Mick Cronin provides postgame injury update on Jaylen Clark, how it impacts readiness for tournament
UCLA head coach Mick Cronin could be without guard Jaylen Clark going forward after the junior left Saturday’s win over Arizona with a leg injury. Cronin said he hopes to have some concrete details on the injury soon.
“He’ll have an MRI tomorrow and we’ll deal with it then. We don’t have an MRI machine back in the locker room,” Cronin said after the game.
Clark played 15 minutes in the game, scoring 11 points, before leaving the game early in the second half.
He is the team’s go-to on-ball defender along with star Jaime Jaquez Jr. The junior has also emerged as an offensive treat as he is currently second on the team in scoring at 13.0 points per game.
“We’ll see Jaylen Clark’s MRI tomorrow but we got other guys,” Cronin said of the impact of the injury. “If he’s not okay, I will feel tragically awful for him because he’s a family member to us. But we got plenty other guys that I believe in. They just don’t get enough minutes because we got other guys that are a little older. We’ll see. Obviously it’s a blow if he’s out. But I believe that Will McClendon can do a lot of the things that Jaylen Clark does. I still believe Dylan Andrews has got better games in him.”
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Earlier in the season, Cronin praised Clark’s mental fortitude and said it was not hard on the recruiting trail to know that he wanted Clark in his program.
“It wasn’t really hard,” Cronin said in early February. “I’m not looking to brag about it. In my mind, it wasn’t very hard. I’ve said this before, today, it’s a different world. Kids are so immune to college coaches watching them, recruiting services interviewing them, following them.They almost get numb to the fact that — forget that its Mick Cronin — the coach at UCLA would come to watch him play should be a big deal. It rarely is nowadays.”
2023 Pac-12 Tournament field officially set
After UCLA and Arizona and USC, who were already locked into the top three slots before Saturday’s final college gameday slate, the rest of the field filled in behind accordingly. Here’s a look at the final Pac-12 Conference standings before next week’s tournament:
- UCLA, 27-4 (18-2)
- Arizona, 25-6 (14-6)
- USC, 22-9 (14-6)
- Oregon, 18-13 (12-8)
- Arizona State, 20-11 (11-9)
- Washington State, 16-15 (11-9)
- Utah, 17-14 (10-10)
- Washington, 16-15 (8-12)
- Colorado, 16-15 (8-12)
- Stanford, 13-18 (7-13)
- Oregon State, 11-20 (5-15)
- California, 3-28 (2-18)