Bruins'Cronin Happy To See Continued Improvements

The UCLA Bruins played one of their more complete games on Friday night, taking down Lehigh by 40 points. Coach Mick Cronin was happy with his team's execution and their continued success of fixing their initial issues.

Nov 15, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin reacts at a press conference after the game against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The UCLA Bruins (3-1) were very impressive on Friday night, taking down Lehigh University by 40 points. They continue to improve in multiple areas and Coach Mick Cronin recognized the growth and development this team has made over a short period of time.

The Bruins tied their season-high point total, winning 85-45 over the Mountain Hawks behind 55.4% shooting from the field. Four different Bruins scored in double figures with sophomore guard Eric Dailey Jr. being the leading scorer for the second-consecutive game.

Cronin gave his thoughts on the performance of his group and the game plan that factored into another dominant victory. The issues that plagued this team in last week's upset loss are quickly being corrected and Cronin recognized that.

"Obviously, our offense was much more efficient tonight," Cronin said. "The game plan was to go inside, we thought we had a distinct advantage on the interior and to take care of the ball at all costs. We cut our turnovers down finally to eight and we went inside for 46 points in the paint and got to the line 26 times. We also worked extremely hard on our offensive rebounding, and we missed 25 shots, but we got 11 of those, north of 40%, so, very happy with the offense."

The Bruins reduced their turnover total from 15 to just eight in less than a week. They are making large strides in that aspect which is going to pay off down the stretch when Big Ten play begins.

The Bruins shot the ball exceptionally well from inside the 3-point but struggled and stayed away from the deep ball. Just 3-13 from beyond the arc, the Bruins took advantage of their size to dominate the game in the paint.

The three-point shooting issues have continued to linger. Senior guard Dominick Harris made his first three-pointer of the season, accounting for one of the three makes from three-point range. Cronin was asked if those issues are occurring due to their ability to score easier inside.

"No. Again, Dom's [Dominick Harris] is one for his last 10. He's one of the best shooters I've ever coached. I see it every day in practice, so it is what it is, law of averages. [Former West Virginia HC] Bob Huggins taught me a long time ago, practice winning without making shots. If you can do that, then when you make them, you win easy. It's really good to practice winning when you don't make shots; that way, you got to practice really taking care of the ball and offensive rebounding, it makes you a better team. If everything goes in, it's kind of fool's gold because that's not going to happen and you get on the road in the Big Ten."

The Bruins' defense had a solid night, but Cronin knows he can get more out of his guys. They forced 11 total turnovers with five steals against the Hawks. Half-court defense was the main focus for a majority of the game, as that will be a major key later in the year.

"Defensively, once we got the lead, I wanted to just practice our half court defense," Cronin said. "Coming out of the second half, we didn't trap in the press one time in the second half, there's no point in it, I respect the other coaches too much. It's a chance for us to work on our half court defense where we still got to get a lot better. We still got holes there, they couldn't exploit them due to lack of size and stuff, their kids tried hard. We still too too many breakdowns on the defensive end."

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