What Mick Cronin said about UCLA facing Tennessee in second round of NCAA Tournament

LEXINGTON — What Mick Cronin said during his press conference Friday afternoon, ahead of No. 7 No. 7 UCLA (23-10) facing No. 2 Tennessee (28-7) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night (9:40 Eastern Time, TBS/TruTV) at Rupp Arena:

Opening Statement

Excited to play Tennessee, although I know how hard it’s going to be. Obviously we’ve already talked to our guys, did the first scouting report and explained to ’em that everything will be hard. Catching the ball will be hard, passing the ball will be hard.

You have to do everything with strength and conviction or you’ll be running your offense at half-court. Defending their offense is hard. Coach Barnes is a great coach, they got a great four-year starter at the point, numerous veterans. The underclassman that they play is a junior, so, you know, they’re just a rock-solid team, coaching, players. They don’t beat themselves.

You gotta match their intensity. I say that with everything they do. The way they screen, the way they cut, the way they go after the ball. They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played. So looking in the mirror a little bit with that.

Q.  I was doing an archive search this morning and came across some things you said going into the NCAA Tournament in 2021, and they were actually similar to some of the things you said last night. And I’m wondering, is this kind of a “method to the madness” so to speak, no pun intended, building your team up this time of year?

MICK CRONIN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it’s late and it’s human nature that some teams, getting here is enough. Winning a game or so is enough. At UCLA that’s just not what it’s about. I say it to our guys all the time. I didn’t come to UCLA to get in the tournament, I came to UCLA to win the tournament.

Now, I know that’s crazy. You say, why would you put that pressure on yourself? As you know, I’m oblivious to outside pressure. No disrespect to what people say on TV or write in the media. Just doesn’t matter to me. I have — I believe — I want to try to win a championship. That’s why I came to UCLA, and I try to make sure our players know that that’s why I want them to come to UCLA, aside from getting a degree from the best public school in the country and grow up as a person.

Those are the things I focus on. So, yeah, I don’t remember what the hell I said in 2021, so I’m sure it’s similar to, you know, trying to prepare — we’ve been preparing all year to play a team like Tennessee tomorrow. And hopefully the Big Ten has helped us prepare for that.

Q.  Mick, I was going to ask you something similar. The travel that y’all had to do this season — you’re playing so many games where there are UCLA fans everywhere, but maybe not a ton in some places — so some road games are very much road games, and that’s in some ways what it could be here tomorrow. Is it a blessing in some ways that your team maybe able to handle that better than others?

MICK CRONIN: Two things. You allude to the fans. But the travel is something that we are obviously used to. It’s our seventh trip back east, crossing time zones. So we’re hoping to make an eighth.

As far as the fans, that’s what I alluded to. I paid taxes here in the Commonwealth for five years from 60 miles away, and I told — that story about the guy in the elevator with his kids is true. I’m hoping that there are some local people that are going to come to the game that couldn’t get to Milwaukee and are going to root for the Bruins. I’m trying to recruit the locals. Last time I checked, Tennessee is their rival. We’ll see.

I’m being funny but — fans don’t play in games so I’m a big believer — you’ve got to be tough enough to not let — things like that shouldn’t matter.

Q.  Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack, the only team that has two finalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year. What do they do that makes them so effective on the court as defensive players?

MICK CRONIN: Number one, they care. They understand that you can impact a game on the defensive end of the court. And, secondly, they’re tremendous guarding the ball and they take a lot of pride in it. That takes toughness combined with their athleticism, obviously with Zakai, his quickness, with Jahmai, his toughness, his athleticism, he’s got long arms. I would have tried to sign him, we didn’t have a spot back when he was coming out.

We had everybody returning off a Final Four team and Peyton Watson had already committed to us, that was our only scholarship that year. He played high school with Jaylen Clark who plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves. And his high school team literally had the two best defensive players I’ve ever seen on a high school team in Jaylen Clark and Mashack.

So it’s a mindset and a toughness that you’re born with. Skyy Clark has it for us. He takes a lot of pride in it.

It’s a credit to them, and obviously Coach Barnes — didn’t surprise me. We couldn’t recruit Mashack because of our situation, no scholarships. But when he went to Tennessee, I knew it was a great fit for him.

Q.  Mick, you made a reference a little while ago to the number of trips you guys have had to make back east. My question is, does it get any easier in terms of players getting used to the process and change in time zones and all that?

MICK CRONIN: I would ask them. I’m hoping so. I think so a little bit. It probably helped us that we got our ass beat by Wisconsin so we had time to rest. You know, usually because we don’t want to miss too much school. So if we were to play — I don’t know what day it is, we played on Thursday? We would leave on Wednesday to try to mitigate our missed class.

With this, you have to be here for the media, so we had an extra day to adjust. So it’s a little — yes, I think it helped us, but I think it’s a little — I don’t know if you say easier, but you get a little time to — you get that day to adjust, which we had on Wednesday. So we traveled on Tuesday.

