WATCH: Mick Cronin on UCLA's Arizona Road Trip, Freshman Updates
UCLA men's basketball coach Mick Cronin spoke with reporters ahead of Tuesday morning's practice session at the Mo Ostin Basketball Center. Cronin talked about what's at stake in the Arizona State and Arizona games, the Sun Devils' ability to protect them rim, Amari Bailey's injury status, Will McClendon's ball security and Adem Bona's positivity on and off the court.
Conference championships are the end goal, but winning these two would go a long way toward possibly doing that and setting you up for a good seed?
Sure. You’ve got to win one at a time, buddy. Whatever happens this week, we’re still going to have USC the next week. We’ve just got to try to keep getting better. You know, the thing I tell the guys—you guys have heard me say this—you know, talk about their experience. I know for everybody else, it’s, ‘If they win this, they can win the Pac-12, they can get a seed.’ For the kids—especially your guys, it’s their last year, and some guys their only year—it’s about their experience—at least I try to make it about that for them. So I would assume we would have an unbelievable crowd at both games and when you put the work in like this team and the guys that put the work in, I give them all the credit, they’ve earned the right to be in huge games. You know, there’s nothing better than going out there with the whole crowd against you. I mean, I’ve tried to get them to take on my personality, I like that. You know, I took this job, you’re under the fire, it’s, you know, you’ll never experience it again, is what I tell these guys, when they leave college. There’s nothing like big college basketball games, so they’ve earned the right to be in these games and have fans waiting on them. We don’t really worry about that; the adversity comes in the form of Arizona State’s team, coach Hurley’s done an unbelievable job putting this team together. If you looked up the definition of transfer portal use [chuckles], you know, they start five transfers, one came a year ago but the rest of them, this is their first year, and just a tremendous job of being able to do that. In this day and age, you can do it and give Bob all the credit, he’s done a great job putting his team together. You know, some guys have been there and are helping them off the bench, you don’t just go sweep the Oregons the way they did, especially the way they did. They looked like the original Golden State Warriors at Oregon. When you saw the score, you thought maybe Oregon didn’t play well and then you watch the film and I’ve never seen anything like that. Their display of shooting was unbelievable. So, a lot of challenges, their players being the real challenge—they’ve got quickness, they’ve got veterans, old veterans that are obviously having a lot of fun playing together. Probably the most unselfish Arizona State team I’ve seen.
What have you seen our of their rim protection?
They block shots if you look at their stats. Uh, Washington blocks them but the big kid from Phoenix off the bench blocks them but the Cambridge guys do it, they’re just athletic, and the way they defend, the way they rotate toward the ball with their athleticism, if you think you’re just going to go up for an easy layup—but they’ve always been like that. You better be ready to shot-fake, get fouled or take it out because they’re coming, they do a great job. I don’t ever look at Pac-12 stats, I would assume they lead the league in blocked shots [RIGHT THERE WITH USC]. So similar to what we dealt with in the second half against USC, you get it in there—getting it there is one thing, getting it up and in is another thing.
Amari's status?
He’s doing much better. He had an active shooting [session] yesterday, looked good shooting the ball.
Timetable?
Day to day. Day to day. Johnny had it, I’ll take you back—you guys weren’t around, we did Zoom back then, the COVID year, Johnny had a foot issue, they call it a stress reaction, it’s not serious but it could be if you don’t let it calm down, so it’s just constant bone scans and all that type of stuff, so just when you’re dealing with—at UCLA, most of our players are going to have a post-UCLA career, so you have to be conservative with stuff like that. So it’s kind of as he progresses.
Does he need to practice a certain number of days before playing?
Yeah, I mean around here, it’s, again, I always kid around, I’m fairly intelligent but I don’t have a medical degree, so they all do what they do and they get him cleared, get him to me—that’s when I take over; I don’t take over until they’re back out on the court and I’m not going to put a guy in a game that I don’t think he’s ready, so you can’t go from no practices to playing in games, so how many would depend. I would need to see.
Go today?
No. He’s still on his normal routine.
