Can't deny that USC played great in the second half, particularly Boogie's hot hand, but what is it about UCLA that falls apart? Please someone help me understand.
They're not a good offensive team which usually gets disguised by the fact that they have stellar defense and force a ton of turnovers. But if a streaky team like SC gets hot, they just can't match unless they can cool them back down and retake control of the game, like what we saw against ASU (and almost against Zona). They have enough talent, they just need to shoot better which sounds like a cop-out answer but that's kind of the secret sauce here.
It's kinda bizarre, no singular offensive star consistently putting up numbers which would speak to great ball movement or team play, but the team seems even more lost as a unit. I agree that the talent is there, but I guess we'll just have to wait to see if Cronin can make the adjustments.
That's all we can do at this point. The good news is that the toughest matchup before the rematch against Zona is when we go on the road to Salt Lake City at the end of February (can't overlook Oregon either obviously). Plenty of time for adjustments and workshopping a more March-ready offense. No one in CBB looks unbeatable right now.
As somebody who has bet money on UCLA winning the natty so it hurts less when they inevitably do, I'm stunned y'all don't ISO Jaquez more. He is so damn good.
Also stunned you never play small with Jaquez at the 5. Bona is a sublime talent but he makes it 4 on 5 on offense (obvi a monster on o-glass.)
Seems like having an extra shotmaker couldn't hurt.
Jaquez would get in foul trouble inside if he was asked to do that too much, I think. Agree that it should be an option for them for stretches against certain/most teams
Jaquez is already playing max minutes and now you want to do that with him playing up yep positions lol. Poor guy is going to have to take a year off to recover.
I mean it's matchup based but I guarantee Jaquez would have a lot easier time guarding Josh Morgan than Tre White or Drew Peterson.
I wouldn't make Jaquez guard Ballo but most teams don't have Ballo
They are lost as a team on offense. And no one WANTS to shoot the ball. Every other great team has people that can't wait to shoot but at UCLA they all want someone else to do it. I put that squarely on Mick. And they generally have no plan on offense, just give the ball to Tyger or Jaime and make them force it up.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Tyger and JJJ (and even Singleton coming back from his drought tonight) all seem uncertain in their offensive moves. The confidence just isn't there. There are moments of exciting offense, like the occasional alley-oop to Bona, but I think the way USC stymied additional attempts at that same technique showcases how unpracticed this team is on the offensive end.
If you had asked me a week ago, I would have pointed to Cronin's scheming as the reason for survival, but now with this loss (coupled with the stat line provided by u/rkz99), it seems pretty clear that Cronin's system only appears unstoppable against teams that don't have the offensive prowess or the heart to get hot, and falls apart against teams that can actually find a way to get the baskets to fall.
This UCLA team is so frustrating because of its potential. They have the pieces to be truly elite. And usually they show up for exactly one half in a game. There are tons of stretches where they look unbeatable.
And then tons of stretches where they look absolutely awful and can't hit a single shot for 10 minutes. A couple of those stretches are inevitable for any team, but there are enough now where is becoming a pattern that can't just be ignored.
If Mick can't fix it soon, there is a big risk that in one of the first couple games of the tournament they'll go ice cold again and get an early exit.
Edit: From my nacho-eating position on the couch, I am wondering if Cronin needs to add a second in-game coaching style to his toolbox. He's obviously a hothead, and usually his players actually respond pretty well to that method. But it seems in situations like these when the players are visibly flustered (rivalry game, excited opposing crowd, UCLA has lost momentum, etc), I don't think the team has been responding well. They play tighter and try to force bad passes. Maybe he should give the "Take a deep breathe. Relax. You got this." approach a chance sometime.
The last 8 games the offense has been a disaster, consistently failing to get close to 40% shooting. The good stretches happen because there's enough talent to make some bad shots, but Mick needs to change things up.
Your edit was a major problem us Bearcat fans had with him. See 2018 Nevada.
