Cronin’s magic is not an illusion
UCLA is alone atop Pac-12 as turnabout is happening faster than anticipated.
There’s a new wizard in Westwood.
Blasphemy? Probably, especially on a campus where there is a bronze statue of John Wooden.
But what other way is there to convey the scale of the miracles Mick Cronin has performed in his first season as the UCLA men’s basketball coach?
Developments anticipated two or three years into the future are happening already, as a team that was in last place in its conference only a month and a half ago now stands alone atop the Pac-12.
By winning their last seven games, the Bruins have improved to 19-11 overall and 12-5 in the conference. They have secured a bye in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament. They are projected as a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi.
And Cronin has orchestrated this 180-degree turnaround with a roster made up of role players.
The Bruins don’t have a former McDonald’s AllAmerican, and let’s just say they can’t blame the selection committee for that.
Members of UCLA royalty who attended the team’s most recent game — Gail Goodrich, Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes and Baron Davis — were living reminders of what these Bruins aren’t.
Under Cronin, the 11-time national champions have exchanged the glamour of Hollywood for the tenacity of Los Angeles, their triumphs a result of them hurling their bodies after loose balls rather than punctuating fast breaks with high-flying dunks.
The magician himself couldn’t envision this.
“There were days I didn’t know if I’d make it through the year, physically,” Cronin said. “I was just hoping in December I could make it to January. Then I was hoping I could make it to February and stay upright all year.”
Cronin had to do more than impart a new mind-set. Convincing the players to prioritize defense and to exert effort on that end of the court was only the start.
“Lot of people talk about playing hard,” Cronin said. “It’s not enough. We really, really didn’t play smart for a couple months. It deflates your energy when you play defense and somebody doesn’t do something smart.”
Cronin couldn’t identify when everything came together for the team.
“That’s the million-dollar question I don’t have the answer to,” he said.
The Bruins have won 11 of their last 13 games. Right before that stretch, they were beaten at home by Stanford, prompting Cronin to verbally administer a dose of his trademark tough love on the players.
But Cronin believes the team’s transformation was a gradual process, not the byproduct of a singular event.
“We had been practicing better than we played for a long time,” he said.
Cronin recalled a practice in December that he described as one of the best of his career. But when UCLA played North Carolina in Las Vegas the next day, the Bruins were taken apart 74-64.
“It just wasn’t manifesting itself in the games,” he said. It is now. A 69-64 victory over Arizona at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night was a perfect representation of the team UCLA has become.
The Bruins made only a third of their shots from the field, including 23.1% in the first half. Leading scorer Chris Smith finished with 17 points but on only five-for-15 shooting. Point guard Tyger Campbell banked in a goahead basket with 49 seconds to play, but missed his previous 10 shots.
The heroics of Smith and Campbell were made possible by a defense that stopped Arizona on six consecutive possessions over a 3-minute 27-second stretch. The Bruins turned a 62-58 deficit into a 68-62 advantage.
Cronin made it a point to mention how the Bruins didn’t just play defense. They played smart defense.
The Bruins didn’t commit their seventh foul of the second half until there were only 10 seconds to play. Because they didn’t have to worry about sending their opponents to the free-throw line, they were able to defend more aggressively.
They also were smart with the ball, committing only one turnover in the second half.
Cronin has reeducated more than the players. He also has reconditioned the fans.
Less than two minutes into the game, Arizona was unable to pass the ball inside and moved it around the perimeter. As the shot clock wound down to five seconds, then four, the crowd started to applaud in appreciation of the Bruins’ defensive effort. The claps became full-blown cheers when UCLA forward Jalen Hill collected the rebound from the low-percentage shot the Wildcats misfired.
The fans were like this the entire game, celebrating when Jules Bernard blocked a shot or Jaime Jaquez Jr. leaped to save a ball from falling out of bounds.
The sounds in the arena were familiar. These were the cries of a crowd that was looking forward to March.
Cronin presumably will have better teams in the future. But this season always will be special, as he did something few UCLA coaches before him have done: He has delivered the unexpected to a fan base that expects it all.