WATCH: Mick Cronin Talks March Madness Experience, UCLA's Vets

UCLA men's basketball coach Mick Cronin spoke with reporters following Wednesday's practice at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Cronin talked about his impressions of UNC Asheville, scouting Drew Pember, Adem Bona's health, his own long history in the NCAA tournament and the influence of the Bruins' veterans March Madness experience.

THE MODERATOR: We have Mick Cronin with us.

Mick, you were here six years ago now, believe it or not, with Cincinnati. UCLA was also here. Here we are again.

MICK CRONIN: It's good to see you, my fine Irish friend (smiling). Nothing like Kelly and Cronin (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Cronin.

Q. Jaime seemed to be really soaking in the moment. Came in recording us with his phone. He answered a question in Spanish.

MICK CRONIN: How did he do?

Q. I don't speak Spanish, so I don't know.

MICK CRONIN: Could anybody analyze his Spanish?

Q. (No microphone.)

MICK CRONIN: Okay. Very suspect (laughter).

Q. Do you feel like your team is in a good place, loose and locked in, ready for these games?

MICK CRONIN: We've got some veterans. That helps us. They know how to lead is the best way to say it. The young guys, they understand, Hey, we've worked hard and you want to enjoy this, but we're here for a reason.

Everything we do at UCLA is to prepare for this tournament. Doesn't mean the regular season doesn't matter. Having 29 wins, having the most wins of any power six team is a heck of an accomplishment.

We prepare for this tournament. Look, they got to have fun. This is the time of their life. They understand. Like Jaime, first of all, he's probably filming you for some show he's doing. Times have changed, man. He could be sending it back to Jaylen Clark for his YouTube channel. I think it's great. Whatever he's filming, whatever he's up to, he's going to make some money off of it, so...

Hey, you know, we'll see. Everybody comes in thinking they're in a good place. Only 32 teams are going to make it to the weekend.

Q. Your evaluation of Asheville, what stands out on film? How do you rate this team, what they've done this season?

MICK CRONIN: I think Coach Morrell has made some adjustments that have obviously, from Christmas area on, have really, really helped their team. They've won 18 of their last 19.

They remind me of us in a way that they know how to win close games. As you know, they won some close games. They came from behind in the semis and the finals. So they got some guys that know how to win. Obviously Coach Morrell does a great job.

Players on the floor, late game, get better. That's what I see in a close situation. Pember is obviously great. Jones, leading scorer in the history of the school, right? And they play hard on defense, which I respect. They really defend you.

Like, you know, looking at them, I can see in their league they probably had just a little bit better athlete than the rest of the teams in that league. Then you throw Pember in there, nobody in the league has a guy like him. You can see why they won, dominated the league the way they did.

Having watched them, having coached at Murray State back in the day somewhat at the same level, they got a heck of a team.

Q. What kind of influence did Rick Pitino have on you as a coach? What has made him so successful?

MICK CRONIN: Not enough time in the day for that one. He's like my older brother. We're extremely close. So I'm happy for him. I was worried about him last year when they got beat by St. Peter's. I know how hard he is on himself. He was down about that.

I told him his mid-major stint may be over. He matched me, two-out-of-three NCAA tournaments, Iona and Murray State. We'll see what the future holds. I know they have a big one at UConn on Friday.

I was lucky to have Bob Huggins and Rick Pitino, a long time ago as a young guy with a full head of hair, two Hall of Fame coaches that were able to mentor me, take the things my father taught me, turn me into the guy that had a chance as a head coach.

In my opinion -- look, I'm biased, right? In modern college basketball, to me, if Rick Pitino would have never gone to the NBA, he would have been the best college coach ever in modern basketball. Now, Coach Wooden obviously, all time. Nobody is going to win 10 titles, yeah. Especially in 11 years...

But in modern college basketball, to me, tactically, it's not even close. From the press, to the three-point shot, to all the things he was ahead of the curve on.

His Louisville teams, people don't talk about innovation, he's playing zone and man in the same possession. Teams had no idea what they were doing. To me it's not even close.

To quote an end of mine, an NBA scout, he'll take his players and beat you, then the next day he'll take your players and he'll beat you.

Q. I wanted to follow up on Pember a little. How unique of a matchup is he? Have you faced anyone like him this season? And what is the status on Adem Bona?

MICK CRONIN: Adem is getting better. He was better today. He's able to do some stuff in practice today. We'll see how he feels. He's just sore, so every day is a progressive day for him. So we'll see tomorrow.

I'm not trying to play coy. Literally we'll see.

I don't know on Pember. You guys got to help me. You've probably already thought about an answer to this. I don't know. As far as like somebody that we played? Nobody comes off the top of my head.

Tubelis is great at driving the ball, but he doesn't shoot the ball from the perimeter. To play against a 6'9" guy, I guess Michael Mayer from Illinois, if you were to put him in the same position that Pember plays, he's got the same skills, but he's a guard.

The way they use him, like I was alluding to, I think they made some adjustments to their offense. They use him a lot, like we use Jaime. Eerily similar, high post, top-of-the-key area. It's the old Dirk Nowitzki position, which is now the Joker, Djokovic's position. You can pass it up there, shoot it up there, drive it up there. You're facing the basket, so you can see double-teams coming.

If you lead the nation in free throw attempts, you really know how to play. Like, the thing that jumps off the page for me with Pember is how smart he is. I don't need to talk. If you try to deny him, he knows it. He sets you up for a backdoor, literally for him it's taking candy from a baby.

