In his seven seasons at UCLA, coach Mick Cronin has made a habit of going after his players, his conference, himself – and occasionally reporters – in his sometimes all-too-candid remarks after games.
He did it again Tuesday night following the Bruins’ 82-59 loss to No. 15 Michigan State at the Breslin Center, accusing a reporter of raising his voice after asking the dumbest question of the coach’s career. The question involved a chant by Spartan students directed at former Michigan State big man Xavier Booker, who now plays for the Bruins.
Here are Cronin’s top five postgame rants from this season.
Nov. 3: After a season-opening 80-74 victory over Eastern Washington
Cronin said he would like to fire himself for his team’s lagging defense and promised he would bench players who didn’t start performing on that side of the ball.
“When you have the wrong attitude in life, it shows up,” he said of his players. “But I blame myself because I knew this was coming tonight and I couldn’t stop it, so I failed miserably.”
Nov. 25: After an 80-72 loss to California
Cronin said his team deserved to lose to its former Pac-12 rival after not showing up prepared to play.
“That’s on me,” he said. “It is what it is. Congratulations, they kicked our ass. … Our team attitude was terrible — it’s been a problem for a month. It affects performance. You get in a ring against somebody that wants to fight, you give them confidence early, you’re in for a fight aside from the fact that we can’t make a free throw. … I would say we’ve got a glass jaw if you were to describe us as a fighter.”
Jan. 3: After a 74-61 loss to Iowa
Cronin was upset that his team needed to fall into a massive hole to start playing with effort.
“You can’t just play hard when the ball goes in,” he said. “We were letting our offensive struggles affect us and we came in here with a game plan of, if you turn it over, you’re going to lose and we turned it over nine times in the first [half] — I thought we were unbelievably soft on offense and defense. … It’s disappointing how soft we were the first 20 minutes – extremely disappointing that I have to throw my coat and rip a suit to get guys to play with some toughness.”
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Jan. 17: After an 86-74 loss to Ohio State
Cronin took accountability for his team’s latest poor defensive performance.
“I’m highly disappointed in getting our ass kicked physically and our inability to play defense,” he said. “I offer no excuses. Blame me – blame me. I recruited ‘em, I signed them as free agents. We’re not going to win meaningful games if we can’t stop the other team.” What could be done going forward to be tougher and play better defense? “Nothing,” Cronin said. “I can’t trade guys. You get your ass kicked physically, you don’t defend in the Big Ten, you’re going to lose.”
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Jan. 31: After a 98-97 loss to Indiana in double overtime
Cronin said he went over the out-of-bounds play that the Hoosiers used to beat his team 15 times leading up to the game, but his players couldn’t execute the scouting report. The coach also blamed players for allowing their offensive struggles to impact their overall play. “
We went through a stretch where we were pouting and letting one shot affect the next shot,” he said. “We couldn’t score for a long time, that’s how we got down 10 – missing wide-open shot after wide-open shot because we act like somebody stole our favorite toy and we’re a 3-year-old.”