When his team lost three consecutive games during what was shaping up as a rocky debut season, Mick Cronin made players and coaches go through practices without the UCLA logo on their tank tops and shorts.
There’s currently no need to strip anyone of anything.
This already looks nothing like what UCLA basketball is supposed to be.
The defense is lagging, the roster is lacking and nobody seems to know what to do about it.
A second consecutive loss has dropped the Bruins squarely into bubble territory for the NCAA tournament, somewhere a team that wears these four letters across its chest should never be. They are a middling 10-5 with no compelling victories and a .500 record early in Big Ten play.
Barring a major midseason course correction, UCLA is in danger of missing the only postseason tournament that matters for the second time in three seasons.
The last Bruins coach to survive that scenario was Ben Howland, who immediately entered the next season on the hot seat, his fate seemingly a fait accompli. Even a Pac-12 regular-season title couldn’t save Howland, who was dismissed after the Bruins lost in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
Cronin doesn’t appear in danger of a similar destiny given his recent contract extension that runs through the 2029-30 season. Unless both sides negotiated a settlement of his buyout or Cronin took a job elsewhere, UCLA would owe him $22.5 million if it moved on before April 1 and $18 million at the same point in 2027.
Since Cronin is probably going to be around for a while unless things completely bottom out, it’s far more productive to focus on what he needs to do to salvage his current conundrum. So here are five fixes designed to get a team that entered the season ranked No. 12 playing closer to expectations:
Get Donovan Dent rolling
There were tantalizing glimpses in the second half against Iowa.
Dent continually attacked the basket, beating defenders off the dribble. He made layups. He drew fouls. He looked at least vaguely like the player who had dominated the Bruins last season as a star point guard at New Mexico.
Then came another meh showing against Wisconsin in which Dent produced some nice moments but didn’t wow anyone.
UCLA was always going to go as far as Dent took it this season after spending an exorbitant amount of name, image and likeness funds on its big-name acquisition.
What it’s gotten has been a negligible return on investment.
Blame some combination of injuries, increased pressure and a higher level of competition. Whatever the reason, Dent’s production is down across the board except for a slight uptick in assists. Most worrisome are the dropoffs in points — from 20.4 to 13.5 — and three-point accuracy — from 40.9% to 9.1%.
Cronin said he’s tried to boost Dent’s confidence, and Dent has acknowledged his mental struggles while upgrading from the Mountain West to the Big Ten. One thing that could help is giving Dent permission to play as fast as he’d like, turnovers be damned.
Regardless of whether it’s agreeing to a stylistic change or bringing in positivity guru Tony Robbins, the Bruins can’t rule out any possible solution in their bid to get Dent back to playing like one of the nation’s top players.
Fix the defense
This is another big one.
How can a coach known for defense keep putting out a product that looks like this?
UCLA is on pace to finish with its worst defense under Cronin since his first season with the Bruins, the team having already given up 80 or more points in five games.
The biggest problem is with the bigs, a lack of rim protection forcing Cronin increasingly to go with smaller lineups in recent games. Center Xavier Booker has provided little defensive resistance and backup Steven Jamerson II can’t seem to go more than a minute without picking up a foul.
After his team’s latest defensive meltdown, Cronin said that his players needed to stay in front of their man to help mitigate the Bruins’ issues with help defense and slow rotations that are giving up open three-pointers.
One idea would be to start Jamerson and small forward Jamar Brown — high-effort players who are the best defenders at their respective positions — to set a defensive tone, even if Bilodeau plays a majority of the minutes at center.
Go small or go home
Cronin went with a small starting lineup against Wisconsin, inserting Brandon Williams alongside fellow forward Tyler Bilodeau.
It didn’t last long, Williams struggling with a case of stomach flu and Cronin forced into a series of patchwork lineups amid guard Skyy Clark’s being sidelined by a hamstring injury.
But going small could be the way to go.
Once the Bruins are back to full strength, they could go with a starting lineup of Bilodeau, Eric Dailey Jr., Brown, Clark and Dent. This would help mitigate the team’s ongoing troubles at center and small forward, even if it might be hard to use for sustained stretches against some of the Big Ten’s bigger teams.
But the small lineup has helped with spacing, creating more driving lanes for Dent while also allowing Bilodeau to beat more plodding counterparts on offense.
Exert maximum effort
When Cronin’s first UCLA team rebounded from that awful start to win 11 of its last 14 games before the pandemic intervened to cancel the season, it used a simple formula.
Even though they were relatively young and probably represented the least talented collection of players Cronin has had in Westwood, the Bruins understood that they could win by staying relentless, playing defense and valuing every offensive possession as if it could win — or lose — the game.
Anyone who doesn’t believe in this formula should go back and look at what happened when UCLA played Arizona on Feb. 29, 2020. On a night the Bruins shot 33.3% and were outrebounded, they beat the Wildcats to move atop the Pac-12 standings.
“First place!” a fan in the upper reaches of Pauley Pavilion bellowed late in the game. “First place!”
Rebuild confidence
Two years ago, the Bruins were headed for what looked like a truly abysmal season.
A 46-point road loss to Utah in January left the team with a 6-10 record and raised doubts about whether it would win another game.
UCLA proceeded to win eight of its next nine games. What changed? For starters, Cronin told his players to worry about doing the little things needed to win, not winning itself.
It paid off.
The Bruins were on the verge of contending in the Pac-12 before a late-season slide.
Perhaps no one in Los Angeles is as driven to win as Cronin, who has mused about sleepless nights and the miserable existence associated with losing.
If nothing else, he fully understands the expectations that come with his job. Cronin doesn’t need any school apparel to understand that this is UCLA.
The post Five fixes needed to get UCLA men’s basketball on track amid dismaying stretch appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
