WATCH: Mick Cronin Unveils UCLA's Deflections Bone, Talks Defense

UCLA men's basketball coach Mick Cronin spoke to reporters ahead of Tuesday morning's practice session at the Mo Ostin Basketball Center. Cronin talked about the Bruins' deflection bone, recruiting Jaylen Clark, David Singleton's role off the bench, Dylan Andrews' development, scouting Oregon State, how to balance preparing for Oregon, Russell Stong's importance to the program and Logan Cremonesi's haircut.

How did we get four years into the Mick Cronin era without knowing about the deflections bone?

Really, you didn’t?

Jaime just told us a couple weeks ago

Yeah, the hungry dog gets the bone. Yeah, I brought that from Cincinnati.

Started at Cincinnati?

Yeah.

Remember what year?

No. It’s too many years now. The hungry dog gets the bone, so that’s obviously a saying—the law of the alley, the hungry dog gets the bone and they throw the scraps out at night, so if you’re not hungry, you’re not willing to fight for the scraps, you’re going to give them to whoever’s willing to fight. So the hungry dog gets the bone, so I teach them the law of the alley, you know, that’s who wins games, usually, the team willing to get in the fight for scraps, so you get to sign your name on the bone and the bone travels with us. I didn’t tell you guys that?

You know what, that was weird. Maybe that was, my early tenure, COVID hit pretty quick and I didn’t see you guys for like a year and a half except on Zoom.

Jaime said you needed a bigger bone this year?

Yeah, yeah. Whoever got the first bone, I was like, what the heck’s that? I noticed after a few games, I was like, hold on a minute, we need a bone. And nowadays you don’t even need to go to a pet store. I mean, back in the day I told my guy Mark Berger at Cincinnati, my ops guy, go to a pet store. Now you just go to freaking Amazon. You get on Amazon and you can find everything you want.

Team manager in charge of it?

See, now you’re getting [too detailed]. I just know the bone’s there.

Jaylen the leader this year?

Oh, yeah, I’m sure. On a serious note, for us, deflections are a very important stat. So deflections, yeah, the team leader, but also you have to do it per minute played, to be fair, so like a Dylan Andrews is high, so per minute played, it’s like rebounds should be based on per minute played, that’s how a scout would look at it, so for us, deflections per minute played tells you who plays the hardest on defense.

A deflect is?

Any piece of the ball. If you tip it, you get one, I pick it up, that’s two.

Steal?

[Yeah]

Blocked shot?

A blocked shot. You block it and then I recover it. So loose ball recovery, blocked shot, tipped ball, steal.

One deflection and one steal is two points?

Two deflections. Correct. You tip it, then you recover it, that’s two. It all takes effort.

Double motivation?

Yes, exactly. You get the deflection and I’m leaking out to get the points, I get another deflection.

Kleckner said you went out to see Jaylen at Etiwanda when people weren't really beating down his door – what did you see in him?

It wasn’t really hard, I’m not looking to brag about it. In my mind, it wasn’t very hard. I’ve said this before, today, it’s a different world, kids are so immune to college coaches watching them, recruiting services interviewing them, following them, so they almost get numb to the fact that the coach—forget that it’s Mick Cronin, that the coach at UCLA would come and watch them play should be a big deal and it rarely is nowadays and it clearly was to him. He was breathing fire from the time he saw me sitting in the front row, which showed me that this guy—I respect that. I mean, again, eliminate that it’s me because for me, it’s hard to believe it’s me, but I know I am the UCLA coach and this guy’s breathing fire because he sees me at the game. He went after every—he’s just a great athlete that’s got a knack for making plays, that’s it. Like a guy like him, you can’t watch him in a summer workout, you can’t watch him in drills, you’ve got to watch him compete. The best way I could describe this to you would be NFL stories that I’ve heard about Chris Spielman was a great linebacker, Ray Lewis, but they never were the most impressive guys in their 40 times and all that type of stuff, but then the game started and somehow they were the best linebacker, you know what I’m saying? So there’s a level of winner and competitive spirit that supersedes sometimes maybe your lack of height for your position or your shooting or your ballhandling, whatever. So that would be the best way I could equate that, and it was obvious—to me, it was obvious.

When you say breathing fire, you mean going after every ball and being relentless?

Yes, every blocked shot, just relentless shot.

Full-court pressure contributed to what you want to accomplish, especially knowing you have a team that gets a lot of deflections?

Yeah, knowing Adem’s in the back, knowing Dylan and Amari have added to our quickness and Will—he’s back to normal practicing—those three freshmen, obviously we signed Sebastian Mack early and he’s an unbelievably aggressive ballhawking guy who’s got great quickness, so it’s never been Tyger and Dave’s total strength, so adding the three freshmen, Will and Amari on the perimeter to go with Jaylen Clark, so I thought we could be better at it, and I still think it’s going to be a big key for us.

How has the dynamic changed with David Singleton coming off the bench and providing defensive energy last game?

