What a difference a year makes.
The last time Mick Cronin and the UCLA Bruins came to Tempe, they were ranked in the top five of the AP Poll and widely considered to be legitimate contenders to win a national championship. After a gut-wrenching loss in the Sweet 16 and the departures of several program keystones, though, the Bruins are now in the midst of one of the most dramatic season-to-season regressions in the recent history of college basketball.
Having lost almost double the number of games they did all of last season and with an overall record of 7-10, including a 2-4 Pac-12 mark (8th place), to say UCLA has vastly underperformed its expectations would be an understatement.
With program stalwarts Tyger Campbell and Jaime Jaquez Jr. off to the pros, along with high-caliber athletes Jaylen Clark and Amari Bailey, UCLA has lacked the star power in an unfavorable schedule. In a challenging yet manageable non-conference slate, the Bruins were competitive in defeat to forecasted NCAA Tournament teams Marquette, Gonzaga, and Villanova while also coming up short in tilts with fellow Power Six programs Maryland and Ohio State. Their struggle would be put on the national stage in embarrassing fashion with a home loss to Cal State Northridge on December 19. That egregious loss would send Cronin’s team into a tailspin to start conference play, where they would drop four of their first five contests.
Offensive struggles have been the crux of UCLA’s shortcomings this year. The Bruins are one of four Pac-12 teams (Washington State, USC, and Oregon State being the other three) to sport three or fewer double-digit scorers. Their KenPom offensive efficiency rating runs nearly in the bottom third of all Division I programs. More than 57 percent of UCLA’s scoring comes from inside the three-point line, and the Bruins are in the 300s (362 Division I teams) in both two-point and three-point shooting.
To be fair. Mick Cronin’s calling card has been on the other end of the court.
Securing his first high major head coaching job at Cincinnati in 2006, Cronin built the Bearcats into a perennial tournament team between the Big East and American Athletic Conferences, making nine straight trips to the Dance from 2010-2019. On the back of a hounding defensive pressure that forced opponents into contested shots, Cronin’s Bearcats finished in the top 30 of KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric nationally every season of their aforementioned run of success. It’s a style of play that Cronin brought with him when hired by UCLA after the 2019 campaign.
Now in his fifth year at the helm of the Bruins, the blue and gold’s average placement has improved every season, even reaching the second-best ranking nationally for last season. Even for all their lapses this year, UCLA still boasts a top-40 defensive efficiency mark on KenPom, second-best in the Pac-12 behind Arizona. It has been on display in holding elite scoring squads in Marquette and Gonzaga well below their season averages but couldn’t carry enough of the load as the Bruins fell in four straight Pac-12 contests after winning their opener against Oregon State.
Despite the slump, UCLA snapped their four-game losing streak with a 12-point win at home over Washington this past Sunday, holding the same Huskies team that hung 82 points on the Sun Devils last Thursday to just 61 at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins pack leader in that victory, as well as all winter, has been their main holdover from a season ago, six-foot-ten sophomore forward Adem Bona. Starting all but one game in the 33 he played for last year’s group, Bona matured as the season went on and became a defensive anchor for a second-weekend team.
This year, with nearly all of UCLA’s scoring output sapped by the professional ranks, Bona has stepped up to score 12.5 points per game while leading the team in rebounds and blocks by comfortable margins. Freshman guard Sebastian Mack has been the team’s go-to bucket-getter, averaging 13.6 points per game, albeit on inefficient shooting numbers for his position, which he makes up for in quality perimeter defense with his length and athleticism. Dylan Andrews contributes another 10 points a night but also doesn’t provide much relief from the three-point line as the team’s leading ball distributor, shooting 24 percent.
Junior wing Lazar Stefanovic has been a bit of an x-factor for Cronin this year. Listed as a guard but measuring six-foot-seven, the Serbian native contributes nine points a contest but makes his presence known on the defensive end, ripping down 5.5 boards per game while also adding a steal as well.
This iteration of the Bruins, in particular, struggles to score the ball, and they haven’t found a way to alleviate that pressure as conference season opens. While they stop the ball as well as anyone in the league, UCLA doesn’t run off the fastbreak, and without shot makers on the perimeter, it often sees its halfcourt offense bog down into a near standstill.
Having given the Bruins all they could handle at Desert Financial Arena in recent years, including a shocking overtime upset in 2022, Arizona State has been well-equipped to handle Mick Cronin’s team on their home floor. With this group in serious disarray, Bobby Hurley’s boys will need to keep the defensive train on the track. Despite the 82 points surrendered their last time out in Seattle, the Sun Devils defense fell victim to the hot shooting hands of Washington more than their own defensive shortcomings and should be able to steady out against a poor shooting team such as UCLA.
As long as ASU can make shots regularly, as was seen in their recent four-game win streak to open the conference season, the Sun Devils should be up to the task of a get-right game before the ultra-talented USC Trojans come to town on Saturday.
