don’t give refs a reason to call a foul. Could Andrews have played it tighter on the 3? Sure, but it’s hard to argue with the defensive play call in my opinion. We have the best half court defense in the country and that’s what Cronin chose to ride with for that pivotal play. A 32-foot shot with 7 seconds to go imo is never a good shot and it just so happened to go in.
Cronin was upset Andrews went under the ghost screen and allowed the pass or handoff. Had he jumped on top of that dribble screen by Sallis at the very least a 3 pointer isn't attempted and it's possible the pass isn't even available to be made. And if Sallis picks up his dribble jaime would have jumped him instantly and made for a difficult pass anywhere on the floor That leaves the ball in the hands of a wing and not their primary ball hanger with just 10 seconds remaining. It likely would have lead to a lower percentage shot. Although, a near 30 footer isn't a high percentage shot in general anyways.
The shot was not AT the three point line. It was just inside the logo. I would agree with your assessment if Gonzaga needed a 3, but they didn’t. A 2 would have been sufficient.
I despised Florida for always knocking out the Bruins whenever they met in the NCAA tournament (0-4 record vs. the Gators), and now I'm experiencing that same feeling with Gonzaga. Same goes for playing in Las Vegas. No luck seems to be there either for the Bruins. UCLA seemed to be in control of this game, but unfortunately they followed this season's familiar pattern of playing well for only 1 half. Not sure if UCLA's ugly 2nd-half collapse was due to exhaustion, overconfidence, bad luck, all of the above, and/or other factors, but credit goes to Coach Few for making adjustments on defense and getting his team to continue attacking the boards and making shots, including the play to enable that deep 3-pointer by Strawther and ice the game for the Zags. Anyway, kudos to the Bruins for not giving up and fighting on until the very end. Missing 2 out of 5 starters obviously hurt the Bruins, but they showed once again how difficult it is for any team to beat them, even at less than full strength. Best of luck to the departing seniors and those deciding to turn pro early, and hope next season's team will have continued, if not even greater, success. Go Bruins!
We were badly outrebounded in the 2nd half, giving them multiple opportunities to score on extended possessions. That doesn’t happen with Bona and Clark. Gonzaga seemed to get every loose ball. No open court opportunities without getting rebounds and loose balls, which would have given Bailey more chances as well. At the end of the day, we had 2 less players available and it was predictable that it would catch up to the Bruins once the competition got stiffer. The Zags were pathetic in the first half on defense. The 13 point lead was a bit of fool’s gold.
Fatigue definitely played a factor in the second-half rebounding. There were too many times when guys were just standing around watching rather than actively going for the ball (Jaquez was a big culprit here, but hard to really blame him considering Nwuba is not a rebounding big by any stretch of the imagination so it really fell on him to carry the load on that end).
As bad as that invisible cap on the basket was for us, rebounding was really our achilles heel (pun intended) in the second half last night. It gave them a lot of second and third chances after our guys gutted up to get that first stop, and that cost a lot of extra energy and translated to a lot of extra points for them.
Unfortunately, Etienne and McClendon were ineffective. Canka didn’t play and he’s the only guy of similar size to Jaquez. I think the Zags got away with going over our backs at times, but we also did not box out aggressively enough. We really had no choice but to play Jaquez big minutes.
Clark and Bona are 2 of our best at rebounding and getting loose balls. I don’t think their production in that area was going to be replaced by anyone on the bench. Not Canka, not McClendon and not Andrews or Etienne. I get the “no excuses” mindset. I also understand reality. This was a personnel issue and not a coaching issue.
I remember glancing at the stats during halftime, and a lot of attention was being given to the turnover disparity (9 for Zags vs. only 1 for UCLA) and how easily the Bruins were able to attack the basket for easy shots. I don't remember the exact figures, but what concerned me at halftime was Gonzaga's clear rebounding advantage and shot percentage (around 58%, I think). When the Zags improved their defensive effort and continued with their potent offense and rebounding effort in the 2nd half, the Bruins had a much tougher time scoring, and then their defense lapsed as the game momentum swung in the opposite direction. In 37 minutes, the Nwuba/Etienne combo could muster only 1 rebound, 1 assist, 2 blocks, and 3 points in the entire game. Jaquez did his best to make up the difference (11 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 block), but the Bruins were soundly beaten by Gonzaga's overwhelming 50-26 advantage on the boards. Reminds me of Pat Riley's "no rebounds, no rings" mantra when he was the Lakers coach.
Pretty good observations below re this heart-rending loss. If I'm Cronin, I'm scheduling Gonzaga each year until we get them out of our system. It's getting to be like Notre Dame under the vapid, glory-seeking Digger Phelps only Few is much, much nicer.
You gotta believe that Cronin built this team and the two other tournaments that were held during his four seasons. He loses some awfully good seniors but none of them were "one-and-done" deserters and he's rebuilt the program and is on track to attract some pretty good talent to Westwood. (Who knows what the B10 exposure will do for talented kids in the Midwest who don't want to freeze their asses off in the Winter?)
..anyway, Cronin is a lifetime .692 coach who's been to the tournament a lot at Cincy and will go a lot more at UCLA. He cherishes the job, reveres the tradition, and loves recruiting.
Check out the Wiki on NCAA Men's D1 basketball. Notice whose trophy room they showed because of all the hardware UCLA has. Cronin will bring #12 home someday. Meantime, he'll put out team that are fun to watch as this one.
Henry, a long time ago (as only a codger like me would remember), SI related a story when UCLA was in the midst of the Alcindor run -- to say, they had collected three or four banners -- about a teacher in a Brooklyn fifth grade class who was quizzing her students on the names of prominent universities. She asked a young black pupil what "UCLA" stood for..
When I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin., everyone talked about UCLA basketball on winter weekends from January to March whereas radio stations constantly played Beach Boys music whose lyrics embodied the vintage Southern California lifestyle rather enamoring to me. It was a stark contrast to the snowy environments and its bureaucratic ( the state capitol ) and academic community embedded within. To me, California was basketball and beaches. I was transfixed and mesmerized. If I attended UCLA, I would have both. So I applied and the rest is history. Four years later, I wanted to continue with grad school in Westwood but University of Wisconsin offered graduate scholarship first and I accepted fast and returned home. So this is essentially my story of two alma mater and my fascination and unrelenting support of UCLA hoops. But then for football - hate to bring this up - we will experience hard time against the likes of Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, not to mention Wisconsin with the current coaching staff.
My grandson committed to Loyola of Chicago to play volleyball. He's a SoCal surfer who plays for Huntington Beach high school and I am wondering how he will adapt to the Midwestern winters -- particularly Chicago. But, like you, he's seeking an education and Loyola is a damned fine school.
I admire your scholastic achievements earning a PhD. Having them help you with the schooling costs was a big plus. My situation was "similar but different". I got a BS is biz ad from UCLA and a commission in the USAF in 1968. (Vietnam war era, don't you know?) They shipped me off to Strategic Air Command HQ in Omaha, Nebraska and kept me there for four years. Jesus! Did I long for the beaches and surfing! Have lived in SoCal since then and -- despite the politics shooting this paradise to hell -- will probably remain here.
But, still a proud Bruin despite the shenanigans that goes on there on that campus.
Larry Farmer ( you remember him, right ? ) once coached at Loyola of Chicago. Chicago is about an hour plus drive from Madison. It is a reputable institution and I am sure your grandson will be taught well there.
