WATCH: Mick Cronin Talks UCLA Battling, Beating Oregon at Home

The Bruins fell behind early, but battled back to pull out the win in the gritty, low-scoring game against the Ducks.

UCLA men's basketball coach Mick Cronin spoke with reporters following the Bruins' 65-56 win over Oregon at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday. Cronin talked about how tough it is to grind out conference wins, what wasn't working in the first half, the importance of rebounding and defense down the stretch, how he coaches his players up at halftime and Amari Bailey's emergence as a contributing freshman.

Opening statement

Obviously, you’ve got to find different ways to win a conference battle against a team with unbelievable size but it’s a long year, you’ve got to overcome it. I told Tyger at halftime, ‘You’ve got to just shake it off.’ We talked a little bit about his decisions and then I said, ‘You’re a great player,’ you’ve got to let it go—we’re not going to win without you, so he was four for seven in the second half, two from four from three. We turned it around it in the second half obviously offensively—44 in the second half. Give them credit for our first-half offense. You know, I was asking Tyger to do too much. You know, I’ve got great confidence in him, but we got way more player movement, we got way more ball movement in the second half. It was very obvious. So we made some adjustments as a coaching staff. You know, Jaime had the right statement at halftime to the team. He said, ‘We can’t worry about offense. We’re in the game still and we’ve only got 21 because of our defense. We can’t stop defending.’ And I still think we’ve got a long way to go. We gave up 49% in our gym; we did create some turnovers but I just think we’ve got a long way to go. It’s frustrating when we won’t draw the charge. I know it’s a different time but I don’t want to hear about it’s a different time when I turn on my phone and I show my team—I can’t pronounce her name, but whoever she is, if she ever wants to help coach basketball, she’s got a grad assistant spot—the girl from Houston who dove on the table. I don’t know if you guys saw; it’s the greatest play of the year. She won’t win it, but if I was in charge of the ESPYs, she wins the ESPY for best play of the year—all-out, not only did she do it, she got up and finished the play and Saturday morning I saw it and we showed it to our team before practice. I’ve got guys who won’t take a charge. She’s all-out Pete Rose on that table, saved it, it’s the best play I’ve ever seen in any sport, of course that’s how I look at things. You know, I’ve got a good friend of mine—I use that loosely because neither one of us are very sane—but he won the Stanley Cup, Erik Johnson, yes I did get a drink out of it, he said the Avs’ motto was, sometimes what’s not best for you is best for the team, so getting run over might not be best for you but it’s what the team needs and obviously it worked for them. In team sports, you’ve got to do things that aren’t best for you and sometimes are not in your best interest, so but, again, it was a tale of two halves, we shot 51% in the second half, better ball movement, better shot selection, kept defending, but give Oregon credit, I thought they had tremendous fight in them, which I knew they would because their schedule, they played Michigan State, UConn, Villanova, Houston, so they come in here very battle-tested.

Intensity was there when you needed it?

Yeah, look, with seven minutes to go down the stretch, I went with Kenny a lot defensively, he’s a veteran, you know, our big concern was the backboard and they only got five offensive out of 25 misses because of their size, so we did a good job there. Look, the proof is in the numbers—I mean, I’m not all about numbers, but if you look at the analytics, defensively, we’re not in the top 10, we’re like 30th and we could drop with this performance, but we’ve got a lot of young guys, we’ve just got to keep pounding nails, it’s the only way to build something, we’ve got to continue to be a work in progress for a long time. I thought Amari had a great second half. I think he had all 14 points in the second half? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.

When you have a first half that's kind of a slog...

Yeah, that's conference basketball.

Are you raising your voice at halftime or calmly saying they need to raise the intensity?

I try everything. Usually, I try to be calm, then I raise my voice, then I realize I like to live, so I try to be calm again and I realize if you put guys on the line, you run them, you just can't do that during a game. So, you know, you change it up. It didn't surprise me, I knew this was coming. They've got big, strong athletes, they gave Jaime a little bit of trouble around the rim. You know, it's a game like – look what happens, you know, Dante gets foul trouble, Jaime gets foul trouble, Amari got foul trouble, Adem. So that's conference basketball. You just gotta find a way to get a win and get on and try to win and improve. The key is improving, the key is not being happy that you won. That is the biggest challenge coaching young people. Consistent winning, repetitive winning, is really hard. It's even hard in the pros, look at the Warriors' record, look at the Rams' record, even my Avs are struggling a little bit. They've got a lot of good dudes, though. I know nothing about hockey, just my buddy.

Use a hockey mentality with this team?

Nah, I don't know – no. I watched for the first time after we – Erik and I – became friends, I don't have one guy I could play it with. Those guys are way too tough. Not even in the stratosphere, forget about that. Um, but again, you gotta win and improve, you can't win and be happy that you won. You gotta look at the film and we've gotta continue to find ways to get better as individuals and as a team. That's what college basketball's about, that's why it's such a different game game-to-game. As soon as you start thinking you're really good, you go play – Indiana goes into Rutgers, and I don't know if anybody in America could've beat Rutgers yesterday if you watched that game. I've never seen a team play as hard as them. It happens in college basketball, that's why college basketball's the best viewing sport. It's not just the tournament. You get into conference play – forget buy games, it's World War III. The atmosphere in that game was nuts yesterday. Look how hard fought this game was today. So we overcame a bad first half, give our guys credit for digging in there and we'll try to keep improving.

Amari seems to be flourishing 10 games into his career?

Yeah, he's got great talent. You know what he does? 7-for-12, he's not shooting, like 55%. Very rare, very rare for a young player to understand shot selection. Very, very rare. It shows his basketball IQ, he has an unbelievable basketball IQ. I can't tell you how many guys – seven years as an assistant, 20 as a head coach – I've coached, begging guys to understand 'You'll be a better player if you shoot high percentage shots.' Very few guys get it, very rare as a freshman. Very rare. Doesn't force – rarely forces.

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