Did doctors say when this might have happened?
Oscar stepped on his foot accidentally in the Kentucky game and then it happened again in the Davis game.
Will has zero turnovers in 100 minutes?
Great stats.
Coming off a year off, how crazy is that?
Two years off, didn’t play his senior year in high school. Unbelievable stat. Getting Will back out there and getting him comfortable but now, I’m actually on him to be more aggressive. Like, I’ll do it again today in practice. He’s such a team guy and he was at Bishop Gorman as well—and he’s still getting comfortable, you know, Will wants that knee brace off, so he’s lobbying medical staff to let him take that thing off every day, but I will go to him in practice at some point and say, ‘Look, if you don’t shoot the ball in the next five minutes, you’re going to get on the treadmill,’ like you have to score two baskets in the next five minutes or you’re on the treadmill, just to try to get him to be more aggressive. Will’s such a smart player, he knows he’s on a veteran team, he’s just trying to fit in, you know, and I appreciate all that but I also know he’s capable of more offensively, so I’ve got to make sure he knows I want him to try to do that more and more, so just things I’ve got to keep doing with him during practice. It’s an unbelievable statistic—I was wondering when somebody was going to bring that up.
Favorite thing about Adem?
Uh, this is usually always going to be the answer with guys like him, just his character, his personality, who he is as a person. Now, at whatever, 8 o’clock on Thursday, it’s going to be his ability, you know, the last 10 minutes against Colorado, his basketball ability, but our job, when you can coach a player that’s really good but also has everything you want in an attitude—like, in our little world of coaches, we all lament to each other all the time, it’s a nonstop society of the miserable at times, ‘You know, this guy can’t play,’ you know, when we’re all sitting around, ‘He can’t do this, he can’t do that,’ when you can get a heck of a player who has an unbelievable attitude, which I have a team full of them, you know it and you’ve got to enjoy it. I know I look like I’m intense because we’re trying to do great things this year, but I’m well aware of the situation because I’ve got a lot of guys like him but you ask pointedly about him and Adem is somebody that he lifts everybody in the room. When he walks in the room he lights the room up, you know, any team he gets on, everybody’s going to play a little bit harder because they’re on a team with him. You always want a guy that’s going to stay positive and try to pick his teammates up at all times, he’s just a great, great guy—a great guy.
Where does that positivity come from?
It’s tough to say. I mean, there’s guys that are like that but his is in the top percentile, he’s in like the CEO percentile of attitude and energy level; it’s really, really hard to find. I think about like basketball in the last modern times, like he has the energy level of a Kevin Garnett. Like, when Kevin Garnett played it was easy for him to play as hard as he played and people would ask him and he would say, ‘Well, that’s easy for me’ and it’s like, well, for you it is but nobody else plays as hard as you, so when you ask Adem, I’m sure that’s just his normal who he is, but as you know, when you see somebody that’s that positive, that energetic, always has a smile, it stands out because the rest of us don’t. To him, it’s just normal, though. But it’s really, really valuable to a team, especially in team sports because it can pick you up, it lifts other teammates up.
Other guys you're trying to get more out of on offense?
Yeah, all the freshmen—Dylan, Abramo. You know, the guys that have been starting since Amari’s gone down, they’ve been extremely consistent but the freshmen, and it’s tough because they don’t get a lot of extended minutes, but they’re all talented but they’re in development. Our big thing that we try to work on in practice and you saw it at Washington where Abramo went in in the first half and he didn’t hesitate, he made a big shot. Like this week, Arizona State plays 10 guys—consistently 10 guys, so our starters are not going to be able to log and play the ironman type minutes against Arizona State, so I would say like a big key against Arizona State is going to be Dylan, Will, Abramo, Kenny, Mac—those guys are going to have to give us some quality minutes, so we work really hard with those guys in practice so when their number is called that they know that just because they don’t play a lot, they don’t go in there and play like you don’t belong; play like you do belong but it’s hard for them, you know, you don’t get extended minutes, it’s hard to find a rhythm offensively.
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