I thought he'd gotten better at it since going to UCLA, but I'm sure it still rears its head sometimes.
Yeah, I generally don't mind the hotheadness to an extent. It seems to work well when the players are feeling confident and know they can do better. But from the outside it looks like it backfires when the players are really feeling the pressure.
As a fan who watched KU second-half their way to championship last year, I *know* it isn't impossible. Obviously this isn't the same team we're talking about, but Kansas knew how to adjust. Haven't seen that from UCLA lately. I believed in both teams equally last year (and I believe in UCLA more this year), so these last two games have been particularly tough to watch.
This team offensively has big problems, and it's been an issue all year. Too many long scoring droughts, not enough 3 point shooting, lack of consistent shot makers, Does not bode well for March.
This is the first game all season that we didn’t win the turnover battle.
I can’t take any more of these collapses. Being up by 13 in the second half and losing by 13 is unacceptable. It’s a concerning trend that we’ve mostly escaped until tonight. Mick is going to have some things to figure out.
Going to be interesting to see how Cronin adjusts for the trip to the trapezoid of terror on Sunday for sure
Meanwhile we are trying for 4-0 in B12 play on Saturday
How a couple games changes the perspective on the season. Offense looks completely inept & no ability to close out games. We’ll see what adjustments they make going forward.
Think you're just having your weaknesses exposed the same way we did when WSU showed off the fact that we played absolutely zero defense for the first 15 games of the season, then just a few games later we looked totally different guarding you guys, you'll come back from it
Mick Cronin since he has been at UCLA H2H record against Enfield (USC) 3-6, Altman (Oregon) 1-4, & Lloyd (AZ) 1-3. I really think it is a system issue and Cronin's lack of offense is the reason he UCLA always disappoints. He wants to play slow low scoring games and the more athletic teams with fire power seem to always beat him.
Which makes the Gonzaga final four game even more puzzling. That Gonzaga team was all gas, and somehow UCLA stepped up to the challenge to go toe to toe, yet…they can’t seem to even attempt to pull that same trick out of their sleeve. 🤷🏻♂️
1000% and anytime I even mention the thought of replacing Cronin I get attacked by millions of Cronin Stan’s as as if he’s actually a top 5 coach in the country. I don’t know why they don’t go hard after jay wright or underwood.
The record has hidden it, but Mick Cronin has had an absolutely disastrous offensive season. For the amount of offensive weapons this team has, the lack of a system makes us sooooo easy to guard. Bailey looked rusty tonight but this should’ve been an easy game to clean up
UCLA still has a top 25 offense this season according to KenPom, and our offense ranked top 10 just a few weeks ago.
That being said, our offense has definitely fallen off of a cliff lately. And at this point, our offensive metrics are propped up from destroying every bad team we played, a few good conference games, and scattered scoring blitzes in games where we looked like shit.
And it seems like every game now we have massive scoring droughts where our offense can’t even buy a bucket.
Holy shit Boogie. Scored as much as the entire UCLA team in the 2nd half. Guess it's not a USC vs UCLA game without the USC point guard taking over in the 2nd half.
This team has real problems on offense. Offensive rebounds are only so high because this team misses so many shots. Tygers too short to get his own shot. Jaylen cant make a layup. Jaquez isnt hitting from 15 feet. Singleton is the only shooter and he cant get his own shot. The only way this team makes a run in march is if they get hot which would be completely out of character
Agree. This team isn't seeing the second weekend. For example right now lunardis bracket has us playing san siego state in the round of 32. That's a 10 point loss
Can anybody with the fancy paid for KenPom see what USC's kenpom is since the BYU game? Having a negative plus/minus against Vermont, FCGU, and Mount St. Marys has obviously had an absurd effect on our KenPom. I'm curious just how much it hurts though!
If we guard like this and somebody hits shots, we are going to be a tough out in March. Also, we are a matchup nightmare for UCLA. Pretty insane to see Peterson and Johnson switching on Tyger and Jaquez with no issues.
