{"id":55581,"date":"2025-11-16T09:59:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55581\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T09:59:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:59:17","slug":"ucla-seeks-toughness-going-into-bloodbath-against-rival-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55581\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA seeks toughness going into ‘bloodbath’ against rival Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With every verbal jab, the expletives flying like sweat off his players\u2019 bodies, Mick Cronin<\/a> reinforced a message about the way his team needed to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnock somebody on their ass!\u201d the UCLA men\u2019s basketball<\/a> coach yelled during practice Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona\u2019s gonna \u2026 wipe you guys out!\u201d Cronin bellowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys who are afraid to hit somebody, you\u2019re not gonna play tomorrow!\u201d Cronin continued.<\/p>\n

As if taking his coach\u2019s cue, forward Eric Dailey Jr.<\/a> told teammates to \u201cwake the \u2026 up!\u201d before repeating the phrase for emphasis.<\/p>\n

Only a few minutes into practice, it became deafeningly clear that the Bruins weren\u2019t preparing for West Georgia<\/a> anymore.<\/p>\n

Next up on their schedule are the No. 5 Wildcats, who have shot up the national rankings just as the No. 15 Bruins tumbled a few spots<\/a> after uninspiring performances to start the season.<\/p>\n

While Arizona defeated national champion Florida in its season opener, UCLA struggled to hold off Eastern Washington. The Bruins (3-0) went on to beat Pepperdine and West Georgia but head into their early season showdown against the Wildcats (3-0) on Friday night at Intuit Dome with plenty to prove.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be more physical,\u201d Cronin said in something of a preview to his remarks during practice.<\/p>\n

The coach said he wanted center Xavier Booker to show he could rebound against the likes of Arizona counterpart Motiejus Krivas.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s huge and he\u2019s physical,\u201d Cronin said of the 7-foot-2 Wildcats center. \u201cHe\u2019s everything you would think a guy from Lithuania would be \u2014 tough as nails, big, strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Cronin want to see from Dailey? Maximize his toughness and his 6-8 frame now that he\u2019s downshifted one spot to small forward. Donovan Dent? Protect the ball from handsy defenders in his return from a muscle strain that forced the point guard to miss the last game.<\/p>\n

Shooting guard Skyy Clark said the Bruins need to win the 50-50 battles to beat a team as talented as Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s gonna be the first on the floor for loose balls?\u201d Clark said. \u201cWho\u2019s gonna be boxing out, getting offensive rebounds? Fighting through screens, stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCLA beat Arizona last year in Phoenix in another neutral-site matchup of the former Pac-12 rivals, but this version of the Wildcats features two of the nation\u2019s top freshmen in forward Koa Peat and guard Brayden Burries. The 6-8 Peat announced his arrival with 30 points against Florida in his college debut, going on to win national player of the week after he added 18 points against Utah Tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got great hands, he can really handle the ball, he\u2019s crafty, he\u2019s got great feel, he\u2019s a big-time player,\u201d Cronin said of a player he recruited for years. \u201cBut he has been. Like, literally, he could have come to college two years ago because physically he was ready, he was that size the first time I saw him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continuing with the toughness theme, Cronin compared playing Arizona to \u201cWorld War III,\u201d \u201ca bloodbath\u201d and a fight that would let his players know how they measure up against another heavyweight team.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to figure out the truth,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cYour guys have got to get the truth. Like, you can only carry a fighter for so long, eventually he\u2019s got to get in the ring against somebody else that\u2019s ranked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With every verbal jab, the expletives flying like sweat off his players\u2019 bodies, Mick Cronin reinforced a message…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4472,10658,34544,8932,6135,48,52,51,47,50,49,8750,9442,34543,33127,34542,427,34424,1092,34545,34120],"class_list":{"0":"post-55581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ball","9":"tag-basketball-coach","10":"tag-bloodbath","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-guy","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-mick-cronin","20":"tag-player","21":"tag-point-guard","22":"tag-practice-thursday","23":"tag-rival-arizona","24":"tag-team","25":"tag-toughness","26":"tag-ucla","27":"tag-west-georgia","28":"tag-wildcats"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55581","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=55581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}