Mick Cronin’s UCLA team picked up their biggest win of the season this week, and yet nobody is talking about it…

That’s because everyone is discussing what Mick said after the game instead.

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”And I wanna thank the Big Ten for giving us 5 of our first 7 on the road, bringing Purdue here on Thursday night, when we don’t get back to LA until Saturday night, and giving us the team picked to win the league on two day’s rest after 5 of our first 7 on the road. I really wanna thank the Big Ten for that.”

Again, this was after a WIN. Not just any win, but a season altering win for a UCLA team that has massively underachieved relative to preseason expectations. No, Mick, the Big Ten is not out to get a program that they willingly added to the league less than 2 years ago. Yes, Mick, being in a league with schools that are mostly east of Nebraska is going to cause major scheduling issues and quirks. Nobody is forcing Mick Cronin to be the coach of UCLA. In fact, just about every other program in America besides USC, Oregon, Washington, Cal, and Stanford have a better travel setup, the thing he complains about the most these days, than UCLA.

Of course, finding weird gripes is a feature of the Mick Cronin head coaching experience, not a bug. Just in the last 2 calendar years he’s complained very publicly about the following things: his roster, a lack of financial backing from UCLA boosters, seeing the Statue of Liberty, non conference scheduling, the CBS Sports Classic, the Big Ten schedule, and an 11:30 pm ET tip time for a game that was on the west coast. Some of these complaints can be valid, I get it. I wouldn’t leave the Pacific time zone in the non-conference, either, if I had to travel from Los Angeles to the State College, Pennsylvanias of the world all the time in league play. It’s the level and consistency with which he complains that makes everyone roll their eyes whenever he gets in front of a microphone. I said this week that he is the greatest press conference complainer of all time and I stand by that. The shamelessness that he brings to each and every media availability is the gold standard across all of college sports.

Mick Cronin wasn’t the only person in college basketball pretending to be a victim this week. What Charles Bediako is claiming is frankly insane. If you’re reading this, you certainly know what he is doing and what a certain judge has done for the former and now current Alabama player. I won’t bore you with rehashing those details. What I will say, is that anyone who willingly made a choice of their own volition while having full understanding and knowledge of the consequences of that choice does not get to demand that the consequences of their actions be undone because it is “unfair.” Nate Oats said today, “Charles shouldn’t be punished for choosing to go the academic route out of high school rather than the professional route like the international players did…” That is simply not what is happening here. Bediako is not being punished in the slightest. He made an ill-advised choice knowing the rules and ramifications of that choice. That’s just life, man. It sucks sometimes, but there are choices we all wish we could have back, this is one of them.

Nate Oats is also playing a victim role in this situation. Nobody is forcing him to add an ineligible player to his roster midseason. Nobody is forcing him to play an ineligible player in SEC competition. Oats said today, “First of all, the system is clearly broken.” How does that equate to “I have no choice but to do what it takes to circumvent the rules in order to give my team a
boost at a position of need.” Nobody is forcing him to do this. Like Bediako leaving Bama in 2023, Oats has made a choice to bring on the level of scrutiny that comes with a move like this. It is not the system’s fault that Oats is doing this. That fault is his and his alone. Blaming “the system” is a cop-out and is a failure to be the adult in the room and take ownership of what you are doing. If you believe in what you are doing then stand by it. He clearly does not believe in it to the fullest extent, because he explicitly said that it is someone else’s fault that he has brought this situation upon himself, his team, and the sport. It’s clear that Oats does not care about the future of college basketball as a sport or the plights of college athletes, but he does care about spinning the narrative in a way that makes the self-serving move he made seem like someone else’s fault so he is not the bad guy.

The Things of the midweek…

1. Boogie Fland’s Mid-Game snack

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Sometimes you get a little hungry in the heat of battle, I get it. Somebody needs to check in with College Basketball Arena Popcorn Expert Mike Young on the quality of the O’Connell Center’s popcorn. Boogie shot 4-11 from the field in this game, so maybe he had a case of butterfingers? Either way, Florida cruised over LSU.

2. Tulsa

The Golden Hurricane might be the least heralded good team in the sport. They thumped Memphis 83-66 on Wednesday night and have moved up to #60 at KenPom with a top 25 offense. When it’s all said and done, there’s a good chance they are the only team in The American with any semblance of an at-large case. They’ve still got aways to go to make that a reality, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

3. Donovan Dent

23 points and 13 assists for Donovan Dent in UCLA’s aforementioned win over Purdue. He out dueled Braden Smith in a battle of two of the sport’s best point guards. This was easily Dent’s best game in a UCLA uniform to date.

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4. Arkansas guards

Led by Darius Acuff, the Arkansas guards absolutely put it on Vanderbilt in a matchup of 2 of the SEC’s top backcourts. The quartet of Darius Acuff, Malden Thomas, Karter Knox, and DJ Wagner combined for 57 points and 15 assists. The more telling measure of how much they dominated the game was that the Arkansas frontcourt trio of Nick Pringle, Trevon Brazile, and Malique Ewin combined to shoot 13-17 from the field because they were getting dunk after dunk on assists from the guards. Tyler Tanner and Duke Miles never got going in this game and that was a direct result of John Calipari’s guards.

5. Austin Swartz

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Austin Swartz found the offensive rebound off his own missed free throw to flip a catastrophic home loss to Xavier into a Creighton. The regular tv camera angle does not do justice just how hard it is to bank that shot in. Forget the defenders all over him and his body falling away from the basket, that angle to the backboard is thin and had to be hit perfect on a high arcing shot to fall. It’s one that’s probably missed about 95 times out of 100, but luckily for Creighton that was one of the 5.

6. Alijah Arenas

Alijah Arenas started and played 29 minutes in USC’s loss to Norhwestern. Frankly, it’s just cool to see this kid on the court after all he’s been through in the past year. In April, he was in a major car crash that required someone to pull him out of a burning car, and ultimately led to him being placed in a medically induced coma. While working his way back from the effects of the coma, he tore his meniscus in July. It’s been a long road back for the 5 star freshman (yes, Gilbert Arenas’ son), and it’s so awesome to see a kid find a way to overcome a very scary situation that was further compounded by injury. Sure, USC lost the game and is spiraling, but they got a moment that just 9 months was the last thing on people’s minds within that program. For that team, coaching staff, Arenas friends and family, and anyone who’s followed the story since last April, that moment has to be pretty damn cool.