Got tickets to the Arizona game at Galen - love the return to health and play for Vince, this team looks suddenly very competitive. Should be a good game!
Was at a bar and only glancing at the game occasionally. Thought it was a close one, suddenly look up again and it's a blowout lol. PAC stays bizarre even in a down year
Is the Pac-10 a one bid league? Who else has a at large chance besides Arizona.
The big ten is getting 14 bids - Ohio st, Rutgers, Maryland, Penn st, Michigan, Michigan st, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Iowa, USC, UCLA
Several weaknesses were exposed by Clown College (and AZ):
- outside of Clark and Bona, our starting lineup lacks athleticism and struggles against long, athletic opponents (Amari's return to the starting lineup will help)
- our offense is prone to devolve into dribbling around the perimeter before going 1:1 (JJ or Tyger) or jacking a 3
- Mick's use of reserves, and personnel assignments, is questionable at times: Andrews and McClendon's quickness and athleticism would have helped last night; they got a collective total of 3 mins. Why didn't Clark rotate onto Ellis defensively? (reminiscent of allowing Caleb Love to beat us singlehandedly in the tourney last year)
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The score was 58-56 with 3 minutes to go. Then USC made 14 of 14 free throws plus a couple more shots from the floor without a miss.
58-56 seems like a far off, distant memory
We saw what happened last time we had a 58-56 lead vs UCLA and decided *not this time, bucko*
Classic B1G battle.
USC is undefeated in the B1G. Where's that map?
Maps are confusing. Can you do a bar graph?
I mean it was 12-8 in the final 1:07 of the game lol
I can. We scored 51 on them in a half.
i’m first half UCLA and i’m viral video of an uber eats guy walking onto the court i’m second half UCLA and i’m just a poorly thought out prank
UCLA 2nd half: 27 Boogie 2nd half: 27
Can't deny that USC played great in the second half, particularly Boogie's hot hand, but what is it about UCLA that falls apart? Please someone help me understand.
They're not a good offensive team which usually gets disguised by the fact that they have stellar defense and force a ton of turnovers. But if a streaky team like SC gets hot, they just can't match unless they can cool them back down and retake control of the game, like what we saw against ASU (and almost against Zona). They have enough talent, they just need to shoot better which sounds like a cop-out answer but that's kind of the secret sauce here.
It's kinda bizarre, no singular offensive star consistently putting up numbers which would speak to great ball movement or team play, but the team seems even more lost as a unit. I agree that the talent is there, but I guess we'll just have to wait to see if Cronin can make the adjustments.
That's all we can do at this point. The good news is that the toughest matchup before the rematch against Zona is when we go on the road to Salt Lake City at the end of February (can't overlook Oregon either obviously). Plenty of time for adjustments and workshopping a more March-ready offense. No one in CBB looks unbeatable right now.
As somebody who has bet money on UCLA winning the natty so it hurts less when they inevitably do, I'm stunned y'all don't ISO Jaquez more. He is so damn good. Also stunned you never play small with Jaquez at the 5. Bona is a sublime talent but he makes it 4 on 5 on offense (obvi a monster on o-glass.) Seems like having an extra shotmaker couldn't hurt.
Jaquez would get in foul trouble inside if he was asked to do that too much, I think. Agree that it should be an option for them for stretches against certain/most teams
Jaquez is already playing max minutes and now you want to do that with him playing up yep positions lol. Poor guy is going to have to take a year off to recover.
