UCLA men have little defense for recent struggles
LOS ANGELES — UCLA will honor alum Dave Roberts before Saturday’s game against Maryland at Pauley Pavilion. T-shirts displaying the Dodgers manager and Bruins coach Mick Cronin will be given to fans who make a donation to UCLA’s NIL collective Men of Westwood.
The T-shirt is a spin off of the famous “Step Brothers” poster, featuring Cronin resting his hands on Roberts’ shoulder, as Will Ferrell does with John C. Reilly. Below them, the T-shirt reads: “Westwood Brothers.”
It’s clever, yet quite the juxtaposition.
The coaches find themselves in vastly different spots. Roberts has found a winning formula, leading the Dodgers to back-to-back World Series victories on top of another ring in 2020. He’s earned the undying adoration of Los Angeles sports fans. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s greeted with the loudest applause at Pauley Pavilion this season.
Cronin has yet to earn those cheers as UCLA has failed to meet the lofty expectations he set. The Bruins (10-5, 2-2 Big Ten) have dropped consecutive conference road games, have yet to capture a signature win, and face a Terrapins (7-8, 0-4) matchup that can’t exactly boost their NET rating, but could deliver a disastrous upset.
Cronin has done a lot of winning – 513 games to be exact – but he hasn’t reached the pinnacles Roberts has achieved. In fact, he finds himself as far from those reaches as anytime during his seven seasons at UCLA.
“Coach Roberts will always go underrated,” Cronin said before UCLA’s practice Friday. “It’s not easy to win. I don’t care who’s on your team. I don’t care what your payroll is. Never underestimate winning because there’s so many variables that play into it.”
Cronin is struggling to navigate those variables at the highest level. The Bruins have lacked scouting report adherence and defensive consistency this whole season. Both lapses fall on coaching, especially the latter, as Cronin has made a career of teaching defense.
UCLA ranks 60th in KenPom’s defensive rating, allowing 101.6 points per 100 possessions, the second-worst mark under Cronin. In Tuesday’s game against Wisconsin, the Bruins allowed guard Nick Boyd to drive with his strong left hand time and again, creating lanes for easy layups or kick-out 3-pointers. They let Wisconsin dictate the tempo and play at its preferred break-neck pace. Three days prior, UCLA permitted Iowa to slow the game to a snail’s pace, in which the Hawkeyes thrive.
These are problems that start with coaching and extend through personnel. Cronin has the talent, his messages continue to resonate, and yet, there’s been a disconnect between applying practice and scouting reports to the game, primarily on defense.
“Obviously, we emphasize defense at this school,” Bruins forward Eric Dailey Jr. said after the 80-72 loss to Wisconsin. “Coach has been about defense the whole time. He’s been preaching to us. We just got to find a way to execute it.”
Cronin intends to exhaust every angle. He said he’ll hold practices without a second of offensive drills. He’ll alter personnel and rotations. He’ll change schemes, as he has already, tinkering with quirky zones and deviating from his regular man-to-man coverages.
“We will embrace becoming a good defensive team at all costs,” he said.
As proven of a defensive guru as Cronin is, that struggle might persist. UCLA’s best defensive player, senior guard Skyy Clark, is doubtful for Friday’s game with a hamstring injury. Cronin praised redshirt sophomore Brandon Williams as the Bruins’ second-best defender, which is a credit to Williams, but a glaring issue that the 6-foot-7 forward is more trusted on defense than either of UCLA’s traditional big men, Xavier Booker and Steven Jamerson, who have fallen out of the rotation.
“He’s got to be able to defend and rebound or I just can’t play him,” Cronin said of Booker, who started UCLA’s first 14 games, but played one minute Tuesday. “In defense of him, he’s not the only one.”
Few Bruins have provided consistency on defense. Injuries haven’t helped as Clark likely would have contained Boyd. But, overall, guards have rarely prevented perimeter attacks and the frontcourt has failed to protect the rim.
“Cronin’s been telling us what to do, and sometimes, it’s not clicking,” sophomore guard Trent Perry said.
“Honestly,” Dailey added. “Everybody’s got to study more. If you got a scout, your job is to know who you’re defending and what you’re supposed to be doing. If you can’t remember that, then you can’t play. It’s as simple as that.”
Cronin will attempt to fix the lack of scouting-report carryover and the defensive weaknesses, or die trying. An alternative might be to deviate even further from his identity, embrace offense, increase the pace and the deployment of small-ball units.
He’s convinced that’s unsustainable.
Who’s here to doubt him?
He’s built a history of winning on the back of defense, finding ways for his teams to peak in the defining moments – even in times when they’ve shown few signs of life for the majority of the regular season.
But that doubt, it’s building. Inside a fanbase familiar with banners making them all the more starved for one, frustration is steadily rising with the absence of ultimate achievement – with seemingly no clear roadmap to return to those heights.
“The problem is the noise,” Cronin said. “Until we have a culture of toughness and getting stops … I have to focus on that.”
Maryland (7-8, 0-4) at UCLA (10-5, 2-2)
When: 5 p.m. Saturday
Where: Pauley Pavilion
TV/radio: FOX (Ch. 11)/AM 570