I learned about Vietnam War in depth at grad school.. In fact, one of the guest speakers at our history seminar was Melvin Laird, President Nixon's secretary of defense during his first term. Hailed from Wisconsin, Laird was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee when Nixon picked him for the job. If you weren't treated well ( I am kiddin' you , LOL ) after you were drafted, you have him to blame. But really, I salute you for your sacrifice and your service to our country. We owe you our gratitude. Never mind about those jerks ( Hanoi Jane, Tom Hayden) said and did back then.
Boy Oh boy, I am off topic completely. Your grandson will do well because I knew Chicago well. Despite the not so positive publicity lately about the city and its politics, I waited on table during the summer there too. I am in Pasadena, nearby Cal Tech. Rose Bowl home games used to be a thrilling time for the entire neighborhood, especially when SC came. Long after the games, fans loitered around and partied, we didn't mind. Quite a few UCLA alums live in this area besides myself.
The president of USC's residence in San Marino is not that far from us. Now they moved it to Santa Monica but when I first bought my property, even my agent told me where it was. Knowing I am a rabid bruin fan, he kidded me and said if ever I could not sleep at night after SC beat us, I can always go take it out on that guy and honk like crazy in the middle of the night.
Finally, you're right. We need to do something about whatyoumightcallit. Big Ten football is brutal and unforgiving. The don't play like St. Mary's, that college next door to us.
..well, certainly good to hear you are here in SoCal, Henry, and out of those Midwest Winters! I'm juts down the road in "The OC" and I must be getting old because the rain and "cold WX" is getting to me this Spring. The service was decent and was happy to join up. I was in for 10 years -- four years active duty, two years active reserve, and four years reserve.
Interesting, the Coca-Cola & Pepsi games. All I remember about Nebraska was that a number of times the show was so cold and dry that one could not get the snowballs to "fuse". It was like that frost that used to form in old refrigerator's freezers.
I was so naive that when i showed up at the BOQ the night before my first day of duty, I complained to the sergeant at the desk that the 34 degree temp was really cold.
"Well, it's going down to minus six tomorrow, Lieutenant, " he said.
"Really? You mean down to 28 degrees?" I answered.
..dumber surfer from Los Angeles, I quickly learned.
Never really developed the white hot enmity for SC that the guys on the old Bruin Nation did. They were just a school across town across the 110 Freeway from all the crack houses. ever could understand why football prospects preferred that neighborhood to the "Hills of Westwood".
LOL !!! Digger still cashes in on that one win over UCLA as we speak. Antiquated as a TV commentator, he is going around in small midwestern communities talking to precocious teens in summer leagues as if he was once king of hoops, godfather of NCAA athletics from Indiana. It was laughable. A grad school friend in Wisconsin told me he still got invited, every so often, to speak at some high schools in remote rural towns with only one main street and a gas station with slaughter house facility to process deer meats during the fall hunting seasons.
I am surprised you remember the name because you belong to the younger generation of bruin alum.
Not as young as I wish lol. I graduated in 1991. We still yelled that after the opposing player (Who's he? So what? Go home!, etc) and coach introductions in my day. I still do it at the TV.
GB, I am reminded of one of "Digger's" players -- Kelly Trapucka (a.k.a., "Kelly the Puker") -- whom I disliked along with Phelps. That is, until I read an interview of his where they asked him what he thought of his college coach. Surprisingly, Trapucka said he despised Phelps intensely. When asked to characterize his enmity, he said one of his ardent wishes "was to have 30 minutes alone with Phelps in a locked gym and freedom from criminal prosecution".
Needless to say, next to Joe Montana, Kelly was the one other Notre Dame athlete I most admired!
Went to Chicago and South Bend in January 1972 to see UCLA play Loyola of Chicago and Notre Dame respectively. If you can believe this, Phelps weaseled a home-and-home with UCLA in one season and was whomped 114-56 at Pauley in December 1971. When the Walton Gang went to the ND ACC ("Austin Carr Coliseum"), Phelps went into a full-on four corner from the opening tip that was so-o-o-o-o bad, the ND fans were booing him. He lost 57-32 and plainly owned that he wanted to hold the score down so as to not be embarrassed so badly. (That season, UCLA was killing opponents with 12 of their 30 victories being over the century and 6 of those 12 were 110 or more. The Jack in the Box in Westwood was giving away a free bag of fries for any Bruin home win over 100 points.)
I referred to the picture of the UCLA trophy room with all its hardware in an earlier comment. Well, my bud and I were walking around the ACC after the game and remarked at the paucity of basketball memorabilia in the show cases and the items therein enshrined with dead flies around them. What metaphor.
A tough loss... Not much more to say, really. Up. Down. Clawed back with a never quit mentality. Daggered from nearly half court. This team taught me a lot about competitive spirit. Respect and love.
The rice is cooked. It is what it is. Competitive spirits will always get you somewhere in life. It may not be entirely what you coveted but I guess something is better than nothing.
I was at work last night and successfully avoided any news of the game and the rain of texts on my phone, so I turned on the replay when I got home at 1am to see it fresh. What a high, then a long slow decline, then a roller coaster, then all the hope in the world, and finally an absolute knife in the gut. I couldn't go to sleep for an hour, and I woke up this morning still feeling sick and numb.
Thank you to this team for an amazing run. You have been a credit to our unprecedented Bruin legacy, and I have loved cheering you on, and always will in the future.
But personally, this will always be a "what could have been" year for me. With a healthy Bruin roster, that game is a blowout and we're game planning for UConn today. Do you think we get outrebounded like that in the second half with Jaylen and Bona in the game? Do you think Timme has free rein down low with Bona patrolling the key? Do you think Jaime and Tyger are that gassed at the end with a couple more guys to split some minutes over the game? Do you think Gonzaga lobbing in another freaking miracle deep last second 3 makes a dent in the result? We had a legit shot at #12 this year, and it all went away with a couple fluke injuries in the last 3 weeks. We can talk about depth and development and overreliance on veterans and rotations and all of that. For me, if we had a healthy roster, we could have overcome all of those things with room to spare.
This is even more painful because I expect we will lose our top 6 players in JJJr, Tyger, David, Bailey & Bona, and Clark next year, and so, especially considering our recruiting prospects, we will never have as good a look at a title like this again for a long long time. Heartbreaking.
I also think the outcome would've been different had Clark and Bona not been injured and unavailable. With them, the Bruins were a top-5 team with an excellent chance in a wide-open tournament to win the championship this year and Coach Cronin's best shot since taking over the basketball program. In the future, I'd like to see much more development and use of his bench players. It takes a lot of energy to play great defense, so spreading out the minutes could also reduce the chance of injuries to the starting players that have plagued the Bruins during the past several seasons. Look forward to seeing what sort of team the Bruins will have next season after losing key players from the current roster.
Great analysis as usual. Wholeheartedly concur. Cronin is going to provide many years of great Bruin BB. Till next year Greg. Enjoyed our interaction. Terry
Was looking at Rivals' ranking of next year's (2023) recruiting class compared to this year. UCLA is currently rated 19th with no five stars, two four stars and one three star. Given the likelihood that the only returning starter may be Clark, if he can recover from his injury and be effective, and nobody from the transfer portal as yet, it will be a heavy challenge for Cronin. Further to Clark, assuming it is an Achilles injury, that is one of the most difficult injuries to overcome and judging from the ACL injuries (I know that is different) of Mac, McClendon and Tyger, the first season back from injury was not a great season.
