LOS ANGELES — Briskly, Mick Cronin walked away from the media scrum and into Friday’s practice. It was the first of the season without a viewing portion, as the UCLA men’s basketball team was jumping straight into scouting Gonzaga.
Back to work, he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. His mood, he explained a day later, had been dampened by the Bruins’ collapse against North Carolina in Madison Square Garden.
“I was a miserable human for a couple days,” Cronin said.
He remained displeased, even after the No. 22 Bruins (11-2) bounced back and showed a considerable amount of poise in the final moments, scraping out a 65-62 win over the No. 14 Bulldogs (9-4).
He wasn’t exactly itching to join the Bruins’ celebration despite music from their locker room providing ambiance for the post-game press conference.
“Look,” he said. “I got a lot of issues, so we won’t go there when it’s my opinion we should be undefeated.”
After the Bruins earned their most significant win of the season, their first in the last five tries against Gonzaga dating back to 2021, that’s all Cronin wanted to talk about.
That’s because he knows what he’s got with his team. He sculpted these Bruins in his image. Painted them with gruff and grit. Expected them to stifle the Bulldogs, despite them entering Saturday’s game averaging a nation-high 89.3 points per game.
“I tried to go out in the portal to get some tough dudes,” he said Saturday.
That’s why, after only 13 games, Cronin knows who he can trust. And if it wasn’t clear to him before, he certainly figured it out during the final four minutes of a game against an experienced Gonzaga bunch who doesn’t have to wrestle with that uncertainty.
He can bet on Eric Dailey Jr., who had just one practice to adjust to the protective mask that covered his face today. Dailey, who, according to Cronin, spent Christmas Eve getting up shots in the Bruins’ practice facility, led the team on Saturday with 18 points — shooting 4 of 5 from deep — and took the brunt of a flagrant-two foul that resulted in Bulldogs graduate student Khalif Battle being removed from the game in the first half.
He can rely on Skyy Clark, who had seven assists, made four free throws in the final minute, and pressured Bulldogs point guard Ryan Nembhard just as he said he would.
Tyler Bilodeau didn’t hit his first field goal until the 5:31 mark of the first half. The team’s leading scorer, who has received flack from Cronin for his inconsistency on the defensive side, guarded Graham Ike on every possession, and didn’t let his 2-of-10 shooting night affect his effort.
And Kobe Johnson, who played himself out the first half, with inexplicable fouls and turnovers, but kept his head in the game, and scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half.
These are Mick Cronin’s guys. He chose them because, in the offseason, he told everyone the same thing that he disclosed to the media at the first press conference of the season on Sept. 25:
“This isn’t the place where you’re going to get your money, you’re going to cause problems and not give effort. It’s just not going to happen.”
And they were the ones that didn’t blink.
He added that bunch to compliment the returners that wouldn’t flinch at the addition of competition.
Guys like Lazar, Stefanovic and Sebastian Mack, who understood that even if their playing time decreased, they’d have an opportunity to contribute to wins.
Stefanovic was the first to text Cronin and congratulate him after hearing of Johnson’s commitment because he knew what it meant for the team. That humility is what allowed him to spark the Bruins offense with eight first-half points, and step in for a mired Johnson.
Mack didn’t even consider leaving UCLA even after the Bruins added five guards in the offseason. He stuck beside the coach, whose brash style always appealed to him, who challenged him to improve his decision-making. Who, lovingly, benched him 11 days ago, hoping for a response.
Cronin was rewarded when Mack sized up Nembhard and bulldozed his way to the basket for his first field goal of the game, converting an and-one that gave UCLA a one-point advantage with 33 seconds left.
Clark followed that with a pair of free throws that put UCLA up three, but on the next possession, Nembhard cut behind him, and Mack fouled him as he scored. Nembhard had a free throw to tie the game and missed it short. Clark grabbed the rebound and hit two more before Nembhard’s half-court prayer fell short.
The faces may look different, but Saturday’s game mimicked so many of the battles the Bruins and the Bulldogs have shared over the last four seasons, up until Nembhard’s last-second heave that was reminiscent of Jalen Suggs’s game-winning half-court shot that pushed the Bulldogs to a Final Four win in 2021.
But Nembhard missed, and UCLA beat Gonzaga, finally; because of a defense so reliable that it traveled with the Bruins 13 miles south on the 405 Freeway from Westwood to Inglewood for the first college basketball game in Intuit Dome, and a group of transfers that fit their coach as perfectly as the reflective silver vest he sported, which he revealed as he tore off his suit jacket and screamed them to victory.
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