In Reply to: Love KJ posted by Cachorro on July 01, 2026 at 17:12:44
for the best high school players every year. And I would also like to see UCLA get one or two of them every year. But I firmly believe that success can be attained without that. I understand your stated criteria for what you believe is success, but they are somewhat arbitrary. Yes, someone like Duke is always in the running for the best players - transfers, high school players, or foreign. And they are seemingly always rated in the top 10 if not the top 5. And they often make deep runs in the tourney, seem to get to the final four on a fairly consistent basis. And, of course they seem to win it all every few years or so, or at least it feels that way.
Who wouldn't want that success? Everyone is striving for that I'm sure. But, Cronin has been at UCLA 7 years. He has gotten quite a few highly regarded recruits and brought in a few highly coveted transfers. Maybe not Duke numbers, but still respectable. Let's be honest, very few come near to Duke numbers.
I know you will probably disagree with me here, but in Cronin's 7 seasons he has had 4 teams that could have competed for a national championship including last year. They have never been the favorites to take it all, but still at season's end he has had teams that were perhaps not on the verge of going all the way or at least to the final four, but they were in the conversation. With a little bit of luck Cronin could of had 3 or maybe even 4 final fours.
I know that's not the kind of success you are talking about and I can see that, but still that ain't bad. Cronin isn't slick, he's not sexy or flashy, his teams don't play what some may call exciting basketball, he doesn't get a lot of the marquee players, but he is still doing, IMO, a helluva job.
I've said this many times. There are things Cronin does that drive me up the wall. There are things about him that I just don't like. But he is a damn good coach and I think generally he is doing things in a solid way. I like the way he builds his teams. I like how his teams compete - they are hardly ever out of a game. And I like the way his teams often play way better than what's expected. That ain't nothing. In fact what it is is good coaching.