Mick Cronin shreds UCLA defense in Arizona loss: 'My teams don't give up layups with the game on the line'

The UCLA Bruins had their chance to take down the Arizona Wildcats on Friday night. That is, until head coach Mick Cronin saw his defense fall short in the final moments, letting the Wildcats pull away for a late win.

After the game, Cronin didn’t shy away from sharing his frustrations. In particular, with his team’s defensive execution. This came after Arizona was consistently able to get to the rim in the second half of the game.

“Hard fought game,” Mick Cronin said. “We didn’t execute down the stretch. They did, and that was the story of the game. On the bigger picture, we gave up 60 percent from the field in the second half, and they made 13 layups. So, I don’t even know how we were winning, to be honest with you. We have to get better defensively, and much better on the backboard. We had our chances, and we didn’t execute our offense down the stretch, lack thereof, got us. On defense, we gave up layups and my teams don’t give up layups with the game on the line.”

Arizona would finish the game shooting 47.3 percent from the field, including that dominant second half effort that Cronin pointed out. However, they were only shooting 31.6 percent from three-point range compared to 52.9 percent from UCLA. It was the paint where Arizona dominated. The Wildcats had nine offensive rebounds and nine more total rebounds than the Bruins. They also had 38 points in the paint compared to just 20 for UCLA. In particular, Jaden Bradley gave UCLA trouble, finishing with 15 points and some key baskets late.

Mick Cronin would look to give Bradley credit for how he played late. At the same time, he emphasized that the UCLA defense made it too easy late.

“Well, they’re shooting layups. The guy is a hell of a player, so he’s definitely not going to miss layups. Then we also didn’t rotate to him on the perimeter pass. Literally, the whole stadium was wondering if anyone was going to rotate to him. He wanted to drive it and was waiting for anyone to rotate,” Cronin said. “And said I’m going to go down the lane and shoot a layup because he’s a smart and great player, but nobody rotated to him.”

The season is still young in college basketball and the loss to Arizona was UCLA’s first. Still, it will give Mick Cronin plenty to work on in the coming weeks before conference play.