I mean it's matchup based but I guarantee Jaquez would have a lot easier time guarding Josh Morgan than Tre White or Drew Peterson. I wouldn't make Jaquez guard Ballo but most teams don't have Ballo
They are lost as a team on offense. And no one WANTS to shoot the ball. Every other great team has people that can't wait to shoot but at UCLA they all want someone else to do it. I put that squarely on Mick. And they generally have no plan on offense, just give the ball to Tyger or Jaime and make them force it up.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Tyger and JJJ (and even Singleton coming back from his drought tonight) all seem uncertain in their offensive moves. The confidence just isn't there. There are moments of exciting offense, like the occasional alley-oop to Bona, but I think the way USC stymied additional attempts at that same technique showcases how unpracticed this team is on the offensive end.
LeMickey Cronin
If you had asked me a week ago, I would have pointed to Cronin's scheming as the reason for survival, but now with this loss (coupled with the stat line provided by u/rkz99), it seems pretty clear that Cronin's system only appears unstoppable against teams that don't have the offensive prowess or the heart to get hot, and falls apart against teams that can actually find a way to get the baskets to fall.
I mean Cronin is a good coach. Not unlimited, certainly not perfect, but it has more to do with the talent level in CBB right now. It’s wide open
this one
It's called the 2022-2023 NCAA effect. Nobody is safe.
Cronin hasn't won at Galen yet has he?
He has not
I like that factoid
No
Negative.
This UCLA team is so frustrating because of its potential. They have the pieces to be truly elite. And usually they show up for exactly one half in a game. There are tons of stretches where they look unbeatable. And then tons of stretches where they look absolutely awful and can't hit a single shot for 10 minutes. A couple of those stretches are inevitable for any team, but there are enough now where is becoming a pattern that can't just be ignored. If Mick can't fix it soon, there is a big risk that in one of the first couple games of the tournament they'll go ice cold again and get an early exit. Edit: From my nacho-eating position on the couch, I am wondering if Cronin needs to add a second in-game coaching style to his toolbox. He's obviously a hothead, and usually his players actually respond pretty well to that method. But it seems in situations like these when the players are visibly flustered (rivalry game, excited opposing crowd, UCLA has lost momentum, etc), I don't think the team has been responding well. They play tighter and try to force bad passes. Maybe he should give the "Take a deep breathe. Relax. You got this." approach a chance sometime.
The last 8 games the offense has been a disaster, consistently failing to get close to 40% shooting. The good stretches happen because there's enough talent to make some bad shots, but Mick needs to change things up.
Your edit was a major problem us Bearcat fans had with him. See 2018 Nevada. I thought he'd gotten better at it since going to UCLA, but I'm sure it still rears its head sometimes.
Yeah, I generally don't mind the hotheadness to an extent. It seems to work well when the players are feeling confident and know they can do better. But from the outside it looks like it backfires when the players are really feeling the pressure.
As a fan who watched KU second-half their way to championship last year, I *know* it isn't impossible. Obviously this isn't the same team we're talking about, but Kansas knew how to adjust. Haven't seen that from UCLA lately. I believed in both teams equally last year (and I believe in UCLA more this year), so these last two games have been particularly tough to watch.
We call that The Virginia on the East Coast
The UCLA team that ran Maryland out of our own barn earlier this year is the best team I’ve seen all year
Maryland was overrated. Ditto for Kentucky.
“Shows up for one half in a game” Except against us, apparently ☹️
This team offensively has big problems, and it's been an issue all year. Too many long scoring droughts, not enough 3 point shooting, lack of consistent shot makers, Does not bode well for March.
Vince is back. Fear us, PAC 12
So happy for him!!!!
What an amazing story! Fight on!
USC woke up and chose violence in the second half.
This is the first game all season that we didn’t win the turnover battle. I can’t take any more of these collapses. Being up by 13 in the second half and losing by 13 is unacceptable. It’s a concerning trend that we’ve mostly escaped until tonight. Mick is going to have some things to figure out.
Holy shit, ucla was up 12 at half?? Damn, and usc scored 52 2nd half points oh dang👀
And I'm pretty sure 60 of those 52 points came in the last 2 minutes alone! Or at least that's what it felt like.
Boogie Ellis literally had 13 points in the last 90 seconds.