Yeah, well, first of all, just having Dave back this year has been huge for us because of character and leadership, very underrated things as well, that when you meet people and you just know, a lot of kids are immature as teenagers, David just always had a level of maturity about him and he’s got unbelievable character, but he makes us deeper whether I were to start him and bring somebody else off the bench, it adds to our depth, no doubt about it. You look our bench scoring the other night [17-0], the best it’s been in a while, and I’ve said that the development of Will, Dylan, Amari, Abramo and guys like that to be able to help us where I would say in our two Pac-12 losses, if Tyger and Jaime have a tough day—you know, Dave had a tough day at Arizona—it would be nice to be able to win with those guys having a tough day, you know, to be able to get enough points from other guys to beat a big-time opponent with those guys having a tough day. Now, having Amari back helps that because he didn’t play against Arizona, but it just helps our overall depth, no question about it.

What have you seen on film about Oregon State?

Uh, they’re 8-4 at home, so college basketball is an interesting dynamic. Purdue is 22-1, Indiana lost to Maryland—I watched the game, you saw us play Maryland—Indiana lost to Maryland and three days later they’re favored at home against Purdue. That tells you a lot about how hard it is to win on the road, and obviously they won too, but the fact that they were favored tells you how hard it is to win on the road, so they’re 8-4 at home, could have easily beat Arizona State, gave Arizona all they wanted at home, so that’s just how we look at it. Oregon State can shoot, when I look at them, Taylor [inaudible], Jordan Pope’s had a great freshman year for them, maybe the best freshman in the league statistically, I don’t know, if you look at his numbers, scoring the most points probably, and they got some guys that Jaime would match up with that are pick and pop and shoot as well, so there’s a lot of times they’ve got four guys on the floor that can make threes and coach Tinkle knows what he’s doing, so he’s going to do everything he can to take away our strengths—great guy, very good coach, so they’re just young in certain areas.

Dylan Andrews' progress through the season?

Uh, no different, just opportunity. Playing on a high-level team and making the most of your opportunities is not easy when you’re not out there 25 minutes a night, but he makes our defense way better, I mean, all you have to do is watch, he’s an elite ball-pressure guy. He’s really improved his shooting and the biggest thing with him for his career is to be able to run a team and be a better decision-maker, but that’s all stuff we work on every day and he’s got a triple-A-plus attitude, Dylan Andrews, I mean, just an unbelievable attitude, so he just continues to progress. But his progression is going to be huge for us because there’s going to come a time when we’re going to have to win a game where maybe Tyger or Jaime can’t get it in the basket and you’re going to have to have some other guys get it in there and Dylan’s capable of that. I thought he played great at Arizona State.

How hard is having league games Thursday-Saturday, especially on road weeks?

Um, for me, I started my career as the head coach at Murray State and that’s how it was in the Ohio Valley—travel partners, you play Thursday-Saturday, so it’s back to what I had known. You know, you’re on the road, you’ve got all day Friday to get the guys acclimated to who you’re going to play Saturday. I mean, your Thursday game’s a normal game, you’ve got all week.

Do a little prep for Saturday before the Thursday game?

We wait for Friday. You get ahead of yourself in sports—the problem is you’re sending a subliminal message to your team, we’re going to win on Thursday, so we’re already working on Saturday—bad message to send to your team. Now there’s times where you might have to, if you’re not going to practice much on Friday, obviously you’ve got to get rest, that you might have to work on something like zone offense or press offense, something that’s going to happen Saturday that you actually need to get some practice time in, but you wouldn’t tell your team what you’re doing.

Assistant coach who has the scout for Saturday is doing it all week?

Oh, yeah, we have a three-man rotation, so that’s why I always try to hire guys who could or should be head coaches, those guys are working ahead, they’re always working ahead. Personally, I’ll take Sunday and look at who we’re going to play on Saturday, so then it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and on to the Thursday game. But when the game’s over and I’m on the bus busing from Corvallis to Eugene, you know, I’ve already got some notes from my postgame, the last time we played them, and for a couple of games on Sunday, but it’s a normal routine for our players and I think all the Pac-12.

Russell Strong...

Stong.

I'm sorry

I did it too his freshman year.

How can you describe his impact on the program?

I will say this about Russell Stong—impact on the program, practice is really important; people don’t know that on the outside. Russell’s a very good player, so when Tyger needs rest, Russell’s in there, when we have injuries, Russell’s in there, and he’s good—he can make shots, he takes care of the ball, people [see] he gets in at the end of games and he’s the walk-on guy who gets in at the end of games; Russell really can play, like there’s levels that he would have been a good player, aside from his character, his locker-room presence, all the obvious things that you would think about with a guy like Russ that are awesome. What people don’t know is that he’s a very, very good player in practice and that is extremely valuable when Amari’s out for a month and Russ is practicing a lot and you don’t have a drop-off because you don’t have a guy in there that people don’t have to guard, so he’s going to be missed. It’s really important to have a guy like him that can help you in practice, so his character’s unbelievable, he’s a tremendous student with a double major at UCLA, which is almost unheard of, so if you could buy stock in somebody’s future success, he would be the first guy I would buy stock in.

Did Logan Cremonesi have to sign off with you on his hair?

Yeah, the days of coaches being able to dictate hairdos are long gone in society for many, many reasons, so he’s the one that’s got to live with it. It’s interesting, I get that from let’s just say older-than-me fans, those days are over, guys, where we judge people for their hairdo, so please don’t judge me.

Will McClendon is back?

Yeah.

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