Here he was, the top point guard in the transfer portal, and Donovan Dent was being told what he couldn’t do.
Pleasantries weren’t the point of the conference call with Mick Cronin. The UCLA basketball coach asked the player who could help his team contend for a national title about his plans after college.
That was easy enough. Dent told Cronin that he wanted to play in the NBA.
OK, Cronin responded, let’s say you’re playing the Lakers tomorrow. Who would you guard?
It couldn’t be their primary ballhandlers, Luka Doncic and LeBron James, because they’re 6 feet 6 and 6-9, respectively, while Dent is only 6-2. So who do you guard next?
Continuing down the roster, Cronin got to Austin Reaves, the 6-5 dynamo.
“Cronin’s like, well, you’re not a good enough defender to guard him,” said Josh Giles, who was on the call last spring as an advisor to Dent after having coached him at Corona Centennial High. “And so he’s like, that’s your biggest issue is you’ve got to be a better defender.”
Cronin went on to tell Dent that if he hollered at him about defense in practice, he would be doing his job to help him play in the NBA.
This was a different approach than that of most coaches pursuing the honorable mention All-American from New Mexico. They were known for being positive and taking it easy on their star players, rarely challenging them.
Having already coached five high-level prospects who went on to play for Cronin, Giles was something of an expert on his UCLA counterpart. Giles cursed and yelled but was probably closer in temperament to the agreeable coaches than he was to Cronin.
Making sure Dent understood what he would be signing up for if he transferred to UCLA, Giles reiterated after the call ended that he would be held accountable, that he would be called out if he faltered.
“Well,” Dent responded, having been sold, “maybe that’s exactly what I need.”
His talent reveals itself in so many ways.
During UCLA’s first exhibition game, with a large lead having uncomfortably dwindled, Dent used a burst of speed to get to the rim on multiple late possessions. He made a layup or drew a foul each time, sinking every free throw to help his team prevail.
During the Bruins’ second exhibition game, playing only the first half of a 30-point blowout, Dent made an array of floating jumpers and logged eight assists to go with one turnover and one steal.
Exceeding his statistics were the raves he drew from teammates afterward.
Said forward Tyler Bilodeau: “He can break down any defense.”
Said guard Skyy Clark: “He makes life a lot easier, for sure.”
Perhaps most pleased was the coach who told Dent that he wanted to retain the offensive brilliance he had shown at New Mexico while cutting down on turnovers and tightening up on defense.
“I mean, I love that he kept it real,” Dent said of Cronin’s conference call. “Like, he didn’t sugarcoat, he didn’t try to kiss my you-know-what for me to come here. He just kept it real. He’s like, ‘I’m gonna coach you. We gotta work on your defense if you wanna get to the next step that you wanna go. You can’t have no more silly one-hand pass turnovers.’”
Growing up in Riverside, Dent developed a deep appreciation for the UCLA point guards who preceded him. He admired Russell Westbrook, Jaylen Hands, Jrue Holiday and Tyger Campbell but modeled his game most after the free-and-fast style of Lonzo Ball.
“That’s kind of how I like to play,” Dent said. “I like to get to the rim and play a lot at a fast pace and just move around a little bit and get my teammates involved.”
There was another lure to putting on a UCLA jersey besides tradition and tough coaching.
A close family member is battling a serious illness, giving Dent additional reason to battle traffic for weekend commutes home to the Inland Empire.
“I’m not gonna smoke too much of it out there because, like, that’s my inner circle stuff,” Dent said of the situation, “but that was the only reason I didn’t go to Big Ten media day. I had to be around my family for an important moment. We’re still kind of going through it, so still trying to figure it out.
“We’re praying right now. It’s been great for us and it’s definitely trending more in the upward direction, so we’re just hoping it stays that way.”
Dent’s former high school teammate knew where the conversation was headed when a reporter inquired about “the pass.”
“The one-handed pass?” asked Eric Freeny, now Dent’s college teammate.