Do we know what kind of surgery Clark had? I'm afraid he is gone anyway. Next year's success will be dictated by what kind of jump Andrews makes and whether Bona comes back.
After the first 2 loses in LV this season, I still predicted we would be in the Final Four. This was our best chance in a long time to hang #12. It takes some luck to win the National Championship in a single elimination tournament. Unfortunately, the only luck we had was bad with the injuries. I'm really depressed that I won't be watching us play tomorrow. But I love what Cronin has done with the program, especially after the last clown we had as a head coach.
Overall it was a successful season with lots of fun games to watch. Cronin has done a good job as a coach with his defensive intensity getting better every year. The offense got better this year too, and I think it was an impressive season turning the program in the right direction.
My few quips on the season overall:
- the point guard has to look at cronin as they run the ball up the court every time. Let them play on their own sometimes
- cronin is so critical of his players when they make mistakes to the point of embarrassment on the court. I understand there are high expectations, but these are kids and sometimes everyone gets so scared to make a mistake that they stop playing basketball on the offensive side
- I know your seniors are the most trust worthy option, but the 10 minute lulls of the Jaime and tyger show got really old and often allowed teams to get back into games throughout the season. That was no different in the Gonzaga game
- Bailey was amazing and should have been incorporated into the Jaime and tyger show at the end of the season. In the Gonzaga game it’s like they forgot he was on the team even though he carried them for large stretches of that game. Just give him the ball and let him be a part of the plan… didn’t happen
- the bigs had no offensive game development. They can all dunk and oop, but they need to be developed like timme is. Where is the offensive development for the bigs?
- cronin criticizing his players in the media is completely unacceptable. Dylan Andrews is a freshman who played very limited minutes all season which is coaches fault in the first place. The end of game Hail Mary 3 from the logo is a perfectly normal progression. Nobody is expecting that shot. And watching that shot real time everybody I was with was excited when he let the low percentage deep three go… it happened to go in and that’s basketball.
- in the Gonzaga game, why didn’t the bigs hack timme all game long. They should have started by setting a precedent of who was the boss… instead, they let him score at will and build confidence… get in his head and hack him down. Everyone I talked to thought that would be the plan to get in his head early. Instead, he dominated. Just a part of basketball, but they should have at least attempted to set a precedent and they didn’t…
Again, happy with the season and hope those things get cleaned up. The biggest qualm is the open on court criticism that scares players that if they make a mistake their going to be publicly humiliated by their coach who is twice their age… I don’t see other coaches belittling their players like cronin does. It might make them better players in the long run, but takes a lot of the fun out of the game… better luck next tourney, see you next year
Good thing is the sadness and disappointment is temporary. The Bruins will be back strong again next season. And if it's any consolation, looks like Gonzaga is getting blown out by UConn. I would like to believe an injury-free Bruins at full strength would've been a better challenge. So long, Bulldogs! (again)
Serve them right ! Thanks UConn for doing the job well. I take vicarious pleasure out of it. Yes I do.
Happens when they beat us in the tournament. Beat us in the National Semi-Final, Baylor blows them out. Now they beat us and UConn routs them. It seems they over-extend themselves working to beat us, have little left for the next game.
I feel that too. We had delicious Mexican takeout food for dinner while watching the game. But still something's not right. Had UCLA been playing, I could have eaten everyone's leftovers even. LOL !!! I will get over it, I will, LOL !!!
This is a tough loss to take. With Clark and Bona, our defense would’ve kept us in the game during our scoring drought and maybe even ended it earlier if we could’ve gotten fast break points.
Mick in the post game sounded mad. Mad for having to wait nearly 35 minutes before he could begin the conference, mad at the refs, mad at Andrews for not playing Strauther tighter.
Love the heart our team showed down 8. Instead of jacking up 3s like any other team, Jaime mustered up every once of remaining energy he had to drive and get fouled. And cronin made a pretty genius move to foil their worst free throw shooters even when fouling wasn’t necessary and that got us the 1-point lead.
On the final play, it’s understandable why ucla didn’t press. One pass will break the press and then your defense is playing with a man down with only a one point lead. It was clear we were trying to avoid a drive or a foul as we were only up 1 in the double bonus. But sometimes lucky 3 point shots from the logo just go in I guess.
i don't think this game would have been close with either Clark or Bona in the lineup. Timme could have got Bona in foul trouble, but even 20 minutes out of him would have made a world of difference.
I think the key stat went unmentioned. We lost the rebounding battle 50-26. We easily could have survived a cold spell if we could have kept them off the offensive glass. They got way too many 2nd chance opportunities. Better rebounding may have led to better offensive opportunities as well. We definitely do not get outrebounded like that with Clark and Bona playing.
It hurts! UCLA losing hurts - I was speaking to my wife what would have been less painful, if they would have lost by 7 when there was a 1:14 left or losing this way again. There is so much to say, and again there are many what if’s, but as the saying in Spanish goes “what if’s doesn’t exist.” The refs allowed Gonzaga to harass UCLA on their offensive possessions. Some over the back, calls weren’t made. I think Nwuba wasn’t the same after he got ran over by the Gonzaga player on the foul. Some of our bench players are challenged offensively, which again, in your write up, we can attribute to coaching. In addition, we missed a few shots around the rim late in the game, when it seemed we were about to get blown away, that now in hindsight, what if Tyger would have scored that layup he missed with about 2 minutes to go. All I can conclude is this hurts. Hurts like Florida in 2006, 2008, hurts like Gonzaga en 2021, hurts like tonight.
Yes, it hurts. I also never thought UCLA was going all the way once Clark went down. Then, we lose Bona on top of that. I feel bad for our seniors because they deserved better than that. Our team kept fighting until the end. It's all you can ask of them.
I think we all feel the same way. I also feel for Dylan Andrews as it kinda seems he got called out by Cronin and Jáquez in the press conference. It hurts all across the board.
Yeah I agreed.
True. I mean how close do we really want Andrews on that guy 35' from the basket? Dylan's gotta play for the drive and pop or dish too. Dude just made an incredible shot - and everything sucks because of it.
Much closer. You can't allow that pass to be made. Force Sallis to continue to dribble or even better pick up his dribble. Andrews just can't go under that screen. But that didn't lose the game. As others have mentioned ucla lost this game with their poor defensive rebounding in the second half. You can't give the zags half a dozen or so trips that lead to multiple shot opportunities. Not scoring a hoop for 11 min wasn't advantageous either . .
They are big time competitors with a big heart and an upright personality. What more can parents ask for from their kids ?
In the previous thread, some were disappointed and frustrated with the “moral victory” but again what ifs seems to be common denominator for us. They gave it all and we were a bucket short and 32 foot jumper unlucky.
My friend, if you watched their Madison Square Garden games in NYC last November - I know you did - you would agree with my statement then that UCLA would go a long, long way if not all the way to Final Four, barring the unexpected injuries. But what can I say. Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. These are such indelible, prophetic lyrics by none other than John Lennon.
I thought was absolutely the key. It seemed like Gonzaga had like 48 offensive rebounds in the second half alone. Every time the Bruins got a stop, the Zags got it back and inevitably scored. Sooooo frustrating! Everything from the slow offense to lack of rebounding seems traceable to fatigue...really really tough to take.....
Selfishly hoping Bailey comes back, but I'm pretty sure he's gone. Could be a tough next season losing Jaquez, Campbell, Bailey, and maybe Clark.
