UCLA basketball revival begins with obvious Mick Cronin solutions

It should not be this hard for a Mick Cronin-coached team to tend to basic details.

What makes this UCLA basketball season particularly difficult to deal with is the reality that Mick Cronin doesn’t ask for all that much from his team at the offensive end of the floor. Cronin coached a lot of Cincinnati teams which played rockfights and won with defense. He carried that identity to UCLA. Cronin wants effort, toughness, defense and rebounding first and foremost. Play hard, play tough, be resilient, make life difficult for the opponent. That’s Mick Cronin basketball. It’s not that complicated of a formula. It doesn’t ask his offense to be spectacular.

Mick Cronin, if he gets a great defensive performance from his team, just needs his offense to do a few basic things. One is to not turn the ball over, especially in live-ball situations which feed easy transition baskets to the other team. The second is to not foul and send opponents to the free throw line. In penalty/bonus situations, Cronin-coached teams have to avoid creating a free throw parade for opponents. This limits cheap points for the opposition and dramatically improves a Cronin team’s odds of winning.

A third requirement for Cronin teams is to take good shots. Making them might not happen, but taking the right shot guards against transition chances for opponents. It also puts a Cronin-coached club in better position to succeed.

When we consider where UCLA basketball stands right now, and when we consider how difficult life has been for this team over the past few weeks, the annoying reality is that the Bruins aren’t tending to these basic details.

They are turning the ball over too much. They are giving opponents too many free throws. They are shooting too many 3-pointers. Against Maryland, they were 16 of 35 on 2-pointers and 6 of 18 on 3-pointers. The Bruins got into similar problems with shot selection in other recent games.

Just tend to the basics the way a Mick Cronin team should. The answer for UCLA basketball is not that complicated.