WATCH: Mick Cronin on Facing Expectations, UCLA's Depth of Returning Talent

Cronin is entering his third season at the helm for the Bruins, again boasting a lot of roster continuity on the court.

UCLA men’s basketball coach Mick Cronin talks to reporters in person for the first time in 18 months, touching on everything from the 2021 Final Four to his returning talent, incoming pieces and dealing with expectations.

MICK CRONIN

Excited to be back?

Well, we’ve been here, you just haven’t. We’ve been here all summer, so it’s a new year, it’s exciting obviously for a lot of reasons. You know, this is what keeps you young as a coach, right? I was talking to my friend the other day about it, he plays hockey, and he’s said, ‘yeah, I’m almost done but you can’t coach for a long time—you can coach until you’re 70.’ I said, ‘That’s not happening,’ but it’s always exciting, it’s just a great time of year, it’s always the best time of year because you’re undefeated, everyone’s hopeful about their team. Obviously we have the obvious reasons to be hopeful when you have your starting five back from a team that went to the Final Four but not just that—we have everybody from that team back, including our non-scholarship guys. To be able to add Will—obviously, he’s hurt, it’s unfortunate, but Peyton and Myles with that group, you’ve got a lot of optimism but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got 12 or 13 guys and to wrap up my long answer, what I will say is on that topic, because I know you guys will ask me, experience used to be, if you were one of the few teams in the last 10 or 15 years since one and done and guys are all leaving early, right, you’re one of the few teams with experience at the high level, it’s such an advantage, but now everybody without experience just goes and gets six guys out of the transfer portal—or two or three or whatever, so I don’t think it’s going to be the advantage that it used to be. I think high-major basketball—I don’t know how it’s affected football—I think high-major basketball is going to be played at such a high level now because there’s just so many kids leaving the mid-major ranks to transfer and play high-major basketball and I don’t think you’re going to see teams too young or they have tremendous holes or anything, it’s just going to be much more competitive, much harder to win.

Impact of Myles Johnson?

Well I hope so in a lot of ways. First of all, our depth. Will being out hurts our depth with Tyger. Will was really going to help us a lot, more than people gave him credit for, and not that anybody didn’t, but when you have Peyton, who’s on a lottery board, and Myles is a senior, Will was the lost guy nobody was talking about, but the more you can extend your defense, you can cause some turnovers and get easy baskets, which we really haven’t been able to do much since I’ve been here, but you’ve got to have depth to do it and you’ve got to have somebody at the rim, so analytically if you look our biggest weak spot has been our two-point defense, so again, his size should matter there and I think Peyton’s size and athleticism and length can matter around the rim around for us with our two-point defense. Our depth should help us be able to extend the floor defensively.

Experience and continuity?

Yeah, well, that’s the difference between the guys plugging in with transfers and having returning guys, and Myles, he’s such a fluid guy for us, just right in because we have so many guys from California and he’s obviously from Long Beach, so it’s been very seamless, his transition for us, so hopefully that’s an advantage. Here’s where it’s an advantage—you’ve got to play smart, so I tell the guys now when we start I was like, ‘Hold on, I thought we were past that, we’re not going to do that anymore.’ Technically, right, veteran teams play smarter, that’s why the Lakers, in a win-now mode, are constructed with veterans. You know, they’re not looking to add a bunch of young guys that are trying to win a title because theoretically the veteran guys know how to win and hopefully that will manifest itself in the way we play. Again, that goes back to the carryover, which is, at least this summer we had a chance to be in here to talk about carryover, versus the COVID summer.

How many times have you watched Suggs' shot?

Zero. When I study film, I just hit pause. Johnny scores to tie it, I hit pause. It’s the beauty of when you, you’re in my position, you have to learn how to watch things that matter. There’s nothing else we could have done, I know I was running at halfcourt, telling guys to come and meet, it’s over, there’s nothing you can do about it. All of our games, I’ve gone back and watched multiple times. Things that don’t matter—social media comments, halfcourt bank shots. There’s nothing I’m going to learn from watching that.

Anyone transforming physically? Johnson?

I would have to get Wes to get the numbers for you and really I would have to ask Myles where he’s at strength and conditioning-wise. We don’t just go and run on the track, like that’s the old days. Those days are over because you’ve got them year-round but I would say Johnny, you’re going to see, to me Johnny’s filled out. I think what people don’t realize about Johnny is that he was a freshman last year and he should have been at Harvard-Westlake two years ago, he should have played for Dave Rebibo, evaluated my coaching and came straight here. I’ve told him this many times, he complicated the whole situation from happening the way it should have happened. He’s very young, he’s still a young guy, I believe he’s still 20, so most juniors this day and age are 22—high school redshirt, prep school, whatever. I think you’ll see it, his body’s filled out. You know, I’m trying to think of some other guys for you. Mac has definitely gained weight. Jaime just get more hair—he does it to rub it in.

