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College basketball world conflicted over UCLA's NCAA Tournament ranking

Barkley-Truaxby:Barkley Truax•02/20/23•

BarkleyTruax

Mick Cronin, UCLA Bruins basketball coach
UCLA coach Mick Cronin gives instruction during one of his team's games on Jan. 26, 2023. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)

UCLA is ranked No. 4 team in the AP Poll, No. 3 in the NET and No. 3 in the KenPom ratings. Still, they are the No. 8 overall team in the NCAA Tournament’s initial top-16 teams.

The Bruins are now 23-4 on the season and 14-2 in conference play with an undefeated home record. They also are the No. 1 team in the Pac-12 ahead of Arizona. Despite this, the Wildcats are ranked at No. 6 in the initial top 16 seeds for the tournament.

Could this have anything to do with UCLA leaving the Pac-12? Maybe. ESPN’s Bill Plaschke won’t say so, but Bruins head coach Mick Cronin and LA Times writer Ben Bolch both believe something’s fishy about the situation. Still, CBS Sports’ Seth Davis clapped back, saying the perception of UCLA isn’t fishy, but legitimate. After all, the Bruins are 5-4 in Quad 1 matcups this season. Arizona is 7-2.

Cronin commented on the matter following their 78-43 win over Cal on Saturday after the initial rankings were released.

“I’m going to try not to laugh and I would refer you to our administration,” Cronin said after the 78-43 win. “This will be the only time I address it. The reason I would refer you to (UCLA AD) Martin Jarmond. … When we left the Pac-12, it cost a lot of people millions of dollars and there was going to be fallout. I even talked to my old AD Mike Bohn about it. I think it’s a direct result of that. I’m not going to put the pieces together for you on how that affects that.”

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He called the committee’s rankings comical and said he won’t choose to comment on his team’s seeding until it is set in stone. Cronin said he had nothing to do with the univerisity’s decision to move conferences, but noted that the NCAA is changing and UCLA did what they had to do.

But it all goes back to money, which people in the Pac-12 are losing a lot of, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

“There’s a lot of hard feelings. That’s my opinion,” Cronin said. “I’m going to coach the team. I’ll let Martin Jarmond fight that fight.”