{"id":210253,"date":"2026-03-08T10:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T10:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210253\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T10:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T10:28:11","slug":"mick-cronins-controversial-criticisms-arent-rattling-ucla-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210253\/","title":{"rendered":"Mick Cronin’s controversial criticisms aren’t rattling UCLA players"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Call it the Mick Cronin<\/a> Say Something Nice Challenge.<\/p>\n

Not something nice-ish, not a chocolate-covered diss or an insult teased as affirmation. Just a compliment, no chaser.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not impossible, it turns out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have great guys,\u201d Cronin said about his team, which demolished USC 89-68<\/a> at Galen Center on Saturday to finish the season 21-10. \u201cI have to make myself yell at some of these guys, because they\u2019re such good guys. And I did that by design.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll have a funny way of showing it, but Cronin likes the guys he recruited or plucked from the transfer portal. He really, really likes them.<\/p>\n

They put up with him, after all. They get him.<\/p>\n

Coming after an impressive 72-52 triumph<\/a> against No. 9 Nebraska on Tuesday, Saturday\u2019s victory launched his Bruins men\u2019s basketball team into tournament play, starting with a third-round Big Ten tournament game Thursday, and then the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

And, no, the controversial coach<\/a> won\u2019t likely be excused from his post anytime soon. Not with another four years on his contract, a current buyout price of $22.5 million and now a not-terrible finish to this strange season of all peaks and valleys and no plateaus.<\/p>\n

The Bruins are on the way up at the right time, even playing enough defense for Cronin\u2019s taste \u2014 though, of course, he\u2019s prepared for that to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been around these guys for five months,\u201d he said, \u201cso I know that the fight is not over with that. We can go right back to who we were, which was a bad defensive team.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can you say? The man\u2019s service might be questionable, but his backhands are unparalleled.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Mick Cronin talks about the Bruins\u2019 win over USC on Saturday.<\/p>\n

His opening statement the last time UCLA clocked USC, 81-62<\/a> on Feb. 24: \u201cProud of the guys, they got the job done …\u201d and, wait for it, \u201cI\u2019m well aware you\u2019re going to ask about rebounding, and as I tell people, you can\u2019t be great at everything. And we\u2019re surely not.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was the time he actually fell on the proverbial sword after his team\u2019s 86-74 loss to Ohio State<\/a>: \u201cBlame me \u2014 blame me,\u201d he said, only kidding: \u201cI recruited \u2019em, I signed them as free agents.\u201d (The bums!)<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t exactly dropping jewels of inspiration suited to be posted in classrooms beside John Wooden\u2019s \u201cPyramid of Success.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after five up-and-down months with him, his players say they\u2019re cool with Cronin, who has shaken off what feels like an annual wave of national criticism<\/a>. This time it hit after he booted his own center<\/a> Steven Jamerson II from a game at Michigan State on Feb. 17, overreacting because he mistook a clean basketball play for something else.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Mick Cronin shouts instructions to a player during the Bruins\u2019 win over USC on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve adapted to how he coaches and how he runs stuff,\u201d said Donovan Dent, the Bruins\u2019 sure-handed point guard who had 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting to go with his seven assists without a turnover Saturday.<\/p>\n

How does he coach? \u201cFun, very fun,\u201d Dent laughed, acknowledging that, yes, \u201cabsolutely\u201d players have to have some thick skin if they\u2019re going to play for Cronin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can get on you,\u201d Dent said, \u201cbut he just wants the best for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean,\u201d forward Tyler Bilodeau said, \u201che\u2019s intense. Coach Cronin has no off days, he is who he is every single day. You gotta respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Cronin\u2019s bait-and-switch bit? It would kill at a comedy club, but working a locker room? Maybe he\u2019s found the right audience of young athletes.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at a point in my career, I want guys who are good guys,\u201d said Cronin, whose team went 17-1 at Pauley Pavilion and 4-9 away from it. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be fighting with guys, I don\u2019t have the energy for it. I won enough games, it\u2019s not worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, about that.<\/p>\n

The Bruins will have made the NCAA tournament five times in Cronin\u2019s seven-year tenure with the team, and they\u2019ve advanced to the Final Four and twice to the Sweet 16. But the Final Four run was six seasons ago, and in the past two years, UCLA made just one tournament appearance and got only as far as the second round.<\/p>\n

That hardly seems sufficient for a UCLA program that\u2019s regularly supposed to be breathing rarefied air without caveats or qualifiers.<\/p>\n

But he thinks he\u2019s found the right players to roll with his punchlines, and to play defense too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can keep winning games,\u201d Cronin said, \u201cif we stop the other team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t that be nice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it the Mick Cronin Say Something Nice Challenge. Not something nice-ish, not a chocolate-covered diss or an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96768,11151,36400,45043,96769,423,81044,48,52,51,47,50,49,8750,1417,42444,595,278,427,87594,72],"class_list":["post-210253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bruins-man","tag-cronin","tag-donovan-dent","tag-feb","tag-funny-way","tag-game","tag-great-guy","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mick-cronin","tag-point","tag-right-time","tag-saturday","tag-season","tag-team","tag-ucla-player","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}