Mick Cronin says UCLA did 'a great job' with Maryland scouting report

UCLA made a statement on Wednesday night. The Bruins traveled to College Park and beat down a Top-20 Maryland team on their home floor. Mick Cronin’s team was up as much as 38 in the game during the 87-60 win over the Terrapins and he credits it all to their defensive focus.

Cronin applauded his team for how they locked into their scouting report following the massive win. He did admit Maryland may have been burned by this four-game stretch of their schedule. In the end, though, UCLA didn’t care because they wanted to prove a point about who they were defensively.

“Our guys did a great job with the scouting report,” said Cronin. “Again, psychology of the schedule. I think they were beat up. And we were revved up to prove that we’re a lot better defensive team than we were in Vegas. Our goal was to play great defense and hold them to one shot.”

The Bruins, now 9-2 on the season, had lost to a pair of Top-20 teams in Las Vegas during the Main Event. They allowed an average of 79.5 points to Illinois and Baylor in that two-game stretch. Now, with this challenge coming on the road, they showed major strides by holding Maryland to 40.4% shooting from the field and forcing 16 turnovers.

That was Cronin’s other big takeaway from last night. UCLA turned the ball over just four times to win the margin by 12 in the XFINITY Center. Pairing that ball security with their talent and defensive output is the recipe he’s looking for from his team to win these types of games.

“If we take care of the ball, we got plenty of guys that can score. Talents not an issue for us. All we gotta do is not turn it over,” Cronin said. “But, tonight, our mind was on defense. I thought, for the first time in a long time, we were trying to win with defense.”

UCLA will get another chance to prove this new defensive focus again on Saturday. That’s because they’ll travel to New York to face off with another Top-20 team in Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic. If they can show that same tenacity on the defensive end against the Wildcats in Madison Square Garden this weekend, the Bruins will be primed for a big run once Pac-12 play officially opens up for them in two weeks.