Like I told our guys, it's like you're playing against a guy that's been playing professional basketball for 10 years. Like, that's the way he plays. I mean, he really, really knows how to play. He knows if you're overaggressive, he's throwing a foul. If you're overaggressive before he gets the ball, he gets a backdoor. If you gap him, he makes a shot. If you crowd him, he drives. He's not even a great athlete and he leads their league in blocked shots because of his timing. He's smart.

Whenever a guy is a great shot-blocker that doesn't jump out of the gym is because he's smart. We made a highlight clip of his blocks. There's no time right now. I mentioned it to Mac Etienne, but you got to watch this guy. You don't have to jump over the guy to try to block his shot, like he did against Arizona a couple times. It's all timing.

So his intelligence. I can just tell how smart of a player he is, combined with his ability to make shots.

Q. Mike Morrell is coaching as a head coach in his first NCAA tournament. I believe you're in your 14th tournament. I wanted to ask you, when you had your first appearance, early on, do you remember coming up against a coach that was experienced like yourself? What was that like?

MICK CRONIN: Actually I -- I don't know if I coached against Bruce Weber. I don't know if I coached against him. No, it was my first year at Murray State. He had just left Southern Illinois at that point. But we played his team. Matt Painter was the coach that year. We played Southern Illinois. We beat them. A good game, though. We didn't beat Illinois, but it was a great game (smiling).

Yeah, I don't know. Look, he's been coaching five years. I'm sure he's been on many NCAA tournaments, I'm not sure, as an assistant. I know he has. I don't know how many.

Nothing changes. I think all that stuff's overrated. He can coach.

Q. In the time between, in all your NCAA tournaments, what is one thing that stands out that's so important in these tournaments?

MICK CRONIN: The toughest one for us right now, being healthy, in my opinion, by far. Being healthy. Having your players at game time. Practice is overrated at this time of year. Got to be healthy.

During the game I would tell you, made shots. We proved that two years ago on the way to the Final Four. Made shots. You can execute, but still got to make some shots. It's not two-out-of-three. It's not best out of five or best out of seven.

Made shots, which is why when somebody asked me my concerns. Their ability to shoot the three is a huge concern. You let a team have one night against you where they make 13 to 15 threes, you could be in deep trouble. I don't care who you are.

Q. Speaking in theory, not necessarily in relation to Adem, if you had a player that was available but only 85%, would you play him or try to rest him and get him to 100% the next game?

MICK CRONIN: Greatly worded question. I want to commend you on that (smiling).

Yeah, Adem's situation, being transparent with you, is twofold: we're trying to get him better every day, and then when the game comes we'll assess where he's at and I'll make that decision, if it would be prudent to rest him or not.

If he was in any way medically -- I can just say, I always say one thing to any injured situation, any injury: if a guy can -- Jaime's ankle last year. If they would have said he needs to be shut down 'cause this could worsen for his career, he would have been shut down. It was something he could get fixed later, so he had to manage it.

With Adem's situation, it's simply how sore is he and how much can he play effectively. If he can't, then there would be no point in playing him.

He's going to have to play through some soreness at some point if we're still playing. But he would never be put in harm's way for his career. The question is how much can he do effectively, which has improved every day. We'll make an assessment on that before the game.

For you, think of it like a sprained ankle. It's just easier to think of that way. Is he going to be able to... It's not Game 7, Isiah against the Lakers. Hopefully, if we win, there's more games.

We're worried about Asheville. At the same time if he can't be effective, no point in putting him out there.

Q. Tyger and Jaime, what they've done the last couple of years, the experience that they've gotten in tournament play, how influential is that in terms of the rest of the guys in the room, what they've been able to tell guys about what it's like?

MICK CRONIN: Well, I would add David to that. David is the most important vocal guy, to be honest with you. He's the more vocal of the three guys as a player.

But it's huge. I'd say they proved how good they are at it. The reason we got 29 wins. Again, the most of any teams in the power six. I'm going to keep saying that. I don't know if you figured that out (smiling). You like that one?

THE MODERATOR: I like it.

MICK CRONIN: I wish we could toast to that right now, but that wouldn't be appropriate. It's what the Irish do (laughter).

Q. If we put a pint of Guinness in front of you Friday, what would happen?

MICK CRONIN: My brother got the beer-drinking gene in our family.

Just the leadership, what they've done all year, they're going to continue to do it. I also think for freshmen, look, we got to win Thursday. Every game for those guys, to me they got more comfortable in a tournament setting. Every game you can get in you. Just like the season. Amari would tell you he's gotten more comfortable every game as the season's gone on.

You got to win, get some experience. That helps as well. But it definitely helps playing with some guys that have helped you all year make your life easy. Guard your man when you guard the wrong guy. Change the play when you've lined up wrong so we can run something that you actually know. These are things that veterans do for rookies.

We play six freshmen, so it's unbelievably important part of our season, the leadership of our seniors, without a doubt. And the fact that they're great players.

Q. The difference between then and now, the difference between conference and now you're in the big tournament.

MICK CRONIN: I mean, I don't have a very verbose answer to that other than we'll see.

Q. I mean, the way a younger player reacts to that.

MICK CRONIN: I mean, they trust those guys, I will tell you that. They totally trust those guys, so...

Again, it's all about results. It's a one-game shot. All this stuff sounds great, I know you guys got questions to ask me, but we got to score more points than Asheville. I know all the rest of this stuff is neat, but... Pember, what did he get, 46 in a game this year? If he gets 48, we're in trouble. He also plays with the leading scorer in the history of their school, which is a very interesting combination, so...

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

MICK CRONIN: Thank you, my friend. See how the Irish treat each other. Then we fight after the bar closes (laughter).

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