That’s right. That one.
During a high school championship game against Harvard-Westlake, Dent’s teammate grabbed a rebound and threw him an outlet pass near the left sideline above the three-point line in the backcourt. The pass was behind Dent, so he had to reach back with his right hand, his back turned toward the basket on the far end of the court.
In one motion, Dent spun around and hurled a bounce pass between two defenders as if throwing a baseball, hitting Freeny in stride for a layup.
Standing in front of the Centennial bench, Giles turned toward his assistant coaches.
“That’s the best pass I’ve ever seen,” the veteran coach told them.
Nearly four years later, in a nod to Dent’s passing wizardry, Freeny conceded only that the pass was among Dent’s top five.
“I just know that’s not the No. 1,” Freeny said with a chuckle. “He’s just a great point guard. He sees everything. He’s got eyes behind his head, he knows where all the spots are.”
In another playoff game, against Sierra Canyon, Giles asked his point guard to be more of a scorer than a facilitator. Known for extraordinary speed with the ball in his hands, Dent was given a mandate whenever a certain defender tried to stop him.
“It was like, ‘Donny, just go by him,’” Giles said of a plan that led to Dent scoring 18 points during an unexpected blowout.
Dent won a state championship but might have suffered from having too much talent on his team. With recruiters fixated on fellow guards Jared McCain and Kylan Boswell, Dent was largely overlooked. Cronin admired Dent’s talent but didn’t need another point guard with Dylan Andrews set to arrive in Westwood, so he encouraged close friend Richard Pitino, the coach at New Mexico, to recruit him.
“Everybody was looking at certain guys,” Giles said of the college coaches, “and I’m like, ‘Hey, this guy right here, I’m not so sure he can’t be the best of everybody. Don’t sleep on this guy right here.’ ”
Cronin’s recruiting tip proved to be a good one. Dent became a star by the end of his three years at New Mexico.
In his final season with the Lobos, Dent showed the Bruins what they were missing. Continually getting to the rim and finding his teammates with passes for easy baskets, Dent helped New Mexico beat UCLA last November.
He went on to become the first NCAA player with 600 points and 200 assists in the same season since Ja Morant at Murray State in 2018-19. Yet Dent’s heavy usage came with a downside.
His turnovers ticked upward — he had nine alone in the victory over the Bruins — and his defense slipped from where it had been in high school.
“It’s funny, all these guys, once they start learning how to score a little bit,” Giles said, “that defense kind of drops sometimes, and now that Donnie can score it a little bit, he’s not necessarily the same defender.”
Thus the conference call from Cronin, who needed a new point guard last spring after Andrews transferred to Boise State.
The coach didn’t want to change everything about Dent. Like his new top player, Cronin was suddenly feeling the need for speed as part of a stylistic makeover.
“We’re getting up the court really fast right now,” said Clark, Dent’s new backcourt sidekick. “I love the way we’re playing.”
Playing alongside a strong supporting cast that includes Clark, Bilodeau and Eric Dailey Jr. — who averaged a combined 33.4 points last season — should reduce the burden on Dent to make every play.
“What I tell him, on this team, he does not need to be Superman,” Cronin said. “I think there’s times because he had to do it at times last year for his team, he had to kind of try to put the cape on, and there will be times maybe he has to do that here.”
If all goes well, those opportunities will extend into early April. Just as Cronin told Dent on that conference call that he wouldn’t bring him to UCLA to lose in the second round of the NCAA tournament — as both of their teams had last spring — Dent told his new coach that he wanted a chance to play in the Final Four.
They ended the call in lockstep. The point guard was coming home after what felt more like an affirmation than a recruitment.
“It was more, like, ‘Hold on a second,’” Cronin said. “ ‘Let me tell you how this is gonna go before you say yes.’”
The post How UCLA’s Mick Cronin lured Donovan Dent in pursuit of a banner season appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