I was very disappointed in the lack of adjustment to Timme. Frankly I am surprised he didn't drop 50 with Mac getting so many minutes no offense to Mac. Also, during that 11 minute slump Bailey should have been more involved at least trying to get to the foul line. Last, what the hell was Will McClendon doing?
Mac only had four minutes, so it's hard to blame him. Like I said, it was more shocking they chose not to be more physical in the second half considering both bigs had all of their fouls to give.
The Bailey thing is more of a Cronin issue, because he's the one calling for Jaime and Tyger isos and the two-man game. It's one of the things that's going to be required to change for the program to get better (especially because those two won't be here next year).
I totally agree with the comment about the lack of physical play on Timme. We had 10 fouls to challenge and wear him down, and he's not a great FT shooter. Should have bodied that guy hard when he started into his moves, but we just let him roll easily to the hoop.
Also, do you think Bailey is back next year? I'd be very very happy if he were, and very very very surprised.
seemed like a lot more. 4 too many though. The Bailey thing is incredibly frustrating. Jaime is the most polished player on the roster, but Bailey has the most talent. When that shooting slump entered like its 3rd minute, Cronin should have been calling iso for Bailey and told him to just get to the line.
I'm less than thrilled with Dimitri's recap of this game.
He wasted a lot of precious words whining about rotations. In a game of this importance, against a perennial tournament powerhouse team, nobody should be surprised that Cronin was going to lean heavily on his seniors, players who are battle-tested and tournament tough.
He said McClendon played similar minutes to Andrews. McClendon played for 4 minutes; Andrews played 10 minutes, more than double McClendon's minutes. How exactly is that similar?
But the fact is, Cronin was going to live and die with Jaime, Tyger, Amari, and Dave, even if it meant playing them for nearly 40 minutes each. IMO, the minutes were not an issue nor should it be a point of criticism. In the gametime group text with my UCLA classmates, a few guys were saying UCLA was gassed in the 2nd half. I really didn't understand those remarks because the Gonzaga players of any importance (Watson, Strawther, and Timme) played the same number of minutes. Exhaustion is part of part of the game. You fight through it and you find a way to overcome it.
IMO, minutes wasn't a factor. I've seen Tyger and Jaime go more than 50 minutes in several OT games. Like Tyger and Jaime, Amari and Singleton are strong young men. I don't think they were bothered by the minutes. They weren't tired. They simply went cold. And we've seen this time and again this season, this team is streaky as hell and they have a tendency to go completely flat. And that's exactly what they did for an 11-minute stretch in the 2nd half.
The only story here is UCLA had a one-point lead with 12 seconds left and they lost. That's all that needs to be discussed. All they needed was one stop and they would be playing UConn on Sunday.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Singleton or Jaime didn't pick up Strawther at the half court line and face guard his ass. Strawther, one of the best 3-pt shooters in the country, walks into virtually uncontested shot at the 3-pt line. Singleton was 4 feet away and tried to recover, but he had too much distance to cover and came nowhere close to applying any pressure to Strawther.
How does that happen after a timeout?
With 12 seconds left and after a UCLA timeout, did Mick call for the Bruins to pack the paint to keep the ball out of Timme's hands? If he did, that was the wrong play. If you pass the ball into Timme on the low block, the ball could get tipped. Or Timme could get fouled and it's a known fact that Timme is a certified brick layer at the free throw line. To me, it was apparent the last shot was going to be Strawther's and it was almost as if UCLA rolled out the red carpet for him to take it.
The defense in that one possession was what lost the game.
It's fine. I'm okay with the outcome. Losing Clark and Bona was killer, but injuries are part of the game. For them to get within an eyelash of beating Gonzaga was an accomplishment. The team played great. Coach Cronin was great. The refs sucked, but when don't they suck?
I look forward to next season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Bailey and Bona will be back, along with Andrews and Canka. With the incoming freshmen, Coach Cronin will have a new opportunity to build a juggernaut in Westwood and hopefully, the incoming kids will live up to their billing.
Yup, I'm super looking forward to next season.
But most importantly, I wish the departing seniors a fond farewell. Tyger, Jaime, Dave, and Kenny wore the blue and gold well and they earned a place in UCLA basketball history. It will be interesting to see where these guys go and what they do in their future beyond UCLA. I'm wishing them the best.
BTW I disagree that Timme is the best low post player in the country. Let's see how he fares against Adamo Sanogo of UConn next Sunday. I love watching Sanogo play. There's nothing I'd love to see more than Sanogo destroy Drew Timme.
Minutes are a factor because UCLA plays hard on both ends of the court. It's fine for Timme and the Gonzaga players to play those large minutes because they don't give the same defensive effort (seriously, watch Timme on defense). And I'm not sure how you say they didn't get tired when those guys were hitting the front iron in the second half. That's a tell-tale sign of not having your legs under you. (Also if everyone around you is saying minutes is a problem and that the guys are looking gassed and you are confused by the statement, that's more of a you problem than an all of us problem)
I get that Cronin was going to ride his seniors, I really do. But it's been a problem all season and it bit him again in a big moment. Even given the injuries, the fact that this game came down to a last-second shot means it was a game won on the margins, and on that front Mark Few did a much better job of having his guys ready for a full game compared to Cronin. It's a problem that really should be fixed in the future.
Give me a break. It is not a "me" problem. I have opinions, not problems.
I was on the bandwagon early in the season to play the bench and if you want me to pull my quotes, I can do that. I might have been one of the earliest commenters here saying the preseason schedule of cream puffs that Cronin needed to weaponize his bench because of the very evident lack of depth on the bench.
I stated last year's team had Singleton, Clark, Riley, Kyman, and Nwuba as experienced players off the bench, and this season, the team was limited to Singleton and Nwuba. And I stated, as so many others have, that Watson was never got the experience he needed to become a weapon due to his lack of playing time. IMO, it was a rather urgent need for Andrews, McClendon, Canka, and Etienne.
But what I'm saying here is your first immediate comment after this loss, after a heroic effort by a remarkable team that has been short on talent but equal, if not exceeding, every challenge is to pin the loss on a coaching strategy that Cronin has deployed since the day he was hired as the UCLA coach? We know exactly what he was going to do in terms of playing time allocation and that he wasn't going to change his philosophy at this point in the season.
Yes, they were gassed in the 2nd half, but Cronin wasn't going to take them out of the game. Timme, Watson, and Strawther played about the same number of minutes? Are they better conditioned than the Bruins? Of course not. But they maintained their composure and focus. They executed their plays and made shots down the stretch. UCLA didn't.
Exhaustion is not an excuse at this point in the season in a do or die game. It simply isn't.
The bottom line is that UCLA lost because they didn't have Clark and Bona. They couldn't rebound the ball and they couldn't defend in all areas of the floor because they were missing 2 all-world defenders. Without Clark and Bona how far exactly was this team going to go? IMO, I don't think they were capable of going much further.
IMO this team was not as good as last season's team which had Juzang and Bernard and depth on the bench. Yet, they had a better season than last year's team because they played with effort, energy, and grit. Sure, the freshman outside of Bailey should have played more, but throughout the season, UCLA was not blowing away teams, getting comfortable leads to allow the youngsters to play garbage time minutes. More often than not, Cronin had to lean on Campbell and Jaquez to take back games where UCLA had surrendered big leads in the 2nd half.
