In Reply to: UCLA just built the kind of roster Mick Cronin loves posted by mh on May 21, 2026 at 15:07:43
I'm still leery of Booker at the 5. I heard what Kris Johnson said about him and he made some good and valid points. But still, what we didn't see is a consistent tough Booker mixing it up on the inside. His 3 point shooting will be valuable and a good weapon. I believe many teams may have trouble dealing with that aspect of Booker's game. But, for me the questions still are there. We can reasonable expect Booker to continue to improve and grow his game like he did last season. But until seeing it for me he's still a huge question mark.
The other thing about this upcoming team is the lack of that one guy who can take over when needed. Someone to rely on and be that guy that everything sort of hinges on - the marquee guy so to speak. Now, it's true that teams don't necessarily need that. Johnson talked about the possibility that the Bruins could have 5 or maybe 6 guys averaging double digits or nearly so. Those kinds of teams are hard to defend because there's no one opponents can focus on and a team like that isn't dependent on that one guy.
So, maybe as the team stands now with everyone being on the same page playing near or to their maximum and 5 or 6 guys averaging double digits they can be a hard team to beat. A team like that could challenge for a conference championship and perhaps make a deep run in the tourney. But for that to happen a lot of things have to line up positively and everyone has to be consistent throughout the whole of the season. Right now I just think it's a lot to ask of this roster and the chances of that happening seems remote at best. Maybe Cronin gets that one guy who elevates everything or maybe he gets everyone to play to their max and maybe this team ends up being strong. We'll just have to wait and see. I can't help but think Cronin isn't done yet and he's going to bring in one or maybe two others guys. I guess we'll have to also wait to see if that happens.