WATCH: Mick Cronin Talks Adjustments, UCLA Preparing For Utah
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UCLA men's basketball coach Mick Cronin spoke with reporters ahead of Wednesday morning's practice at the Mo Ostin Basketball Center. Cronin talked about how the Bruins adjusted following their rough second half against USC, Amari Bailey's availability, Adem Bona's improved rebounding, the role of the bench as a whole, what he has seen out of Utah and the environment at Pauley Pavilion.
You weren't thrilled with the second half of the last game…
What game? Quit trying to get me upset.
What's been your message to the team and focus in practice?
Um, you know, we go over film and just try to improve. I think over time, look—I was upset but over time stuff like that happens and you play well more than you don’t but you’re not always going to play well so you have to learn from it. What caused us, our offense, to stall out in the second half, what caused us to give up 20 points in the paint and how do we rectify it? And then you move on and you practice and then you get focused on Utah, so that’s our process every week—even if you play great, how can you play better and why did we play great? Like, why did we play so well in the first half? Passing was excellent, so you’re shooting wide-open shots. So that’s it, we always try to evaluate and improve, I try to look in the mirror and what didn’t I do a good job of in the second half of that game, but I do it all the time. So and then you’ve got to get prepared for this week.
When you looked at the film, was there anything new that you saw in the second half or did you just know it right after the game?
Oh, I knew that they made adjustments and look, they were able to get away with playing small and we didn’t punish them inside when they played small. Our passing to Adem in the post at times leaves a lot to be desired. We work on it nonstop, but I’ve been hearing this, it’s definitely a cliché now—passing’s a lost art. But I would say it’s not—post passing is the hardest thing to teach because you’ve got to pass the ball over, under or around the defender guarding you and deal with the defender guarding your post guy, so it really separates who can pass the ball, who can post feed, so we let them get away with that and that was a big factor in it, but then like you said, right away we were bricking free throws, missing one and ones, missing wide-open shots, two-footers in the lane, one-footers at the rim, so it starts to snowball.
Is Amari able to play this week?
I don’t think he’ll play this week.
Making progress?
Yes, making a lot of progress.
Has he practiced?
He has not practiced yet. He’s shooting but not practicing.
In the USC game, it seemed like Adem Bona took a step forward in his rebounding?
Yeah, well, that’s what I told him, it’s time to start getting 10 rebounds a game—if he can stay out of foul trouble. It’s going to have to happen for us to be an elite team, he’s got to be an elite rebounder, and for his career. So he was focused on it for sure. I mean, look, he’s improved immensely every day, his comfort level, getting comfortable is hard for a freshman, you know, they’re getting hit with a million things at a time and he’s doing it while he’s got to play major minutes, but he’s such an elite athlete and a smart kid that he’s able to do it.
Bona was a really good rebounder in high school a struggled to start this season – what are some of the technical things he's improving on?
Well, two things—one, on a comedic front, I was a hell of a player in high school but I wouldn’t have been at UCLA, so what he did in high school against guys 6-3 really doesn’t matter. Moose Bailey’s a heck of a coach at Brentwood but most of his players are about 6-2, so when you’re playing teams like that—so really, what you did in high school is irrelevant. I think that’s the biggest fallacy that people don’t understand, but the biggest key to rebounding, you’ve got to be a two-handed rebounder. All great rebounders go after the ball with two hands, they’re athletic and agile enough that in traffic they can go up not with one but two—you have to be a two-handed rebounder and that’s something we work on, I’ve always worked on, and again, Adem’s only been with us so long, so you can get away with it against some of Moose’s guys at Brentwood.
How would you elevate your trust in guys on the bench? Obviously Amari being out complicates your rotation, but guys like Will...
Yeah, Will, Abramo, Dylan. Getting them minutes—especially Will because obviously he’s coming back. He’s still nowhere near 100% and sometimes it takes a guy until a year after the ACL, but he’s a very smart player that makes the right play 99% of the time, maybe our best post feeder and we all know Dylan’s got great talent with the ball, Abramo’s probably the least minutes of those guys, but one man’s trials is always another man’s opportunity in sports.
