Mick Cronin gets into spat with reporter over three-point shooting struggles

UCLA coach Mick Cronin got into a spat with a reporter over the team’s three-point shooting struggles ahead of the Sweet 16.

While Cronin didn’t seemingly get too angry over the question, he questioned its legitimacy. In fact, UCLA’s percentage didn’t drop much compared to previous tournaments.

Safe to say, Cronin did not like the question.

“You’d have to give me the numbers,” Cronin said when asked for an explanation.

The reporter then stated: “Percent, it’s generally been over 32?”

“So, we’re talking about 1 percent,” Cronin asked. “If we’re not talking about my portfolio, I’m not interested (laughter). Are you serious, we’re talking about 1 percent?”

Then the final part of the dialogue: “32, it’s a little bit of a dip,” the reporter stated.

“We got rid of the teams that can’t shoot,” Cronin said. “Now let’s play.”

With UCLA set to play Gonzaga, Cronin appreciated the familiarity with the opponent.

“Great to be back,” Cronin said. “Obviously we’re happy to be here. Not easy to get here. There’s only 16 of us left. So we take the opportunity very seriously. So we’re not here for vacation. Everything we work for is hopefully to win four more games. Gotta find a way to win tomorrow night. I have great respect for our opponent. Obviously we’ve played them the last couple of years. Everybody knows about the Final Four game. So have great respect for them.”

At this point, the three-point shooting might not matter. Cronin was asked about the team’s elite defensive prowess.

“You said this, actually, to me early,” Cronin said. “If I remember, you said this is the most athletic team you’ve had. And I learned from Coach Huggins 20 years ago — or more than that now, 23 years ago since I worked for him — you’ve got to be able to erase mistakes. You can’t just be good — you’re not always going to be perfect. So defense, the great teams can erase mistakes. And you do that with the athletes — the better athletes you have, you have a much better chance to erase a mistake.

“So there’s times where there might be a guy open but Amari Bailey is such a great athlete that he deflects the pass, or Adem Bona changes the shot, Kenneth Nwuba blocks the shot. And combine that with the seniors that we have, back to the experience, they’re in the right place 99 percent of the time. But the freshmen are so athletic, their athleticism supersedes their inexperience at times and their toughness. As you know I’m a big believer in that.

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“So the two that have started for us all year, unbelievably tough, athletic kids. Amari Bailey is an unbelievably tough, athletic kid, and so is Adem Bona. We’ve been able to keep it going without the best perimeter defender I’ve ever coached in the Pac-12, defensive player of the year Jaylen Clark. We just had the makings of a team that could be great defensively.”