UCLA coach Mick Cronin is proving doubters wrong as Bruins on cusp of men’s Elite Eight bid

SportsPulse: Scott Gleeson picked Virginia to win it all in 2019. He called Loyola-Chicago as a Cinderella in 2018. Now he’s ready to give you his guarantees for Sunday’s Sweet 16 action. USA TODAY

Dressed in a UCLA letter jacket replicating the same one late coach John Wooden once wore in his heyday, Mick Cronin fielded questions from reporters about his team’s surprise 2021 men’s NCAA Tournament run — a No. 11 seeded team that fell to the bubble now among the Sweet 16 teams.

“Nobody has 11 banners,” Cronin said of Wooden’s 10 national championship banners that hang in Pauley Pavilion, alongside the most recent title in 1995. Those banners also hang over the coaches that have followed Wooden at one of the sport’s most storied basketball programs. 

For the 49-year-old Cronin, who led Cincinnati to a Sweet 16 in 2012, it’s not pressure. It’s a challenge. 

In a year that’s spelled the death of the blue-blood, Cronin and his Bruins (20-9) have been the outlier — storming back from 14 points down against Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans and ousting No. 6 seed Brigham Young and upstart Abilene Christian to get to the second weekend of the tournament. 

“The noise is louder here,” Cronin told USA TODAY Sports when he was hired by the Bruins in 2019. “Just like it’s louder at Kentucky, louder at North Carolina and louder at Duke. It’s a (blue-blood). I deflect criticism and focus on the job. …how it looks on the outside – that this is an impossible job to please the fans – trust me when I say I’ll go 10 times harder on myself if I can’t win.”

Yet Cronin has won so far in two seasons in Westwood, despite adverse circumstances. UCLA finished a win short of the Pac-12 regular-season title last season with a depleted roster. This season the Bruins lost a signed five-star recruit in the summer to the G-League before losing the team’s second leading scorer, Chris Smith, to injury eight games into this season. 

Meanwhile, those heavily-hyped fellow blue-blood teams are no longer dancing. Duke was the preseason No. 8 team in the Ferris Mowers Coaches Poll and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995. North Carolina, the preseason No. 16 team, lost by 23 in the first round to Wisconsin as a No. 8 seed. Kentucky, the preseason No. 9 team, finished 9-16 and wasn’t anywhere near the postseason in the worst season under coach John Calipari. 

BRACKETS: Check your men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament pool standings

UCLA coach Mick Cronin, seen here with Tyger Campbell, has the Bruins on the brink of the Elite Eight.

 (Photo: Keith Birmingham, AP)

What’s made UCLA’s story different?

Cronin, a Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins disciple, just keeps his team playing with the same defensive tenacity and fiery mindset that his Cincinnati teams used to showcase during a 13-year tenure that was criticized for NCAA Tournament underachievement. Last season, before the NCAA Tournament’s cancellation, Cronin took the Bruins roster to the cusp of the bubble as they won their last seven games. This season, despite losing Smith and dealing with COVID-19 disruptions, UCLA won its first eight games in the Pac-12. Then, after a four-game losing streak heading into the NCAA Tournament, UCLA is the only team to have won three games in Indianapolis. Whenever Cronin’s Bruins get punched, they punch back — harder. 

Never one to censor his opinion, Cronin punched back – politely – at the organization that stole that first high-profile recruit this past summer. Former UCLA commit Daishen Nix signed a letter of intent with the Bruins before opting out of it to go play in the NBA’s G-League. 

“All I would say is, let’s not act like we’re on the same team,” Cronin said of the NCAA and NBA. “College basketball has been a free farm system for 40 years for the NBA. And it is and will always be the best place for a younger player to develop. … I’m well aware that in midtown Manhattan (in the NBA office) they’re not real concerned with my opinion and that’s OK. I don’t think (NBA commissioner) Adam Silver is concerned. He works for 30 owners and they’re all capitalists, as they should be. 

“… I’ve got nothing but love for Daishen, I wish him nothing but the best, but as far as the NBA, they’re worried about the NBA.” 

Cronin’s stance highlights a change in the one-and-done era of the sport. Several projected NBA lottery pick freshmen in this year’s March Madness – Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham, LSU’s Cameron Smith and USC’s Evan Mobley – offset a trend that saw four of the 247 Sports’ top 20 players in the class of 2020 go play professionally for a six-figure salary instead of playing in college. Cronin was quick to note that NCAA basketball is a far better path. 

“The experience is second to none and I believe (NCAA hoops) is the best basketball development that somebody’s going to get,” Cronin said. “That’s just my belief. It doesn’t mean that I’m right. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion.”

The Bruins’ run has come amid a flurry of Pac-12 teams faring well in the NCAA Tournament as the mighty Big Ten — which had four top-two seeds and sent nine teams dancing — has struggled.  

“At Cincinnati, I felt like I raised the Titanic. It was dead in every aspect,” said Cronin, who took the Bearcats to nine NCAA Tournaments in 13 seasons for a 296-147 record. “Not only was it buried, it was buried beneath the greatest conference — the 16-team Big East. In six years we went from last to playing for the title (in 2012). When you’re coaching in a league that’s like the NBA every night, it’s like the world is caving in on you. … that prepared me for this chapter I’m in now.”

Follow college basketball reporter Scott Gleeson on Twitter @ScottMGleeson. 

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