Un-Connon Opinions: NCAA tournament win under Cronin will be crucial to men’s basketball comeback

When Mick Cronin spoke with the media Sunday after finding out his Bruins had made the NCAA tournament, he reaffirmed the promise he made to the fanbase when he took the job in April 2019.

The coach said he came to Westwood to build a championship program.

That’s quite the lofty goal, but Cronin still needs to be held to his word.

UCLA men’s basketball (17-9, 13-6 Pac-12) earned a No. 11 seed in this year’s tournament, drawing a First Four matchup with No. 11 seed Michigan State (15-12, 9-11 Big Ten) set for Thursday night. Expecting a Final Four trip in 2021 is beyond unreasonable based on the path the Bruins have ahead of them and their thinned-out roster, so this is far from a do-or-die scenario for Cronin.

All of the points Cronin has raised over the past few weeks are valid. Five-star guard Daishen Nix was supposed to be on the roster before he jumped ship for the G League last spring, guard Chris Smith was UCLA’s lone senior and best player before tearing his ACL in late December, and losing redshirt junior forward/center Jalen Hill to personal reasons has hurt the Bruins on both sides of the ball over the past six weeks.

Looking at UCLA’s roster as currently constituted, it isn’t one that seems primed for a deep run.

The only issue is this same team proved it could overcome the lack of talent earlier in the year when it started 12-2 without Nix and went 6-0 in conference play following Smith’s injury. A highly paid coach such as Cronin – especially one with a hard-nosed, defense-first reputation – is supposed to make his team better than the sum of its parts.

Even with some of its parts missing, that expectation still stands for UCLA.

As Cronin has said on multiple occasions over the past week, the Bruins have played well down the stretch. UCLA held late leads against Colorado and Oregon on the road, and it was a missed free throw away from beating USC in its regular-season finale and beating Oregon State at the Pac-12 tournament.

But when the Bruins lose, Cronin continues to bring up the lack of bodies and who isn’t on the floor.

The fact of the matter is that if a team is talented enough to take big leads, it is talented enough to hold onto those leads. Chris Smith is not walking through that door; Daishen Nix is not walking through that door; Jalen Hill is (probably) not walking through that door.

Cronin knows this, and he rightfully pointed out during Wednesday’s press conference that his team has enough talent to win regardless of who’s out. It’s one thing to say that before a game, but it’s another thing entirely to go on and secure the victory without making any excuses.

Cronin has to prove he can succeed with what he has so he can start to change the narrative that has followed both him and UCLA for most of the past decade.

Cronin was known for consistently making March Madness before joining UCLA but not necessarily for winning in it. Despite making the tournament in each of his final nine seasons at Cincinnati, Cronin’s Bearcats earned just six wins – one of which he wasn’t able to be on the bench for after suffering an unruptured aneurysm in 2015 – and only made one Sweet 16 appearance.

The assumption by many was that once Cronin got his hands on UCLA’s facilities, talent and recruiting prowess, he would be able to turn tournament appearances into tournament wins. Cronin has a chance to prove those people right come Thursday against Michigan State and actually build momentum for 2021 and 2022 teams poised to boast multiple five-star recruits in addition to returning upperclassmen.

That’s what’s at stake Thursday – not Cronin’s job or a Cinderella championship run. Just an opportunity to prove his program has made progress since Steve Alford lost in this same exact spot in 2018.

After all, the Bruins should be playing the Final Fours, not First Fours.