Personally, I'm so proud of this team. I think they overachieved. I think Cronin did a spectacular job. We should be celebrating the seniors because their contributions to Bruin Basketball. Celebrate, not denigrate. That's how I feel about this team.
I think the difference here starts in our perception of the team. You think they overachieved and are lacking talent. I don't. I think they played exactly as good as their talent dictated that they should. There are multiple NBA guys on this team (Jaquez, Bailey, Bona, Clark) and a bunch of the kind of role players you need to be successful in college. Just on a sheer talent level, this team was the best one that Cronin has had since arriving in Westwood, while last year's team coasted on reputation. You can have your opinion as to the talent level of this team relative to last year, but I am of the opinion that it's wrong.
On top of that, I'm not criticizing the effort of the players - they certainly gave it there all. But one of the longest beliefs on this site has been to speak the truth, even if it hurts, and we are have now had two tournaments in a row where Mick Cronin's poor substitution patterns have cost the team a winnable game. Last year, he continued to let Cody Riley get cooked instead of turning to Myles Johnson, who was a better interior defender and rebounder (can't help but think that choice may have played a part in Johnson choosing to end his playing career rather than use his COVID year), and this year he rode his seniors instead of trying to find them rest opportunities.
I'll highlight something Mark Few did that was really smart as an example here. With about 45 seconds to go before the eight-minute timeout in the second half, Few pulled Timme and put him on the bench. The game was tied at that point, but Few was smart because he ended up buying Timme about 10 minutes of real-time rest while only losing his presence on the court for a minute. On the flip side, Jaquez only really sat at the end due to his fouls, which meant he was having to play hard the entire time. The end result is that Timme and Jaquez both played the same number of minutes, but one was much fresher for the stretch run.
You keep saying exhaustion should not be an excuse, but in a game like this where the Bruins already play a brand of basketball with small margins, the exhaustion level of the players is absolutely a factor. It explains why the UCLA defense started to crumble in the second half, and why Gonzaga was able to really dominate the boards late in the game. If this was a one-off problem isolated only to this game, sure, we can move on, but it very clearly is a multi-year long problem that Cronin is going to need to fix.
I'm not calling for Cronin to get fired by any stretch - far from it - but if he's going to take this program to the next level, he's got to do a better job of self-scouting and identifying his weaknesses. It's easy for me to see what they are because I coach basketball in a similar way; I love coaching defense and getting guys to give 100% effort but my offensive sets leave a lot to be desired (I blame Howland for this, personally). But I got better this year of playing my younger players more minutes to give them experience because I knew it would help me out down the line. That's the kind of change Cronin is going to essentially have to make, as next year's team will be much younger. It's why I think this offseason will be fascinating.
Mick went 9 deep this year. One could argue he should have gone 10 and played Canka more. I would have liked to see more minutes for Andrews. McClendon was a huge liability on offense. So, I’m not sure who would have filled in last night, given that 2 starters were out and Singleton’s ankle was likely a factor. No, we didn’t overachieve this year. We may have overachieved last night by being 12 seconds away from a win.
Dimitri, you brought up the word “talent”, not I.
In regards to a team that features the first All-American since Lonzo in Jaquez, a 3-time All Pac-12 player in Tyger, and 2 5-star recruits in Bona and Bailey, why misconstrue my words portraying me as someone who believes this team lacks talent? My point has always been this season’s team lacked DEPTH and EXPERIENCE playing behind Tyger, Jaime, Dave, and Jaylen. Depth and experience are two separate components of team success. Talent is another component. They are separate and distinct inalienable characteristics.
Since we’re on the subject, having the perceived talent to play in the NBA does not necessarily correspond to playing winning college basketball. Classifying a player to be of NBA caliber is doing a disservice to the player and results in players who begin to believe the unwarranted media hype. Moses Brown and Jaylen Hands are perfect examples of that; both should have stayed in school, but they instead departed as projects who were behind the developmental curve behind their peers at the pro level. Sure, we can easily say that Bailey, Bona, and Clark are projected NBA talents, but the hard facts are all three are under-developed as NBA players; all 3 have holes in their games that is more than evident at the college level. Yes, they will all develop into good NBA players, but they’re not at that level yet, so at this point, it’s a useless moniker.
It’s like saying Bronny James, future NBA player. It is a measure of nothing.
And if we’re going to ride the NBA hype train, let’s not forget that last year’s team featured 2 players who debuted this season in the NBA in Watson and Juzang, and Bernard is in line for a 2-way spot with the Wizards next season.
Let’s also set the record straight on Myles Johnson. He did not quit the team because Cronin was giving Cody Riley significant minutes. He left to focus on the completion of his Masters degree and to better position himself in his chosen field of endeavor, computer engineering. I have never seen or heard Myles Johnson complain about Cody Riley starting or playing crunch time minutes. Myles Johnson may have been a good defender, but offensively he had no game.
You stated that “he (Mark Few) ended up buying Timme about 10 minutes of real-time rest while only losing his presence on the court for a minute…” by resting him overlapping what I assume to be a TV timeout. If that’s the case, then all the players on the floor received 9 minutes of rest because you’re saying the clock was stopped for 9 minutes. Drew Timme played 38 minutes. I’d love to hear your explanation as to how you came up with the supposed 10 minutes of rest time.
Yes, I keep saying exhaustion is not an excuse and I’ll keep repeating it as needed until enough folks comprehend the point I’m trying to emphasize. The bulk of the offense was going to come from Jaquez, Campbell, Bailey, and Singleton. The only playable subs for these 4 players were Andrews and McClendon. And as I have stated repeatedly, neither player had acquired enough experience during the regular season to be reliable players in crunch time situations. Resting the starters in the 2nd half was going to be a risk in a do or die situation, Cronin chose to fight on with his starters, rather than utilizing Andrews and McClendon.
Exhaustion is an excuse used by second-guessers who were not on the floor playing the game. If you asked any of the 4 starters if fatigue was a factor in their poor 2nd half play, the answer would be a resounding “NO” because they themselves know that the problem wasn’t exhaustion. It was poor execution and shots not dropping. These are 4 guys who have played long minutes often. Jaime, Tyger, and Singleton all have a history of playing 35+ minutes a game. These are young guys who can run their butts off all day long.
If the folks are going to say the Bruins were exhausted, why not take it one step further and say they’re not getting enough carbohydrates in their diet? Both are unsubstantiated speculatory statements that serve no purpose.
John Wooden is probably turning over in his grave over these exhaustion comments. In 1974, his Bruins with Walton and Wilkes lost a Final Four game to NC State featuring David Thompson and Tom Burleson in double overtime. Greg Lee and Walton each played 50 minutes. Wilkes played 49 minutes. Wooden had 4 future NBA players sitting on his bench in that game and they totaled only 14 minutes of playing time.
I wonder if the fans were on Coach Wooden’s ass for leaving his starters in.
The fact is, and I stated this before, the Bruins simply went flat and it’s something they’ve done often. This is a team that goes flat for long periods of time, but can also pour in a massive amount of points in a short amount of time, especially when the defense, led by Jaylen Clark, forces the opposing team into turnovers.
Who here has not seen this team go through scoring droughts often this season? Newsflash: That’s what happened in the 2nd half.
Let’s also not conflate “poor substitution patterns” with “lack of freshman playing time.” I don’t have a problem with Cronin’s substitution patterns and I consider it a non-issue. There is not a coach alive who doesn’t have detractors of his substitution patterns.
