Mick Cronin reveals who he wants more from offensively

Mick Cronin’s UCLA squad is one of the hottest teams in the nation, putting together 13 straight wins and remaining undefeated in Pac-12 conference play so far this season. The Bruins boast one of the conference’s best offensive attacks, but Cronin still wants to see more offensive production out of a particular group of players on his team.

“All the freshmen,” Cronin said. “Dylan (Andrews), Abramo (Canka), the guys that have been starting since Amari’s gone down. They’ve been extremely consistent, and it’s tough because they don’t get a lot of extended minutes.”

The Bruins leading freshman scorer Amari Bailey has missed UCLA’s last five games due to injury, setting up some of the team’s other younger talent for some more minutes. Cronin detailed how he keeps those players ready despite them seeing limited minutes for most of the season, as well as how important they could be in their next game versus the Sun Devils.

“But they’re all talented but their development, our big thing we try to work on practice, and you saw like at Washington when Abramo went in in the first half. He didn’t hesitate, he made a big shot,” Cronin said. “Because like this week, Arizona State plays 10 guys, consistently 10 guys. And so our starters aren’t going to be able to log and play the Iron Man-type minutes against Arizona State.”

Arizona State is just one game behind UCLA in the Pac-12 standings, and are also playing some of their best basketball behind head coach Bobby Hurley and his newly constructed roster built this offseason through the transfer portal.

“So I would say a big key against Arizona State I say is gonna be Dylan, Will (McClendon), Abramo, Kenny (Nwuba), Mac (Etienne), those guys are gonna have to give us some quality minutes. So we work really hard with those guys in practice so when their number is called that they know that just because they don’t play a lot, don’t go in there and play like you don’t belong, play like you do belong. But it’s hard for them, you don’t get extended minutes it’s hard to find a rhythm offensively,” Cronin concluded.

Adem Bona was the only freshman on the roster to score in UCLA’s last game versus Colorado, a game where only players in the starting lineup scored for the Bruins as well. Hopefully, they can get more help from their bench and freshman on Thursday when they take on Arizona State at 10:30 p.m. ET in a game airing on FS1.