UCLA Basketball: Mick Cronin Details How Adjustments Helped Bruins Beat Lafayette

This is good coaching.

In your UCLA Bruins men's basketball team's 68-50 win against the Lafayette Leopards on Friday, it was a tale of two halves. 

In the first half, Lafayette looked great, hitting a number of three-point shots while looking solid defensively. This gave them a three-point lead heading into the break, where Bruins' coach Mick Cronin decided he'd seen enough, coming up with the following adjustment:

“Once we started switching everything, it kind of eliminated them. They didn’t make a three the last 17 minutes. They had seven made threes.”

Coach Cronin, on UCLA’s second-half adjustments on Friday pic.twitter.com/VDCo93l8tu

— UCLA Men’s Basketball (@UCLAMBB) November 11, 2023

Cronin's decision to switch everything as opposed to trying to navigate each individual screen was extremely smart, as it killed both Lafayette's on-ball pick-and-roll game, and off-ball screening game, forcing them to beat the Bruins more in isolation. 

Given UCLA's talent advantage, forcing Lafayette to do this shut down their offense, as they only scored 17 points in the entirety of the second half, while also coming up empty from behind the arc for the final 17 minutes of the game. 

As a whole, after a hot-shooting first half, the Leopards finished the game shooting 8-of-30 (26.7%) from 3-point land, which is an extremely poor clip, reflecting well on the Bruins' defense.

This is a good introduction to what the Bruins' defense may be capable of this season, as they're loaded with versatile, athletic guards and wings that can cover nearly every player on the court. 

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