Play any two-post offense?

Depends on if Cody or Mac can be mobile enough and then who you’re playing against. You know, I think what you saw with me is, you know, I believe you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to win. When it comes to winning games, I’m not hard-headed. A lot of other things, I’ve got problems—I’m not great on domestic things, I’m hard-headed, but when it comes to winning, you saw, if you have to play Jaylen Clark at center to beat Alabama because they’re so fast, that’s what I’m going to do. If you have to play Kenny because he’s your biggest, strongest guy against Hunter Dickinson or Matt Haws, that’s what we did. So we’ll practice all types of things, but a friend of mine told me one time that to win the dance trophy at the ball, you’ve got to be able to dance to every song they’re playing and they don’t play the same song every time, so you’ve got to be able to win in different ways—fast game, slow game, physical game, you know, high-scoring game, so that’s what I like about our depth, we’re eclectic enough to go big and small if we need to do.

Peyton Watson adjusting?

It was tough for him at the beginning—he’s doing great now. A very quick study, plus he’s got heart and he’s a competitor, so he played only a couple of games for Poly and basically had no senior year of high school, not an advantage for him, definite disadvantage versus freshmen from around the country that had a normal senior year. Then he went—which I thought was great, I wanted him to do it—he went with Team USA to Latvia, 19-and-under, so when he got started with us, I wanted him to get acclimated to campus, get moved in and all that, so it took him about two or three weeks but once he’s adjusted to the pace of the way of our guys play, like, at first it was difficult for him dealing with Jaime because Jaime just comes at you 100 miles an hour nonstop and he’s a veteran. Jaime, I believe is going to play in the NBA some day, so you didn’t play as a high school senior hardly and you’ve got to deal with Jaime every play every day is a tough one, but it’s made him better quick because now Jaime’s got to deal with Peyton and Peyton is very quick and he’s very good with the ball—he’s got a lot of point-forward aspects to his game, he’s a creator, much better with the ball than people know. Really nationally, people don’t know Peyton because of COVID. He grew—he was an unranked player as a freshman, you would know, 6-4 as a sophomore, so people that saw him in the NBA, they saw him in that Iverson Classic, but he gives us a guy that can be great on defense now. He does not need a pick and roll—although he’s very good at using it because he has size and he can pass over, I’ve never had a guy like that that can handle the ball or pass over out of the double team the way he can, so it’s just a matter of I’ve got to help him through the adjustment phase. You know, get him tired, play him when you’re tired, listening all the time—he’s never had to listen as much as he’s got to listen now, his head’s ready to explode, he’s probably can hear my voice in his sleep, is probably waking up shaking. He’s talented, as you know.

See Watson as backup point guard?

Well, we practice Jules there, he’s comfortable there, we practice Johnny there, now we’re using Johnny and Peyton. I’m a believer in develop your players, the more guys that can make plays and make decisions with the ball, now all of a sudden it’s amazing when you become a guy with the 10th or 11th ranked offense—and you guys thought I was just a defensive guy from Cincinnati. Isn’t it amazing when you have guys who can make plays with the ball? So we really try to practice with all those guys doing it, I mean, I could see Peyton being able to do it in time. You know, when you have young players, you don’t want to make it too complicated. Right now, he’s got enough to learn.

Dealing with expectations? No. 1 or No. 2 in the country?

It’s a great question. I just answered that, I did a radio thing or a podcast or something. Expectations are great because of your fans—you want to sell tickets, create excitement, it’s all part of my job and my life expectancy. It’s all great for recruiting. But it’s irrelevant between the lines because if we taught anybody anything last year, your seed or your ranking does not matter come tournament time, so we just focus our energy—at least I try to train my guys. I’ve always done this as a head coach, especially because of what today’s kids go through because they live in the world of staring at their phone all day, I try to train them to worry about things that matter and what matters is, if you get better, our team will get better. Here, we play to win. Our guys know that. My job is to care about your career, your job is care about us winning. Let me worry about your career and you’ve got to trust me, that they care more about your ability to make the right play, your quickness, your explosiveness, how hard you play, your smart decisions—they care more about that than how many points you average. It’s not Little League. Team ego’s big, but yeah, so we won’t talk about it much and if you’re asking how I feel about expectations, I left a place where I could have easily been the all-time winningest coach to come to UCLA, obviously I embrace them. If I didn’t embrace them, I took the wrong job, guys. Let’s just call it how it is. You took the wrong job, man. You come sit where coach Wooden sat, you better be OK with that stuff, and on your ranking stuff, I’d rather be ranked first than last.

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