In Reply to: Time for Cronin to go? posted by KirklandBruin on January 19, 2026 at 14:27:11
J/K. I honestly don’t know who this guy is, and he comes off as overly dramatic to me. Self and Davis aren’t going anywhere, and neither is Cronin—at least that’s how it seems.There are some legitimate criticisms, but claims like “those were Alford’s guys” don’t hold water. I don’t care who recruited them—Cronin coached them. The four-star players on that team had accomplished nothing under Alford. The best players ended up being Smith and Jaime, both three-star recruits, so what exactly did he inherit?
That said, as Cronin himself acknowledged at the presser, these are now his guys—he recruited or signed them—and ultimately the responsibility falls on him. He hasn’t been able to put a cohesive team together the last couple of years, and that’s on him, regardless of how much people want to blame NIL. He gets a pass for the Euro experiment year but not this year. He had money. Turns out it was foolishly spent. And yes, he gets a lot of the blame for Mara leaving.
Cronin will do well just to get this group into the tournament. It won’t be easy, but it would help his case. I think he’ll get an opportunity to build a roster for next year, and we’ll see how that turns out. If next year’s team is substandard, I don’t think he gets another season at UCLA, buyout or not. He could end up pulling an Andy Enfield and heading out the door.