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LEXINGTON, Ky. — For months, their coach has quickly yanked them off the court, publicly chastised them, screamed so loudly about mistakes during games that his voice could be heard in the upper reaches of almost every arena.
Now, Mick Cronin has nudged mascot Joe Bruin and the spirit squad aside as his players’ biggest cheerleader.
The UCLA coach was only a few sentences into his postgame remarks Thursday night inside Rupp Arena when he lobbed his first compliment.
“These two guys to my right,” Cronin said of Skyy Clark and Eric Dailey Jr. after they had helped the Bruins polish off Utah State with a 25-point rout in their NCAA tournament opener, “give us a toughness that you need to have.”
Hernández: UCLA coach Mick Cronin rips his players, a controversial move that has sparked wins
UCLA coach Mick Cronin questioned his players’ effort and toughness, a strategy that has helped the Bruins make postseason runs in the past.
Wait a March minute. Toughness? Wasn’t this the same guy who called his players “soft” and “completely delusional about who they are” after a loss to Michigan two months ago? What’s going on here as the seventh-seeded Bruins (23-10) prepare for a Saturday showdown against second-seeded Tennessee (28-7) in the second round?
Cronin went on to praise Aday Mara’s dominance, Dylan Andrews’ magnificence, Clark’s perseverance. The coach said he’s trying to get his players to believe they can live up to their championship pedigree, taking the court with the swagger that they’re the team that should win no matter what the seedings say.
“They’re the only one in this tournament that practices under 11 banners, championship banners, only one,” Cronin said. “And when we walk out there with them uniforms on, everybody knows them uniforms. So you have to have an air about you.”
Since Dailey leads the team in the confidence department, his conviction in himself visible in the way he bops around the court before games, his coach is trying to get him to double down on his belief.
“I told him, you’ve got to be even more so outward with it and permeate it down to your teammates,” Cronin said, “because, like, Eric believes that he is really good. And he is really good.”
Cronin has also talked about the need to be the tougher team, something that has resonated with a player already known as one tough Bruin.
“Even if he wasn’t talking directly at me,” sophomore guard Sebastian Mack said, “he’s probably giving me a word — just talk to your guys, you know, get them to toughen up too.”
Mack’s resolve could be on display Saturday, when he will try to gut through any lingering discomfort after suffering a groin injury against Utah State.
“I’ve dreamed of playing in something like this,” Mack said, “so I’ve just got to keep going.”
UCLA’s last Final Four appearance was preceded by similar encouragement from its coach. In March 2021, Cronin said his players were “overachieving” at a time when they had lost three consecutive games going into the Pac-12 tournament. The Bruins went on to lose to Oregon State in their next game before rallying with five consecutive victories to reach the a national semifinal.
UCLA basketball manager Finn Barkenaes has a unique NIL deal with Niagara Bottling, raising his profile during the NCAA tournament.
“The goal now is to make sure they don’t quit fighting, because we’re overachieving,” Cronin said the week before the 2021 NCAA tournament. “They’re giving everything they got. My fear is they run out of gas.”
The challenge Saturday will be to stop a team that Cronin said was “like looking in the mirror a little bit” based on its high-level screening, cutting and defense.
But the Bruins’ ability to hold Utah State’s top scorer, Ian Martinez, to two points on one-for-11 shooting gives them a blueprint for what they must do against Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier, who has made 40.3% of his three-pointers while averaging 18 points per game.
“We’ve got to lock him down, we’ve got to contain him, we’ve got to disrupt him,” said UCLA senior guard Kobe Johnson, an anchor of those efforts, “we’ve got to make tomorrow tonight a living hell for them, essentially.”
Part of Cronin’s most recent postseason pep talk is rooted in the disregard others had for his players coming out of high school. Cronin noted that freshman guard Trent Perry, the McDonald’s All-American who is averaging just 11 minutes per game this season, was the team’s most highly rated domestic prospect, with mainstays Dailey and Tyler Bilodeau lagging far behind. Five the team’s six new transfers played on teams that finished last season with losing records.
“So I’m trying to infuse confidence in these guys,” Cronin said after sounding a far less praiseworthy tune for most of the season.
Last month, Dailey said Cronin’s criticism was exactly what he needed to elevate his play after spending his freshman season at Oklahoma State.
“He’s tough, he’s not soft, he’s not delusional,” Dailey told The Times as he sat in the lobby of the Mo Ostin Center, chuckling at his intentional choice of words, “he gets players going, he knows what makes players tick and I think I just needed a coach to do that and bark with me. I’m one of those players, I play with a lot of energy, I play with a lot of passion, I play with a lot of excitement and he coaches like that, so you can see on the floor I’ll be talking to the fans or I’ll be yelling and stuff and he’s on the sidelines with it, so I think that makes it fun to play for — he’s a fun coach to play for.
“Yeah, he’s going to scream at you, but it’s passion, so it’s not coming from a place of anger or madness, it’s coming from a place of passion and I think a lot of people misconstrue that when they talk about Cronin. … Honestly, this generation is soft — I grew up, my parents were older, so they taught me how they were raised, so a lot of kids can’t take a lot of things that coach might do, but then you’re not one of the kids for his program, honestly.”
But how did the Bruins take it when their coach called them out so publicly after the Michigan game?
Fans increasingly do not like how Mick Cronin behaves on the court, but they would be a lot more forgiving if UCLA was in position to end its championship drought.
“You use it as motivation,” Dailey said. “Guys obviously started playing better after that little stretch of games that we had and honestly, I felt like what he said worked. So whoever’s hating on Cronin for that ... he knows what he’s doing. So whoever didn’t like it, they don’t have to like us.”
No one can question Cronin’s success at UCLA this time of year. His teams have gone 10-3 in the NCAA tournament, reaching the one Final Four while making two additional appearances in the Sweet 16.
The Bruins are one more victory away from making the tournament’s second weekend once again, their coach telling them they have what it takes to get there.
“You’ve got to believe that you’re supposed to win in this damn tournament,” Cronin said. “The number next to your name was given to you by a bunch of people that never played basketball, in a room, so what the hell do they know? You’ve got to believe you’re supposed to advance and win.”
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