Tyler Bilodeau injury update: Mick Cronin jokes about UCLA forward's desire to play through pain

The UCLA Bruins were able to earn a road win against the Washington Huskies. However, along the way, it appeared head coach Mick Cronin also saw his Bruins team suffer a loss when forward Tyler Bilodeau went down with an injury.

Cronin explained following the game that Bilodeau turned his ankle and while he wanted to play through it, that wouldn’t have been the smart long-term decision for the Bruins. So, while joking about his toughness, Cronin explained why he was limited later in the game.

“I didn’t like the way he was moving,” Mick Cronin said. “It’s hard for me to get a lot of info and it’s hard for a trainer to really assess things on the fly like that. He turned his ankle. So, you’re basically just looking — a kid like him, he’s going to say he wants to play. You could hit him in the head with a bat and He’s gonna says, ‘I want to play.'”

For the game, Tyler Bilodeau was unable to get a score in just three minutes played. That came after he played 31 minutes against Wisconsin in their previous game. For the season, he’s averaging 13.9 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.3 assists while shooting 50.5 percent from the field and 39.6 percent from three-point range. That’s while averaging 26.9 minutes per game this season.

Moving forward, Mick Cronin knows what Tyler Bilodeau is going to be important for UCLA. So, it was better for the one game to trust the team’s depth and not risk a worse injury.

“When he said he wanted to play, I put him in but I didn’t like the way he was moving. I’m more worried about his career and the rest of our season,” Cronin said.

“Like I told the team, we’ve got enough players. I’ve got confidence in you guys. We just got to care. My tirade about caring, if we act like we care, we won’t make mistakes, we’ll play smart. You’ve got to care. We’ve been an A+ in caring and mental — you can tell when a team cares.”

UCLA ended up beating Washington 65-60. Four different Bruins scored in double digits for the game. The major difference in the game ended up being three-point shooting, with UCLA making 52.9 percent from distance compared to just 22.7 percent from Washington.

Now, Cronin and the Bruins will turn their attention to the USC Trojans. That game is coming quickly on Tuesday night.