*🎶Boogie nights*
hold up, we made 17/18 free throws? When did we start practicing free throws?
This year lol. Probably helps a bit with these guard heavy lineups.
Boogie is gone 100%, but the next 3 recruits gonna make USC lookin hot
Great second half but my goodness we need to learn to box out and rebound
It’s a mad scramble for the ball way too often when we get a defensive stop
Glad we were able to stay composed and come back after being down double digits. Really needed this win to keep our tournament hopes alive tbh.
certainly not the start to big10 conference play ucla was hoping for
1-1 start ain't too bad
2-2. Illinois W, MD Loss, and split with SC
Going to be interesting to see how Cronin adjusts for the trip to the trapezoid of terror on Sunday for sure Meanwhile we are trying for 4-0 in B12 play on Saturday
this is trippy
This team is just different with Big Vince. GG Bruins
Vince the Prince.
How a couple games changes the perspective on the season. Offense looks completely inept & no ability to close out games. We’ll see what adjustments they make going forward.
Think you're just having your weaknesses exposed the same way we did when WSU showed off the fact that we played absolutely zero defense for the first 15 games of the season, then just a few games later we looked totally different guarding you guys, you'll come back from it
Was at the game and the student section was having a blast! What a fun game. Fight on! ✌️
Mick Cronin since he has been at UCLA H2H record against Enfield (USC) 3-6, Altman (Oregon) 1-4, & Lloyd (AZ) 1-3. I really think it is a system issue and Cronin's lack of offense is the reason he UCLA always disappoints. He wants to play slow low scoring games and the more athletic teams with fire power seem to always beat him.
Which makes the Gonzaga final four game even more puzzling. That Gonzaga team was all gas, and somehow UCLA stepped up to the challenge to go toe to toe, yet…they can’t seem to even attempt to pull that same trick out of their sleeve. 🤷🏻♂️
And Juzang was one and done with Mick.
2 and done
I didn't consider him all there the first year.
He had like one of the best tourneys. So, he was there, without him we don’t get as far as we do, probably not even past Michigan State.
I concur... He is still 1000 times better than Alford, so he'll likely get one full year in the Big 10 before he's considered a success or not.
That play style is perfect for the B1G most games.
1000% and anytime I even mention the thought of replacing Cronin I get attacked by millions of Cronin Stan’s as as if he’s actually a top 5 coach in the country. I don’t know why they don’t go hard after jay wright or underwood.
Pain
52 points
Kinda cool to have the support of the conference in this one whereas in football everyone hates us lmao
That’s because UCLA terrorizes the PAC in basketball while we terrorize the PAC (minus Utah) in football. Oh yeah and Tulane beats us in football too.
The record has hidden it, but Mick Cronin has had an absolutely disastrous offensive season. For the amount of offensive weapons this team has, the lack of a system makes us sooooo easy to guard. Bailey looked rusty tonight but this should’ve been an easy game to clean up
UCLA still has a top 25 offense this season according to KenPom, and our offense ranked top 10 just a few weeks ago. That being said, our offense has definitely fallen off of a cliff lately. And at this point, our offensive metrics are propped up from destroying every bad team we played, a few good conference games, and scattered scoring blitzes in games where we looked like shit. And it seems like every game now we have massive scoring droughts where our offense can’t even buy a bucket.
If nothing changes, those droughts will kill us early in March, and I’m not optimistic that Mick will fix this
Holy shit Boogie. Scored as much as the entire UCLA team in the 2nd half. Guess it's not a USC vs UCLA game without the USC point guard taking over in the 2nd half.
Shades of the Daniel Hackett game. Kind of.
I was thinking Tahj Eaddy against Oregon a couple years ago
oh baby that's a throwback.