Not only helping their development, but resting Tyger can Jaime?
Absolutely. Yeah, I rested Tyger in Monday’s practice. He did the first 20 minutes and spent the rest of the time on the bike, he kept trying to get off, I kept telling him to be Lance Armstrong. He gets banged up, it’s hard for him—other people take one step, it takes him two. For one of Jaime’s strides, it takes Tyger two, so Tyger expends a lot of energy and from here on out, once we reach this point in the season we cut practice drastically.
Time of the season a lot of ranked teams are losing in the dog days – you just need to push through it?
Oh, yeah, it’s harder to win because the teams that struggled early, they jumble up their lineup, they watch film, coaches are trying to keep their jobs and they figure out, all right, now we know how we have to play to be competitive, so you take a team like Washington State. Teams have injuries, like they didn’t have Jakimovski, so teams make adjustments, coaches make adjustments and I’ve always said this, for 20 years I’ve said it, it’s way harder to win after Christmas because of that. Guys are trying to keep their jobs and they’ve had a chance to [see], OK, we can’t play fast so we’ve got to slow it down and grind it out, we don’t have enough talent, we’ve got to find a way to keep the game close and it’s just harder to win for a lot of reasons, mainly the ones I’ve given you—coaches pound nails, they batten down the hatches, adjustments are made and it’s not about the rah-rah anymore, the grind is here, so I think it’s important as we cut practice now right around Jan. 5-10 every year and try to make sure we’ve got energy to play the game and watch more film, walk through more and try to make sure we’re excited at game time—I’m a big believer in that.
Utah has exceeded preseason expectations and they're getting through the grind well?
Yeah, well, until their last game.
What have you seen from them?
Well, look, Utah is elite on the defensive end—they’re second to us in points allowed per game in the Pac-12, I think they’re 18th in the KenPom defensively, so they’re not easily scored upon. If you’re not easily defeated, you give yourself a chance, so Craig was a great coach at Utah State, now he’s got a year under his belt and they’re a tough out, they’re tough to score on, they play great team defense, their preparation is excellent, you can see what they’re trying to accomplish when you scout them, who they’re trying to take away and what team they’re trying to play and they’ve got rock-solid players at a lot of positions, they rebound the ball—even in Pac-12 play, they’re plus-five. In Pac-12 play, and I know they’ve only played six games, but they’re giving up 23.5% from three—that’s unbelievable, so hopefully that’s law of averages is going to go against them on Thursday, somebody’s got to make some shots against them, but when you defend the way they’re defending, you’re giving yourself a chance every night, and they’ve got enough firepower on offense.
What was Oregon able to do the other night?
Well, Oregon’s just so different to play against than anybody in our league because of their matchup zone and their size that at times—you saw it against us in the first half against us here and they’ve had all kind of injuries, they got Couisnard back, sometimes the schedule’s not in your favor, they were coming off a horrendous loss and obviously looked in the mirror and played great against Utah. N’Faly Dante is a monster, look, that guy’s big and strong and a good, solid player. Will Richardson, when he plays well, they’re one of the best teams in our league. He struggled at Colorado, he played great at Utah, and we all know, we’ve seen him for so many years, we all know what he’s capable of but their size and the matchup zone threw Utah off for sure—it throws a lot of people off. You guys have seen it, Dana’s in his 10th or 11th year at Oregon.
Somebody tweeted out that you've won 30 in a row at Pauley with fans?
I hope the fans show up Thursday.
Built it into a den, so to speak?
Um, look, I wish it was sold out every game but I do appreciate the fans that do come—the students have always been great since I’ve been here. They’re great, they always say hi to me on campus, not that I’m walking around all the time, but when I do, the students have been awesome. Students are key to your atmosphere but that aside, look, you can’t, if you’re going to build a program that competes for your league title, you must win at home, period. Because you get out there and it’s hard to win on the road, especially in conference. You’ve got to be able to win at home. You look at teams historically that are at the tops of conferences, they all have similar numbers at home. You guys had enough?
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