What I do have a problem which I’ll repeat again for posterity is Cronin’s reluctance to give his freshman bench players significant minutes to get reps and build experience during the regular season. However, that is also a byproduct of lack of depth on the bench. Bona and Canka were late enrollees, McClendon wasn’t available at the beginning of the season, Bailey was out for a substantial amount of time, then Clark got hurt. Cronin never had a good set rotation in place because he didn’t have lineup consistency with his 2nd unit. But if we were to look at it as the cup being half-filled, Cronin did a good job of integrating the new players and injury returnees into his system.
The bottom line here is I dislike all the useless criticism about Cronin’s substitution patterns, lack of adjustments, overuse of isolation plays, etc.
Why can’t we simply enjoy what took place this season? The team was ranked 9th in the preseason. The 2021-2022 team was ranked 3rd in the preseason poll. I’ll stick with my argument that this team overachieved compared to the prior year’s team. There are hard stats that would validate my statement, such as Win Share and PER, but I’m a bit too busy to pull them up.
Excellent points raised here. During that cold spell, I think we missed an opportunity to get Bailey more involved. Whether that was Jaime forcing things a bit or lack of movement by players standing around, I don’t know. Sometimes Jaime gets into a bit of a crowd and ends up turning it over. A bit more movement with cutters could have helped, but we needed better spacing.
"a coaching strategy that Cronin has deployed since the day he was hired as the UCLA coach." No idea where this is coming from. We played quite possibly the national player of the year last night and the game plan was trash. I get the let Timme score at well but nobody else.....while the strategy is working and not a minute longer. It worked in the first half. It got out of control in the second half and there was no adjustment whatsoever by our head coach. We should have won that game and it's going to go down as one of our worst losses in program history.
Pretty sure Timme had more points in the first half when UCLA took a 13 point lead. What changed was our lack of rebounding, creating turnovers and shooting percentage.
Got to agree with misterioso regarding rotations. Mac has never lived up to what was thought to be his potential and Nwuba is just not a talented player; hence, Timme was basically unstoppable. Andrews and particularly McClendon were not effective in the game. Missing two starters made shortened the rotation and made it extremely difficult (for any coach). Tyger and Jaime got some good looks during the second half melt down but just could not hit them--that is part of basketball and happens to the best teams.
Regarding al the comments criticizing Coach Cronin. I was at UCLA during Coach Wooden's rise to greatness. But it did take Coach, I believe, fourteen years to win his first national championship at a time when the field was far smaller. Since then, with littler exception , I have seen the parade of coaches being criticized and second guessed even when they had excellent seasons. Before Harrick won the national championship he was roundly criticized by the press and UCLA fans for not knowing how to coach. Howland brought a toughness to his teams with two final four appearances, but his slow, blue collar style was a subject of disdain. Now comes Cronin who turned the program around from an Alford catastrophe to elite status in a matter of four years (one shortened by Covid). Yet, there are fans who regularly criticize the way Cronin coaches. The ghost of Coach still hangs over the UCLA program. An BTW, how did the coaches who were considered before Cronin do without the injury problems of UCLA this round of 16--Calipari; Barnes; Dixon? Be grateful we have Coach Cronin, not hateful , my brother Bruins
Coming back from ACL injuries is tough. look at Derrick Rose - went from nba mvp to 7th-8th man in a rotation because of his ACL injury. It’ll definitely take some time for them - they’re young and coming back from a major injury. I expect big steps for ward for both Mac and McClendon next year
I can't say for everyone. But who's being hateful ?!? Cronin is the right person for UCLA . Of course the name Wooden still casts a giant shadow over our hoops program. He should be in my view. He is peerless for all ages. This is why his statue is erected on campus. Please don't mention Steve Alford anymore. That name is synonymous with mediocrity.
I agree with the decision not to press on the big Gonzaga 3. It was Andrews guarding Strauther and Jaime guarding the guy bringing up the ball, I think it was Sallis. The matchup was right - put Andrews on their best shooter, but it must have been drilled into them during the timeout - don’t let them drive, don’t give refs a reason to call a foul. Could Andrews have played it tighter on the 3? Sure, but it’s hard to argue with the defensive play call in my opinion. We have the best half court defense in the country and that’s what Cronin chose to ride with for that pivotal play. A 32-foot shot with 7 seconds to go imo is never a good shot and it just so happened to go in.
Cronin was upset Andrews went under the ghost screen and allowed the pass or handoff. Had he jumped on top of that dribble screen by Sallis at the very least a 3 pointer isn't attempted and it's possible the pass isn't even available to be made. And if Sallis picks up his dribble jaime would have jumped him instantly and made for a difficult pass anywhere on the floor That leaves the ball in the hands of a wing and not their primary ball hanger with just 10 seconds remaining. It likely would have lead to a lower percentage shot. Although, a near 30 footer isn't a high percentage shot in general anyways.
The shot was not AT the three point line. It was just inside the logo. I would agree with your assessment if Gonzaga needed a 3, but they didn’t. A 2 would have been sufficient.
I despised Florida for always knocking out the Bruins whenever they met in the NCAA tournament (0-4 record vs. the Gators), and now I'm experiencing that same feeling with Gonzaga. Same goes for playing in Las Vegas. No luck seems to be there either for the Bruins. UCLA seemed to be in control of this game, but unfortunately they followed this season's familiar pattern of playing well for only 1 half. Not sure if UCLA's ugly 2nd-half collapse was due to exhaustion, overconfidence, bad luck, all of the above, and/or other factors, but credit goes to Coach Few for making adjustments on defense and getting his team to continue attacking the boards and making shots, including the play to enable that deep 3-pointer by Strawther and ice the game for the Zags. Anyway, kudos to the Bruins for not giving up and fighting on until the very end. Missing 2 out of 5 starters obviously hurt the Bruins, but they showed once again how difficult it is for any team to beat them, even at less than full strength. Best of luck to the departing seniors and those deciding to turn pro early, and hope next season's team will have continued, if not even greater, success. Go Bruins!
The truth is that they blew leads and had scoring lulls all year. They picked the worst time to fall flat.
We were badly outrebounded in the 2nd half, giving them multiple opportunities to score on extended possessions. That doesn’t happen with Bona and Clark. Gonzaga seemed to get every loose ball. No open court opportunities without getting rebounds and loose balls, which would have given Bailey more chances as well. At the end of the day, we had 2 less players available and it was predictable that it would catch up to the Bruins once the competition got stiffer. The Zags were pathetic in the first half on defense. The 13 point lead was a bit of fool’s gold.
Fatigue definitely played a factor in the second-half rebounding. There were too many times when guys were just standing around watching rather than actively going for the ball (Jaquez was a big culprit here, but hard to really blame him considering Nwuba is not a rebounding big by any stretch of the imagination so it really fell on him to carry the load on that end).
As bad as that invisible cap on the basket was for us, rebounding was really our achilles heel (pun intended) in the second half last night. It gave them a lot of second and third chances after our guys gutted up to get that first stop, and that cost a lot of extra energy and translated to a lot of extra points for them.
Unfortunately, Etienne and McClendon were ineffective. Canka didn’t play and he’s the only guy of similar size to Jaquez. I think the Zags got away with going over our backs at times, but we also did not box out aggressively enough. We really had no choice but to play Jaquez big minutes.
Clark and Bona are 2 of our best at rebounding and getting loose balls. I don’t think their production in that area was going to be replaced by anyone on the bench. Not Canka, not McClendon and not Andrews or Etienne. I get the “no excuses” mindset. I also understand reality. This was a personnel issue and not a coaching issue.
