Mick Cronin, Kevin Willard discuss coaching under Rick Pitino, recruiting LeBron James to Louisville

Big Ten Basketball Media Day is underway, providing several coaches including Maryland‘s Kevin Willard and UCLA‘s Mick Cronin the opportunity to rehash stories from their basketball past. And there’s a LeBron James story in there.

The two coaches spent time together on Rick Pitino‘s Louisville staff, where Cronin played a hilarious prank of sorts on Willard, a young assistant in his late 20s at the time.

“You know what, I came from the Boston Celtics,” Willard said. “And I spent four years in the NBA and jumped over to college, and I was very lucky to have Mick. Mick really took me under his wing about the recruiting aspect, what to do.”

Occasionally that tended toward the devious.

Willard explained one of the funniest moments of his career on a roundtable discussion at Big Ten Media Day.

“You know, he actually gave me a number one day on one of my first days on the job,” Willard explained. “He said, ‘Hey, I need you to call this kid, I think we have a real good shot at him.’ And I had no idea, so I called the high school coach, I talked to the high school coach, the high school coach is like, ‘Hey Kev, I really appreciate you calling, but do you know this kid is probably going to be the first pick in the draft.’

“He goes, ‘Yeah, LeBron James.’ And [Cronin’s] sitting over there laughing his you know what off, and he’s just egging me on. He’s like keep asking questions, keep asking me questions. So I always say, I recruited LeBron James really hard. And we’ve been friends ever since.”

The two shared a good laugh on stage.

Cronin also opened up on his relationship with Pitino and some of the fun the two had working for him at Louisville. Cronin was on his staff from 2001-03, while Willard was on staff from 2001-07.

“Well we both had hair when we started at Louisville,” Cronin said. “Yeah, I mean, look. First of all coach Pitino is the best. But it is literally a training ground, and he’s not messing around. So we spent a lot of early mornings together. I didn’t drink coffee, he’s like, ‘You’ve got to drink coffee if you’re going to work for coach Pitino.”

Cronin also shared another funny, non-LeBron James story.

“And then he told me when we start playing (pickup) at lunch make sure we foul each other really hard when coach Pitino’s watching so he won’t start playing with us,” Cronin said. “We don’t need him down here. So he starts telling me, ‘Foul the hell out of me, foul the hell out of me.'”

As it turned out, both coaches must have done a pretty good job, because they enter the 2024-25 season coaching their own Big Ten programs.