Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening remarks
“I appreciate [Steve] Balmer and my good friend Lawrence Frank. We’ve been trying to make this game happen. Not necessarily Gonzaga, but I wanted to be the first college game in here. Obviously, I haven’t had a chance to tour it around here but the atmosphere of the game was tremendous. Congratulations to them on the arena. Thanks for having us. Obviously, a good win for us. We knew it was going to be a war. We knew they weren’t going to go anywhere. Although they’re sixth in the Kenpom, they really don’t have a big win outside of Baylor at home. They don’t have a win over a ranked team, so we knew they were coming to get us. … So this was a big game for them. Forget rivalries and all that. In this season and where they’re at and because of their stumble against West Virginia and Kentucky in Seattle. UConn in New York across the country was almost impossible right now. We put a premium on this game. And before you ask, previous years have nothing to do with this game.”
on how he saw the team finish against Gonzaga after the North Carolina loss
“Well, we played a lot smarter until [Sebastian Mack’s] play when we said if they take a layup, we weren’t going to foul. If they took their time to run a play for a three we were going to foul and they went for the layup. But fortunately, Sebastian understands and know he made a mistake. It happens. I can coach him about it and talk to him about it and he’s probably not going to go to the owner and get me fired like Sacramento did. … Other than that play, we played really smart down the stretch.”
on what this win means heading into conference play
“Well, look, I’ve got a lot of issues. It’s my opinion that we should be undefeated. That being said, it’s really irrelevant in college basketball. You’ve got to get in the tournament. You obviously want to take on the west coast being where we are in an east coast league. You try to win the tournament. That’s what life at UCLA is. That’s why I came to UCLA. Win or lose today, I was a miserable human for a couple of days after the North Carolina game. But you’ve got to be mature enough to realize even if you win, you got to get better. And we got 18 Big Ten games left. I think our next game is at Nebraska. It’s been two years since they’ve lost at home or something. It’s not going to stop. You got to use all of these things as a chance to get better. And these guys, they are getting paid now, and as much as they love my sweet demeanor and soft touch as their coach, they’d like to play professional. So they’ve got to get better. That’s how I look at every day. You can ask me if I ever come to practice without intensity. I try to tell them this is what you’ve got to do to be a pro. That’s why Kobe Bryant was my favorite player because that’s who he was every day.”
on how Gonzaga’s spacing was able to help UCLA generate offense
“I know we can shoot because I see us every day. Shooting can come and go. We started off bad. … I think that stats can sometimes be skewed. Especially when you play games that you win by 60 or 70 points, which they do. So I don’t know. I haven’t cued up their stats against high major opponents and it’s not the same as their overall shooting stats. But we did try to spread them out and we did try to post our guards today. Eric (Dailey Jr.) didn’t even practice. He got his mask in today for his nose. He hasn’t even practiced with it and goes 4-for-5 from three and 4-for-6 from the line. Well that’s what happens when you live in the gym.”
on defending Graham Ike
“Well, we doubled him a few times. The truth of it is, I thought they went to the pick and roll. Mark [Few] tried to run a few times away from their bench where they tried to run a screen, turn out their best shooter, [Ryan] Nembhard, and then throw it in. Kobe didn’t let Nembhard catch it. I think that Mark tried to set a few post ups up, but it just didn’t happen. We didn’t let them get the ball from A to B to C.”
on contributions from his bench
“Early on, I thought Trent [Perry] played pretty well. I tried to get a time to get him back in and I couldn’t find it. I don’t look at certain guys as bench players. To me, Lazar Stefanovic and Sebastian [Mack] – those guys are all really good players. We could rotate starting lineups. Obviously, we didn’t have William [Kyle III] today, so we played nine instead of 10. [Aday Mara] was getting fouled every time he touched the ball. It was ridiculous. His size is his skill if you’re not just holding, grabbing, poking and just fouling him all the time. So it’s tough for him. I told them it was going to be World War III today. I told them it was coming. It’s hard for [Mara] to display his talent.
UCLA guard Skyy Clark
on how he felt he did pressuring Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard
“He’s a great point guard. He’s averaging 10 assists. It’s very hard to speed him up. He’s similar to his brother who was also at Gonzaga. I was just trying to do my best to contain him. I had active hands in the pick and roll. We knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hit the pocket on the pick and roll. Just trying to take him away from that as much as possible to really stop their offense.”
on what he thought after Nembhard missed his free throw in the final seconds
“I just knew Coach Cronin told me we were up one. He’s been teaching us that hit the front of the rim when you’re shooting a free throw. So I was really trying to focus on that. He said 95 percent of those shot go in.”
on bouncing back after the North Carolina loss
“It means a lot. We knew we let a big one slip away in New York. We are still feeling that. But we’ve got to learn from it and move on. We just came into this game hungry. We did not want to lose at all. That was our mindset.”
UCLA forward Eric Dailey Jr.
on how it felt to play with the mask
“It felt a little different. I put in hours in the gym, so just finding the rhythm. It wasn’t that bad.”
UCLA guard Kobe Johnson
on contributions from multiple players against Gonzaga
“When I was out, the team was playing great. We had guys like Laz [Stefanovic] and Skyy [Clark] step up for me. When you’ve got people who are able to step up in your spot that’s definitely something that’s good on this team. I just knew I had to come in the second half and just do the right things and make the right plays.”
on his mindset in the second half
“You saw my confidence kept going up every time I kept hitting the shots. Being able to stay mindful of the game and not try to get too much into it helped me stay in it.”
on the team’s shooting performance
“That happens in practice every now and then, but one I get it going, I get it going.”
on his message to the team after the Gonzaga foul at the end of the game
“Just finish the game out. I’m pretty sure we were up one at that point. We were celebrating like we won the game, and I just wanted to make in sure all the guys knew that we didn’t win quite yet. We had to stick it out and finish out how many seconds were left on the clock and get the win.”
on refining his game as the season goes on
“Coach Cronin trusts me a whole lot to have the ball in my hands, so when I got the ball in my hands, I’ve got to make the right plays and make the right decisions. Just being able to continue to build his trust in me is only going to build the confidence within me to have the ball a whole lot more as a playmaker for this team.”
on Eric Dailey Jr.’s work ethic
“Every time I go into the gym, he’s always on the gun doing something in the gym. Eric lives in the gym. Any time he can get his shots up, he’s always going into the gym to get his shots up. Whether that’s before film session, after film session, anytime he can get into the gym, he’s getting his shots in. Being able to see somebody like that so young and so hungry, it motivates the whole team to want to be dawgs as well. He was here [in the gym on Christmas Eve]. He was in LA. I think he got back Christmas Eve and I believe he was in the gym right away.”