I remember glancing at the stats during halftime, and a lot of attention was being given to the turnover disparity (9 for Zags vs. only 1 for UCLA) and how easily the Bruins were able to attack the basket for easy shots. I don't remember the exact figures, but what concerned me at halftime was Gonzaga's clear rebounding advantage and shot percentage (around 58%, I think). When the Zags improved their defensive effort and continued with their potent offense and rebounding effort in the 2nd half, the Bruins had a much tougher time scoring, and then their defense lapsed as the game momentum swung in the opposite direction. In 37 minutes, the Nwuba/Etienne combo could muster only 1 rebound, 1 assist, 2 blocks, and 3 points in the entire game. Jaquez did his best to make up the difference (11 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 block), but the Bruins were soundly beaten by Gonzaga's overwhelming 50-26 advantage on the boards. Reminds me of Pat Riley's "no rebounds, no rings" mantra when he was the Lakers coach.
Pretty good observations below re this heart-rending loss. If I'm Cronin, I'm scheduling Gonzaga each year until we get them out of our system. It's getting to be like Notre Dame under the vapid, glory-seeking Digger Phelps only Few is much, much nicer.
You gotta believe that Cronin built this team and the two other tournaments that were held during his four seasons. He loses some awfully good seniors but none of them were "one-and-done" deserters and he's rebuilt the program and is on track to attract some pretty good talent to Westwood. (Who knows what the B10 exposure will do for talented kids in the Midwest who don't want to freeze their asses off in the Winter?)
..anyway, Cronin is a lifetime .692 coach who's been to the tournament a lot at Cincy and will go a lot more at UCLA. He cherishes the job, reveres the tradition, and loves recruiting.
Check out the Wiki on NCAA Men's D1 basketball. Notice whose trophy room they showed because of all the hardware UCLA has. Cronin will bring #12 home someday. Meantime, he'll put out team that are fun to watch as this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_men%27s_basketball_champions
..thanks for the memories, guys!
It is so true. Warts and all, the four initials remain a name brand in NCAA hoops.
Henry, a long time ago (as only a codger like me would remember), SI related a story when UCLA was in the midst of the Alcindor run -- to say, they had collected three or four banners -- about a teacher in a Brooklyn fifth grade class who was quizzing her students on the names of prominent universities. She asked a young black pupil what "UCLA" stood for..
"Basketball", he responded!
When I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin., everyone talked about UCLA basketball on winter weekends from January to March whereas radio stations constantly played Beach Boys music whose lyrics embodied the vintage Southern California lifestyle rather enamoring to me. It was a stark contrast to the snowy environments and its bureaucratic ( the state capitol ) and academic community embedded within. To me, California was basketball and beaches. I was transfixed and mesmerized. If I attended UCLA, I would have both. So I applied and the rest is history. Four years later, I wanted to continue with grad school in Westwood but University of Wisconsin offered graduate scholarship first and I accepted fast and returned home. So this is essentially my story of two alma mater and my fascination and unrelenting support of UCLA hoops. But then for football - hate to bring this up - we will experience hard time against the likes of Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, not to mention Wisconsin with the current coaching staff.
Doc, I really enjoy your comments!
My grandson committed to Loyola of Chicago to play volleyball. He's a SoCal surfer who plays for Huntington Beach high school and I am wondering how he will adapt to the Midwestern winters -- particularly Chicago. But, like you, he's seeking an education and Loyola is a damned fine school.
I admire your scholastic achievements earning a PhD. Having them help you with the schooling costs was a big plus. My situation was "similar but different". I got a BS is biz ad from UCLA and a commission in the USAF in 1968. (Vietnam war era, don't you know?) They shipped me off to Strategic Air Command HQ in Omaha, Nebraska and kept me there for four years. Jesus! Did I long for the beaches and surfing! Have lived in SoCal since then and -- despite the politics shooting this paradise to hell -- will probably remain here.
But, still a proud Bruin despite the shenanigans that goes on there on that campus.
Hey, kids will be kids and it's a free country!
Now, if we could only get rid of Kelly!
Larry Farmer ( you remember him, right ? ) once coached at Loyola of Chicago. Chicago is about an hour plus drive from Madison. It is a reputable institution and I am sure your grandson will be taught well there.
I learned about Vietnam War in depth at grad school.. In fact, one of the guest speakers at our history seminar was Melvin Laird, President Nixon's secretary of defense during his first term. Hailed from Wisconsin, Laird was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee when Nixon picked him for the job. If you weren't treated well ( I am kiddin' you , LOL ) after you were drafted, you have him to blame. But really, I salute you for your sacrifice and your service to our country. We owe you our gratitude. Never mind about those jerks ( Hanoi Jane, Tom Hayden) said and did back then.
Boy Oh boy, I am off topic completely. Your grandson will do well because I knew Chicago well. Despite the not so positive publicity lately about the city and its politics, I waited on table during the summer there too. I am in Pasadena, nearby Cal Tech. Rose Bowl home games used to be a thrilling time for the entire neighborhood, especially when SC came. Long after the games, fans loitered around and partied, we didn't mind. Quite a few UCLA alums live in this area besides myself.
The president of USC's residence in San Marino is not that far from us. Now they moved it to Santa Monica but when I first bought my property, even my agent told me where it was. Knowing I am a rabid bruin fan, he kidded me and said if ever I could not sleep at night after SC beat us, I can always go take it out on that guy and honk like crazy in the middle of the night.
Finally, you're right. We need to do something about whatyoumightcallit. Big Ten football is brutal and unforgiving. The don't play like St. Mary's, that college next door to us.
..well, certainly good to hear you are here in SoCal, Henry, and out of those Midwest Winters! I'm juts down the road in "The OC" and I must be getting old because the rain and "cold WX" is getting to me this Spring. The service was decent and was happy to join up. I was in for 10 years -- four years active duty, two years active reserve, and four years reserve.
Interesting, the Coca-Cola & Pepsi games. All I remember about Nebraska was that a number of times the show was so cold and dry that one could not get the snowballs to "fuse". It was like that frost that used to form in old refrigerator's freezers.
I was so naive that when i showed up at the BOQ the night before my first day of duty, I complained to the sergeant at the desk that the 34 degree temp was really cold.
"Well, it's going down to minus six tomorrow, Lieutenant, " he said.
"Really? You mean down to 28 degrees?" I answered.
..dumber surfer from Los Angeles, I quickly learned.
Never really developed the white hot enmity for SC that the guys on the old Bruin Nation did. They were just a school across town across the 110 Freeway from all the crack houses. ever could understand why football prospects preferred that neighborhood to the "Hills of Westwood".
Digger is still a wimp
LOL !!! Digger still cashes in on that one win over UCLA as we speak. Antiquated as a TV commentator, he is going around in small midwestern communities talking to precocious teens in summer leagues as if he was once king of hoops, godfather of NCAA athletics from Indiana. It was laughable. A grad school friend in Wisconsin told me he still got invited, every so often, to speak at some high schools in remote rural towns with only one main street and a gas station with slaughter house facility to process deer meats during the fall hunting seasons.
I am surprised you remember the name because you belong to the younger generation of bruin alum.
Not as young as I wish lol. I graduated in 1991. We still yelled that after the opposing player (Who's he? So what? Go home!, etc) and coach introductions in my day. I still do it at the TV.
