In Reply to: I'm all over the board today, however posted by Cachorro on February 05, 2026 at 14:14:35
Excellent post, Cachorro. It really speaks to the malaise and decline of our basketball and football programs in recent years.
This predates Cronin, of course, and even extends back into Howland’s last years with us. I wasn’t a fan of the Alford hire, but his recruiting success was phenomenal. He kept UCLA where we expect to be for most of his tenure. The Cronin hire is the one that has most set us back, though. His name wasn’t even in the conversation for Alford’s successor, nor should it have been, but our AD and administration became a little anxious and a little impatient when we failed to hire Rick Barnes, and when other targets like Jamie Dixon and Calipari and others were not interested in the job. This alone is alarming: having coaches simply pass on UCLA. So we moved onto other, less distinguished, less deserving candidates, which is how we got Cronin. No honest UCLA fan will say that they used to follow Cincinnati and think, “man, if only we could get THAT guy.” Instead, we just ignored Cronin like we ignore the dozens of other mediocre coaches nationwide. Cronin getting hired at UCLA is the biggest gift he’s ever been given professionally. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but after years of his player-blaming, unprofessional behavior, and questionable coaching competence, it became plainly clear what a mess we are in. And that Final Four run with Alford’s roster has somehow made this all worse by earning him even more benefit of the doubt, and thus a contract extension.
I’m not ok with being unranked in February. We are a bubble team and could very well miss the NCAA tournament. This is on Cronin. He has never shown that he can build and sustain a winning program, so it shouldn’t be surprising to see him gasping for air in a competitive Big 10 conference.