UCLA Basketball: Mick Cronin Unpacks New-Look Bruins' Botched 2024 Season

He's not particularly happy.

With a 14-13 record, your UCLA Bruins' only path to a March Madness berth is winning the Pac-12 Tournament.

Following the club's latest loss, a 62-56 disappointment against the USC Trojans on Saturday, head coach Mick Cronin offered up an incredibly frank assessment of his team's inability to recuperate from the departures of several former Bruins who've gone on to head to the pros.

“It’s an interesting time," Cronin said, per UCLA Communications. "When you lose what we lost all at once, and the recruiting five-star guys and pros like Jaylen Clark, like Amari [Bailey], Peyton [Watson], and you lose guys early, your seniors are all gone, it’s a start over. But the only way we would have been able to overcome it is to a hit home run city in the recruiting class. We have a lot of guys who are going to be good players – they are, they’re just young. The way I look at it, I haven’t missed the tournament in 13 years. I take a lot of pride in it. I think what you are trying to get at is, you have to get some substance and bodies in your program and train them and coach them. You have to get bodies, and you have to build the next [David] Singleton, you have to get those guys and you have to build with them. It’s a necessary evil, and only would have been avoided if somehow a couple of our guys would have been so good that they obviously would have been lottery picks or first-round picks. That’s the only way you can overcome what we lost.”