GB, I am reminded of one of "Digger's" players -- Kelly Trapucka (a.k.a., "Kelly the Puker") -- whom I disliked along with Phelps. That is, until I read an interview of his where they asked him what he thought of his college coach. Surprisingly, Trapucka said he despised Phelps intensely. When asked to characterize his enmity, he said one of his ardent wishes "was to have 30 minutes alone with Phelps in a locked gym and freedom from criminal prosecution".
Needless to say, next to Joe Montana, Kelly was the one other Notre Dame athlete I most admired!
Austin Carr, not so much.
Went to Chicago and South Bend in January 1972 to see UCLA play Loyola of Chicago and Notre Dame respectively. If you can believe this, Phelps weaseled a home-and-home with UCLA in one season and was whomped 114-56 at Pauley in December 1971. When the Walton Gang went to the ND ACC ("Austin Carr Coliseum"), Phelps went into a full-on four corner from the opening tip that was so-o-o-o-o bad, the ND fans were booing him. He lost 57-32 and plainly owned that he wanted to hold the score down so as to not be embarrassed so badly. (That season, UCLA was killing opponents with 12 of their 30 victories being over the century and 6 of those 12 were 110 or more. The Jack in the Box in Westwood was giving away a free bag of fries for any Bruin home win over 100 points.)
I referred to the picture of the UCLA trophy room with all its hardware in an earlier comment. Well, my bud and I were walking around the ACC after the game and remarked at the paucity of basketball memorabilia in the show cases and the items therein enshrined with dead flies around them. What metaphor.
I kid you not.
Digger Phelps Wik (have vomit bag ready):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_Phelps
UCLA's 1971-72 season:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971%E2%80%9372_UCLA_Bruins_men%27s_basketball_team
A tough loss... Not much more to say, really. Up. Down. Clawed back with a never quit mentality. Daggered from nearly half court. This team taught me a lot about competitive spirit. Respect and love.
The rice is cooked. It is what it is. Competitive spirits will always get you somewhere in life. It may not be entirely what you coveted but I guess something is better than nothing.
Yeah, we got tired.
I was at work last night and successfully avoided any news of the game and the rain of texts on my phone, so I turned on the replay when I got home at 1am to see it fresh. What a high, then a long slow decline, then a roller coaster, then all the hope in the world, and finally an absolute knife in the gut. I couldn't go to sleep for an hour, and I woke up this morning still feeling sick and numb.
Thank you to this team for an amazing run. You have been a credit to our unprecedented Bruin legacy, and I have loved cheering you on, and always will in the future.
But personally, this will always be a "what could have been" year for me. With a healthy Bruin roster, that game is a blowout and we're game planning for UConn today. Do you think we get outrebounded like that in the second half with Jaylen and Bona in the game? Do you think Timme has free rein down low with Bona patrolling the key? Do you think Jaime and Tyger are that gassed at the end with a couple more guys to split some minutes over the game? Do you think Gonzaga lobbing in another freaking miracle deep last second 3 makes a dent in the result? We had a legit shot at #12 this year, and it all went away with a couple fluke injuries in the last 3 weeks. We can talk about depth and development and overreliance on veterans and rotations and all of that. For me, if we had a healthy roster, we could have overcome all of those things with room to spare.
This is even more painful because I expect we will lose our top 6 players in JJJr, Tyger, David, Bailey & Bona, and Clark next year, and so, especially considering our recruiting prospects, we will never have as good a look at a title like this again for a long long time. Heartbreaking.
I also think the outcome would've been different had Clark and Bona not been injured and unavailable. With them, the Bruins were a top-5 team with an excellent chance in a wide-open tournament to win the championship this year and Coach Cronin's best shot since taking over the basketball program. In the future, I'd like to see much more development and use of his bench players. It takes a lot of energy to play great defense, so spreading out the minutes could also reduce the chance of injuries to the starting players that have plagued the Bruins during the past several seasons. Look forward to seeing what sort of team the Bruins will have next season after losing key players from the current roster.
Great analysis as usual. Wholeheartedly concur. Cronin is going to provide many years of great Bruin BB. Till next year Greg. Enjoyed our interaction. Terry
Another what if year and second guessing by us armchair qb's.
Is this peak Cronin?
I hope not, but how does one recover from such disappointment? I'm in a depressive funk.
If this is peak Cronin, I am fine with that because without those injuries we had a great shot to go all the way.
Was looking at Rivals' ranking of next year's (2023) recruiting class compared to this year. UCLA is currently rated 19th with no five stars, two four stars and one three star. Given the likelihood that the only returning starter may be Clark, if he can recover from his injury and be effective, and nobody from the transfer portal as yet, it will be a heavy challenge for Cronin. Further to Clark, assuming it is an Achilles injury, that is one of the most difficult injuries to overcome and judging from the ACL injuries (I know that is different) of Mac, McClendon and Tyger, the first season back from injury was not a great season.
Do we know what kind of surgery Clark had? I'm afraid he is gone anyway. Next year's success will be dictated by what kind of jump Andrews makes and whether Bona comes back.
After the first 2 loses in LV this season, I still predicted we would be in the Final Four. This was our best chance in a long time to hang #12. It takes some luck to win the National Championship in a single elimination tournament. Unfortunately, the only luck we had was bad with the injuries. I'm really depressed that I won't be watching us play tomorrow. But I love what Cronin has done with the program, especially after the last clown we had as a head coach.
Overall it was a successful season with lots of fun games to watch. Cronin has done a good job as a coach with his defensive intensity getting better every year. The offense got better this year too, and I think it was an impressive season turning the program in the right direction.
My few quips on the season overall:
- the point guard has to look at cronin as they run the ball up the court every time. Let them play on their own sometimes
- cronin is so critical of his players when they make mistakes to the point of embarrassment on the court. I understand there are high expectations, but these are kids and sometimes everyone gets so scared to make a mistake that they stop playing basketball on the offensive side
- I know your seniors are the most trust worthy option, but the 10 minute lulls of the Jaime and tyger show got really old and often allowed teams to get back into games throughout the season. That was no different in the Gonzaga game
- Bailey was amazing and should have been incorporated into the Jaime and tyger show at the end of the season. In the Gonzaga game it’s like they forgot he was on the team even though he carried them for large stretches of that game. Just give him the ball and let him be a part of the plan… didn’t happen
- the bigs had no offensive game development. They can all dunk and oop, but they need to be developed like timme is. Where is the offensive development for the bigs?
- cronin criticizing his players in the media is completely unacceptable. Dylan Andrews is a freshman who played very limited minutes all season which is coaches fault in the first place. The end of game Hail Mary 3 from the logo is a perfectly normal progression. Nobody is expecting that shot. And watching that shot real time everybody I was with was excited when he let the low percentage deep three go… it happened to go in and that’s basketball.
- in the Gonzaga game, why didn’t the bigs hack timme all game long. They should have started by setting a precedent of who was the boss… instead, they let him score at will and build confidence… get in his head and hack him down. Everyone I talked to thought that would be the plan to get in his head early. Instead, he dominated. Just a part of basketball, but they should have at least attempted to set a precedent and they didn’t…
Again, happy with the season and hope those things get cleaned up. The biggest qualm is the open on court criticism that scares players that if they make a mistake their going to be publicly humiliated by their coach who is twice their age… I don’t see other coaches belittling their players like cronin does. It might make them better players in the long run, but takes a lot of the fun out of the game… better luck next tourney, see you next year