You just can’t do that at UCLA. Academics are too important. And you’re gone — it’s a two-game road trip in our conference, we do three of those. You can’t add — we’re already missing too much class, so you can’t add to it. The only thing that’s harder is the plane is not the same. Like, the charter flight, we’re pretty spoiled.

So when we got our own situation that we charter, we have Wi-Fi, and the seats actually have padding. And we have big-time meals and there’s drinks everywhere, and the people serving us love us and they know us.

Not the same on the NCAA plane with the stale — you get one small bag of stale pretzels, and you can’t ask for a drink until an hour into the flight or you get reprimanded.

Q.  The equivalent of a school bus?

MICK CRONIN: Yeah, it’s like riding the cheese, which is what we used call it when I was growing up in Cincinnati. So it’s cheese version. Versus a charter bus, you’re on the cheese.

Q.  Coach, there’s been coaches that have gone up against Tennessee and mentioned after the fact that they’re difficult to prepare for because of their style. You mentioned they’re kinda like looking in the mirror. Talk about that preparation for Tennessee?

MICK CRONIN: Well, right now we’re just — we didn’t get out of here until midnight last night, so we let our guys sleep in and gave them the scouting report. We will have a glorified walk-through and do a lot of film today. I’m a big believer in you’ve got to have fresh legs, so our preparation will be mostly tomorrow at Transylvania during the day for the game tomorrow night.

Look, the reason they’re hard to prepare for is it’s hard to simulate their intensity. You can run through your offense and it’s easy, until you gotta try to run your offense against a team with two of the best — not only do you have a great coach who is a great defensive coach, but — I’ve been doing this a long time. Your defense gets better when you have two of the best defenders in the country.

And now we haven’t even mentioned Felix Okpara and his shot blocking. So their personnel to go with their system is why they’re such a great defensive team. That’s why they’re so hard to prepare for. Your stuff tends to work against certain teams, it doesn’t work against them.

As a coach, the challenge is okay what can we do to make sure we get good shots and we don’t have our offense at half-court. You gotta be able to get the ball entered. Just getting the ball entered into your offense can be a challenge against. How do you relieve their pressure a little bit so you can put them on their heels a little bit. Instead of their defense attacking you, you attacking their defense.

And it’s not easy. I think that’s what most coaches are talking about.

Q.  One of the first things people always say about your team and Rick’s team is those guys play hard. Is that something that you can identify properly in recruiting, or is it something you have to coach into a guy at this level to get what you need?

MICK CRONIN: I would say — I’m sure Coach Barnes, he’s been around longer than me. He’s in good shape, though, for his age.

But, anyway, I’m sure he would share this, that when you recruit, you gotta try to say: Is this guy going to get over himself and let me coach him to become a better player or does he think he’s good enough and he doesn’t need me?

Because what happens — in successful programs, you become us. We don’t become you. You become us. We know how to win. We understand — the things that we value, playing without the ball, fighting through screens, an example, which Tennessee is great at.

Physicality, effort, togetherness, you become us. We don’t become you. So you have to ascertain whether — you better recruit guys that are willing to be a part of the way you do things. So it’s not a — if not, it’s a bad fit. It’s just a bad fit.

Then I would say, you know, no matter how high a guy is ranked or how much talent he has, it doesn’t matter if it’s a bad fit. We’re paid to win games. So you gotta get guys with talent, but also have been raised and have people around ’em that understand that they need to get better, and guys that want to get better.

I call it the Kobe Bryant mentality, because we’re in LA. God rest his soul. He was the hardest-working player to ever to play basketball, the mentality of I’m trying to get better at all times. And that’s just how he was.

So we talk about it a lot, we talk about it in recruiting, and we talk to our players about it all the time. I’m sure Coach Barnes has learned that over the years as well. I don’t want to speak for him, but it’s fairly obvious what he stands for and why he’s so successful.

Q.  Coach, you talk about those little things, fighting through screens, taking pride with your defense that Tennessee has. What do you think about those small things that your team has and what do you think sets them apart?

MICK CRONIN: We try to do the same thing. It’s going to be harder against them, though. I’m concerned with the defensive backboard. You’ve got to be able to not only block out, you gotta go get the ball, which is not easy.

You got a guy like Mashack, who reminds me of Jaylen Clark, which is funny because they were on the same team for Coach Kleckner in high school at Etiwanda. I saw them play a game together. You talk about not being able to score. You should have seen the poor team playing against Etiwanda when they were playing together. Guys, it’s what you do when you don’t have the ball.

I give them an A+ grade on that. Even on offense, the way they screen, the way they move without the ball, the way they go rebound when the shot is taken.

If you don’t match them in those areas, you have no chance. You have to match them in those areas. Now you got a shot to win. If you don’t match them in those areas, you’re not going to get good shots. Even if you stop ’em. They’re going to get the rebound. So you have to match their intensity and their commitment to all that other stuff that has nothing to do with shooting jump shots.

