Mick Cronin blunt on Big Ten scheduling issues with different coasts: 'I don't know what the answer is'

The UCLA Bruins are in their first season in the Big Ten Conference. With that expansion of the conference, coaches like Mick Cronin are dealing with some new challenges, including handling the travel and a difficult conference schedule.

Following UCLA’s recent win against Washington, Cronin shared some of his thoughts on scheduling in the Big Ten but admitted that he also doesn’t have an immediate answer on how to fix the problem.

“Come up here and win without Tyler [Bilodeau],” Mick Cronin said. “We played Friday, Tuesday, Friday, and we’ve got to turn around and play on the road again on Monday. Play again Thursday. So, the schedule for all of the West Coast teams, I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s — and then I looked. I finally looked, like Michigan State, their last seven or eight games have all been against top-20, top-30 teams. So, it’s just — I don’t know what the answer is for the Big Ten. Not sure.”

UCLA ended up beating Washington 65-60. They did that despite Bilodeau being out with an ankle injury and it came on the Friday after they had played a game at home in Los Angeles. The week prior, the Bruins had been on an East Coast road trip in conference play.

The season before, UCLA was in the Pac-12. That was a conference that existed on the West Coast, going no further East than Colorado. However, when the conference struggled to find a new media rights deal, schools started to leave, and in the end 10 of the 12 teams left for either the Big Ten, Big 12, or ACC. It was an act that Mick Cronin is now highly critical of in dealing with the challenges that come with that move.

“All I know is we’re at SC Monday, correct? So, we’ve got to get home. We’re going to get home at two in the morning, three in the morning. We should’ve just had this game at midnight. I mean, when you sell your soul to television, that’s just the way it is. That’s college sports. We’ve sold our soul to television,” Cronin said.

“So, we’ll get home in the middle of the night, get some rest, and prepare as best can to play a team that played on Wednesday. Probably took Thursday off and is focused on us while we’re up here. So, there’s a lot of inequities in this thing. I’m sure at some point later in the year, it’ll go our way. I haven’t found that yet, but I’m hoping. You would think law of averages. But great win for us.”

UCLA will play at USC on Monday night. After that, the Bruins will have three home games in a row before they go on another trip to the traditional Big Ten footprint.