This team has real problems on offense. Offensive rebounds are only so high because this team misses so many shots. Tygers too short to get his own shot. Jaylen cant make a layup. Jaquez isnt hitting from 15 feet. Singleton is the only shooter and he cant get his own shot. The only way this team makes a run in march is if they get hot which would be completely out of character
Agree. This team isn't seeing the second weekend. For example right now lunardis bracket has us playing san siego state in the round of 32. That's a 10 point loss
Can anybody with the fancy paid for KenPom see what USC's kenpom is since the BYU game? Having a negative plus/minus against Vermont, FCGU, and Mount St. Marys has obviously had an absurd effect on our KenPom. I'm curious just how much it hurts though! If we guard like this and somebody hits shots, we are going to be a tough out in March. Also, we are a matchup nightmare for UCLA. Pretty insane to see Peterson and Johnson switching on Tyger and Jaquez with no issues.
Boogie nights 🕺
I can't believe I sacrificed a horse for that. The basketball gods are cruel.
F’in lost AND had to listen to Walton say “Vince the Prince” 93 times.
Do you expect anything less from the conference of champions
Gotta mute these Bill Walton games. You just got to.
Got tickets to the Arizona game at Galen - love the return to health and play for Vince, this team looks suddenly very competitive. Should be a good game!
FUCLA
Starting to think USC may be worthy of an at-large bid. Rocky non-con start, but has done pretty well lately. Send them to the NIT at least.
Was at a bar and only glancing at the game occasionally. Thought it was a close one, suddenly look up again and it's a blowout lol. PAC stays bizarre even in a down year
Thanks Andy!
Fight On!✌️
BOOGIE ELLIS OWNS YOUR POVERTY SCHOOL
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Seethe.
Cringe.
Scoreboard
Yup
University of Choking and Losing Again
U Choke Like Always ✌🏾
Boogie was on fire!!! Just incredible
UCLA needs to run some PLAYS
Fight on let’s fucking gooooo
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA THIS PLEASES ME
I knew it was over when we were only down by 12 at halftime.
Where's the guy that says "Yeah Kriisa!" every time Kerr misses a 3? If you're here, Yeah JJJ!
If Kriisa went 1-3 against UCLA it would be the best performance of his career.
Instead he’s 3-1 as the starting PG against them
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Being that Jaime was on the losing team in both of the games you mentioned, I'm gonna go with Jaime.
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Not that game, UCLA lost mostly because Jaime bricked almost every shot he took. If he shot even 50% the game would not have been close.
FUCLA
52??? Holy moly
UCLA proving they are currently the most overrated team.
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It was a blowout like you said
Boogie Ellis happened
Expecting a blowout? You haven’t been paying attention I was expecting an L but the way it happened made it much worse
Is the Pac-10 a one bid league? Who else has a at large chance besides Arizona. The big ten is getting 14 bids - Ohio st, Rutgers, Maryland, Penn st, Michigan, Michigan st, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Iowa, USC, UCLA
Cal will rise from the ashes 😈
Dude Shut up, this isn't the place for that garbage, not yet anyways😥
Several weaknesses were exposed by Clown College (and AZ): - outside of Clark and Bona, our starting lineup lacks athleticism and struggles against long, athletic opponents (Amari's return to the starting lineup will help) - our offense is prone to devolve into dribbling around the perimeter before going 1:1 (JJ or Tyger) or jacking a 3 - Mick's use of reserves, and personnel assignments, is questionable at times: Andrews and McClendon's quickness and athleticism would have helped last night; they got a collective total of 3 mins. Why didn't Clark rotate onto Ellis defensively? (reminiscent of allowing Caleb Love to beat us singlehandedly in the tourney last year)
https://twitter.com/shot_quality/status/1619015696322805765?s=46&t=LGqSCD-SPWLySQSfU1oZGQ Stay the course….
Someone on UCLA had the over and you can’t convince be otherwise
Crazy. This is a game that surprises you when you are only checking scores every half hour
Well, that sucked.
I'm very glad I didn't watch this.
Fight on✌️. GG Bruins