If you do that, then, you know, you give yourself a chance at least, but it’s easier said than done.

Q.  I wonder about your assessment of Chaz Lanier

MICK CRONIN: What a story! Chaz Lanier is just an unbelievable story. I saw — I don’t know when it was, I lost track of time, but they were on TV one day and I’m watching him, who is this guy? Where did he come from? I look up and two years ago, he averaged 4.7 points a game at North Florida. So I texted Matt Driscoll and I said, what were you doing? This guy is a star, and you’re holding him back! I’m just kidding.

I’m actually redshirting three players. We have a guard that’s redshirting for us that’s only 18 years old, Eric Freeny, 6’4″ guard. Yesterday I showed him Chaz Lanier’s career stats, 1.7, 4.7, 4.7, 19.7, and now All-SEC, and got a legitimate shot at being a pro. I said, this is reality.

Everybody else wants one-and-done. This is who you could be someday. Like, you can’t get down on yourself, you know, because everybody — especially in LA, you know, it’s “title town,” one-and-done, everybody is used to All-Americans, we’ve had so many great players. You gotta have some guys that are going to get better every year.

That’s really all I know about his story, but I had a lot of guys at Cincinnati like him that got better every year. He’s been awesome for them. That’s two years in a row they’ve had a guy, Dalton Knecht and then him, that they’ve been able to pull that off.

How are you going to replace Dalton Knecht? And they did it. But he is good. He is really good. So tremendous respect for him to keep his head down, keep working and get better, in a time where most people, they don’t want to put the work in. You know, it’s just — we’re in an era where it’s not really about that.

Q.  Dylan, then Tyler, then Lazar, when you look at Tennessee on tape —it’s a quick turnaround, there may not be a ton of familiarity there — but what has stood out?

DYLAN ANDREWS: With Tennessee, they’re a great team, we’re a great team. It’s going to be a dog fight tomorrow.

TYLER BILODEAU: I think Dylan said it perfectly. They’re a tough team, it’s going to come down to 50/50 balls, a lot of rebounding, whoever outscraps who.

LAZAR STEFANOVIC: They’re a very physical team. We are as well. So they both said it perfectly. It’s going to be a dog fight. They have a some good players, some shooters, so we gotta know our personnel really well and execute.

Q.  Dylan, they’ve got two players among the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year announced today, Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack. With what little bit you’ve looked at them, what stand out when you see them defensively on the court and what challenges do they present?

DYLAN ANDREWS: We know for a fact coming into this game, we can’t play with the ball too much. We got to be in control almost the whole entire time, can’t get sped up. So that’s what we’re pretty much working on.

Q.  You guys put the game away last night, and when you did, what was going right and how can you capitalize on that tomorrow?

DYLAN ANDREWS: Last night we knew for a fact the were scoring a lot of their off second-chance baskets, so we took our mind to the defensive aspect and knowing that if we could stop them from getting the offensive rebound, we could get a good win.

TYLER BILODEAU: I think everything starts with defense for us. That’s the most important part of our game. So we stepped up there, shut ’em down, and got the win.

LAZAR STEFANOVIC: Yeah, we knew they were a great execution team. They run a lot of sets, a lot of screens. We were on top of that, our coaching staff was on top of that, so we knew what was coming. And we played really physical, got ’em out of most of their stuff, and it was hard for them to play. And then offensively, our passing was incredible and that’s what separated us yesterday.

Q.  Dylan, a lot of teams — basketball is a tough game, sometimes streaks happen good or bad. And y’all lost five of six at one point right there around Christmas. Some teams may not have bounced back the way y’all were able to do. What was going wrong and what started going better?

DYLAN ANDREWS: You know, we have a new UCLA team here, a lot of transfers, a lot of new guys, so it took a little while for us to click. I would say we’re clicking at the right moment, right time. So it’s survive and advance now, it’s win or go home, so we’re giving it our all.

Q.  Tyler, I know much was made about how much y’all would kinda have to travel this season being in the Big Ten and there has been a lot of discussion about that. Because of that, I imagine y’all are used to playing in some road games where you don’t see a lot of your own people there and that’s probably what it would be tomorrow, too. As a team how do you deal with that? Is it something you have learned to deal with? Can you shut that stuff off?

TYLER BILODEAU: Yeah, it’s a lot different from the Pac-12, our travel schedule this year. But I think it’s been good for us, we’re used to it. So I think coming into tomorrow, you know, we’re used to being on the Eastern Time zone and all that, not as many fans there, being far from LA. So, yeah, we’re definitely used to it, ready to go.

Q.  Guys, Tennessee has a great defense, you guys have a great defense. Talk about the pride that you take in your defense, Dylan.

DYLAN ANDREWS: I mean, defense wins games, most definitely. Especially from playing under Coach Cronin, we preach defense every day in practice, every time we’re around him. Like I said in the beginning, defense wins games.