UCLA basketball: 5 questions the UCLA Bruins must answer in 2020
Five questions that loom large for UCLA basketball this offseason.
UCLA basketball finished its 2019-20 season on a high note amid the Coronavirus outbreak with a 19-12 (12-6 Pac-12) record. Chris Smith, Jalen Hill and Jaime Jaquez Jr. were the Bruins’ leading scorers with 13, nine, and nine points per game, respectively.
UCLA had a balanced roster with multiple players Head Coach Mick Cronin was able to get solid contributions from. At the end of the season, Cronin was named the Pac-12 John R. Wooden Coach of the Year, Smith earned the Most Improved Player of the Year Award and First Team All-Pac-12.
The Bruins had key wins against Long Beach State in the season opener, UNLV, Washington, Cal, Oregon State, No. 20 Colorado, Arizona twice, and Arizona State. Their offense primarily ran through Smith, Hill, and Jaquez Jr. but Cody Riley, Tyger Campbell, Prince Ali and others were big parts of their success as well.
Good news for the Bruins this upcoming season is Johnny Juzang is eligible to play and will likely replace Smith as the starter at shooting guard. Jaylen Clark, the four-star small forward from Etiwanda High School in Etiwanda, California is a guy that Bruins fans should be excited about.
As the only 2020 commit at the moment, The 6-foot-5, 200-pound recruit was ranked the No. 19 small forward and No. 11 player in California. The Etiwanda Eagles finished this past season with a 30-4 (10-0 Baseline Conference) record and lost a nail biter to Sierra Canyon 63-61 in the state semifinals.
No. 5. Can Mick Cronin lead the UCLA Bruins to a Pac-12 Championship?
Mick Cronin’s track record of success with the Cincinnati Bearcats for 13 seasons and three seasons with the Murray State Racers put him in position to land the UCLA basketball job last season. In that span, he has led teams to 11 NCAA Tournaments, one Sweet Sixteen, and one NIT appearance. He was a two-time regular season and AAC Tournament Champion and won the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament twice as well. In his first season as the Bruins head coach, they finished second in the Pac-12.
Cronin’s move to UCLA wasn’t just about basketball. As ESPN’s Myron Medcalf reported, Cronin’s move to UCLA was about securing a healthy parental environment for his daughter. On the basketball court, even his father, Hep Cronin, knew his best opportunity to continue winning at a high level was going to be at UCLA.
“It’s one of those deals where this is Kentucky, this is North Carolina, this is Duke, this is UCLA,” Hep said. “If you’re trying to win it and you’re trying to extend your career, are you going to win it from Cincinnati or you going to win from UCLA? The blue bloods usually win it.”
It’s never a good sign when the head coach chews out the team for their performance after a loss. It’s even worse when he tells them during that conversation that maybe some players from the football team should be on the roster. The team needed to be called out during their three-game losing streak and Cronin kept it real. That speech took place after the 74-59 Stanford loss in mid-January. The Bruins got outhustled on the bench, in fast-break points and points off turnovers.
That lit a fire under the team, and they went on a 9-2 run in the win-loss column and finished the year winning 11 out of their last 14 games. Cronin has the ability to take the Bruins back to where they were during the 2016-17 season when they had a Sweet 16 berth against the Kentucky Wildcats and finished 31-5 (15-3 Pac-12) after that loss.
Cronin has what it takes to win the Pac-12 and more. He hasn’t won the big one yet or gone to a Final Four, but he has the ability to take this team to those places. If not in 2020, in years to come for sure.