UCLA Basketball: Mick Cronin Reflects On Bruins' Struggles Closing Yet Another Game

Your UCLA Bruins have now fallen to a disappointing 5-4 record on the young 2023-24 season. It's not too late for the club to correct course, and a big problem appears to be just the team's overall youth (the Bruins sport seven freshmen) and its players' unfamiliarity with each other (UCLA has eight overall new players, including junior transfer swingman Lazar Stefanovic).

Most recently this past Saturday, UCLA lost 67-60 in the closing minutes of its CBS Sports Classic matchup against the Ohio State Buckeyes, on neutral ground in Atlanta.

Head coach Mick Cronin tried to contextualize why the Bruins have been struggling with late losses, per UCLA Communications.

“I wouldn’t say it’s the final minutes, but I would tell you it’s what I’ve known. Young players break down faster. We can’t impose our will. Really, really good teams get better in the second half. We get worse," Cronin said. "The only way to solve that is to be deeper because nobody is going to become a sophomore or a junior until next year. So, you got to get some guys minutes so their fatigue lessens so we can’t break down at the end of the game. As soon as the guys we got out there start to get fatigued, we can’t get stops. There was a time that Ohio State scored five straight times in the second half."

"Just no life and toughness on the ball," Cronin continued, in diagnosing the team's problems yesterday. "We got great kids. To me, it’s ability to play minutes at a high level. The reality of it is Ilane [Fibleuil] and Jan [Vide] and some other guys got to play because if we don’t lighten those guys’ minutes, it’s not going to change. To me, it’s not going to change. We gave up 45 points in the second half. Coming into today, we were giving up 26 percent in the first half from the 3-point line [and] 36 in the second. Today we gave up 34 field goal percentage in the first half [and] 56 in the second. This is the fifth team to score 40 or more on us in the second half of a game. Look, we played good enough to win. The problem was [UCLA] should be up 10 at half and they’re up one. That’s a problem. [UCLA] missed three free throws. One of them on the front of a bonus, so really four [free throws]. And [they] miss five layups. And Ilane Fibleuil on a two-on-one just gets stripped. You hold Ohio State to 22, you got to make some layups and you got to be up eight or 10 [points] in that scenario. You’re not going to shut them out forever. They’re the fourth-best offense in the country, or the fifth, coming in. … We’re not good enough to overcome all those missed layups.”

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