Mick Cronin discusses whether or not you can recruit 'fight'

Fight, spirit and passion are worth their weight in gold on the basketball court. UCLA head coach Mick Cronin believes his team lacked those attributes in their 62-56 loss to USC on Saturday. Following the game, Cronin addressed whether it’s possible to teach fight.

“I’d rather recruit fight. I’d rather recruit heart and toughness. It’s why I recruited Jaylen Clark. I knew Tyger [Campbell] had it once I got to coaching. I knew Dave [Singleton] had it once I got to coaching,” Cronin said.

“We’ve won eight of our last 11. We’re just not good enough to show up and mail it in. And to the earlier question, we played hard for about a five-minute stretch and the end of the first half… That was about it. It was the only time we played hard. We let them run whatever they wanted to run. We took nothing away from them.”

In the loss, UCLA was disoriented, shooting 18-54 (33.3%) from the field and 4-19 (21.1%) from beyond the arc. Additionally, the Bruins committed a whopping 15 turnovers compared to only nine assists.

The defeat is more than a simple stripe in the loss column for the Bruins. If UCLA had won, it would have tied Oregon for third place in the Pac-12 standings. Now, the Bruins are tied with Colorado in fourth place and have another game between them and the Ducks.

Mick Cronin demands more from himself

Despite any underwhelming statistics, Cronin claims the game down to hustle.

“It’s a simple game, the team that plays harder usually wins. They played much harder than us,” Cronin said. “We had our worst week of practice of the season. I failed miserably to get my team ready for the fight that was coming and I’m thoroughly embarrassed.”

UCLA has now lost two in a row, previously falling to Utah by a mere point. With two ranked opponents ahead in their final four games, the Bruins are in for some rough sledding to close the regular season. Nobody is taking it harder than Cronin.

“I feel bad,” Cronin said. “My family, I’m not going to talk to anybody tonight. I’m gonna hate myself, the job I did. The only person I’m talking to tonight’s my dog. Okay? And that’s it. I have a recruit in town, so somehow I have to rally tomorrow.”

The 52-year-old head coach won’t have to wait long to make up for his mistakes. On Thursday, UCLA will face off against Washington at 10:30 p.m. ET on FS1.