Tag: Defense

Mick Cronin: [Banter about how cold it is.] For us, this is frigid–a high of 60 today.

HOW IS TYLER DOING AND HOW ARE DYLAN’S CRAMPS CONSIDERING IT SEEMED LIKE THEY HAD BEEN FIXED?

[Shrugs] Tough to say, buddy. I mean, he’s had cramping issues for three years and it’s gone as high as everybody at UCLA Medical–it’s gone to the neurodepartment. People fly here from all over the world to give the best of the best, so it’s not like we haven’t, you know, people that are–don’t email me with ideas, OK, because my main Dr. [Benjamin] Ansell, who’s the best at UCLA, gets our guys into every specialist that we need to get into at UCLA Medical–it’s been looked at from all angles. I think it’s one of those things where they’ve helped him a lot, but it’s creeped back up again. I don’t know if he was always too excited–it’s not all just like, you know, eat a banana, it’s more in-depth than that.

OR FLUIDS?

Yeah, it’s not just that. Look, we have a routine with him and our people are the best from the doctors down to Tyler Lesher, and Dylan knows it, so there’s a routine he goes through every day before the game, day of the game, so.

THINGS HE CAN DO WITH DIET?

All of it. All of it–diet to fluids to supplements.

HOW IS IT FOR A PLAYER TO HAVE TO HANDLE ALL THAT?

You’d have to ask him that. I mean, for most Americans it’s really hard to handle diet and exercise–you’re young, though, so you’ll see.

TYLER BACK AT PRACTICE?

Well, we were off yesterday, we just did recovery. Look, this is a long stretch of games for us, a long stretch. I’m very, very concerned about our emotional gas tank, just mentally, just gave them a mental break yesterday where we just did recovery stuff–trained the guys that haven’t played–we’ve got guys redshirting–and just hitting them with constant scouting reports. You know, basketball players, they care, but they’re human too–back to your question about, you know, how is it to–I’m sure it’s a lot for Dylan to do all his pre-prep stuff and he does a great job with it, but for teams in general to get constantly hit with another scouting report and another practice, as a coach, you’ve got to try to assess when you think they’re on overload. When you’ve got a long stretch of games, you’ve got to try to do everything you can to make sure they’re ready to play on game night, so you know, look, as coaches, we’re all paranoid, we live life paranoid about everything, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized less is more sometimes.

ASSESSING OVERLOAD HARDER TO DO THIS YEAR VERSUS LAST YEAR IN PAC-12?

Oh, yeah. Look, in the Pac-12, it’s a layup–you get in a routine. From January on, you’re off Sunday, you’ve got your routine of how you handle Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, how you handle your Friday in between, I mean, it’s just a routine.

HAVE YOU HAD TO ADJUST?

Totally. Well, I mean, we knew it–it’s not like it was. I knew once they announced we were going to the Big Ten it was going to be night and day. So you’re not in a routine–every week is different. Obviously, you get a little bit–when’s our next game after Oregon?

TUESDAY AGAINST MICHIGAN STATE?

Yeah, so I’ll give them a whole day off Friday and then you’ve got three days of prep–pick your day you want to go hard. Now it’s just, how do you make sure they’re ready at game time and get some prep–you’ve got to get some prep work in and make sure they’re ready at game time.

ONCE TYLER GETS BACK, YOU’LL HAVE A NICE PROBLEM BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF GUYS FOR A LIMITED NUMBER OF MINUTES AT THE 3-4-5 SPOTS?

Yeah, I just don’t see that–I wouldn’t word it that way, so I’m not sure what you mean by ‘problem.’ I don’t see that as a problem.

TOO MANY GOOD PLAYERS AND NOT ENOUGH MINUTES?

Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. I think maybe the Boston Celtics have too many good players. I don’t see that we have anybody on the draft lottery board; I love my guys, they’re great–I know what you’re getting at, Aday’s playing better, OK, but I don’t see anybody picking us for the Final Four, so strategically, if you look back, there were times when we played Aday and Tyler together. I think Eric played too much in the USC game and I said that to you in postgame–some guys, they’re going to give you what they’re going to give you whether they play 27 minutes or 36 minutes, so that extra nine, they don’t give you anything because they’re tired and they hurt your defense whether it’s Mick Cronin or Elmer Fudd out there–the name of the person’s irrelevant. There’s very few guys–Kobe’s an exception, Jaime Jaquez–guys that can play–seniors, usually it’s a senior–they can play huge minutes with no dropoff. So I don’t see it as a problem–I see a problem the other way. Now, hopefully, with Aday, we don’t have to play guys that shouldn’t be out there because you’ve got to make sure you’ve got guys out there that are being effective and are not just out there to be out there, so that’s how I look at it. So I think the more pertinent point of all that is, can Aday and Tyler play together? Defensively, can Tyler, he’s going to have to play out on the floor more from a mobility standpoint, which obviously Eric can do that. That’s the bigger issue, so that’s the problem.

WHEN YOU’VE BEEN SEEING THAT LINEUP THIS YEAR …

I actually have gone back yesterday and looked at minutes they played together.

WHAT WERE YOUR TAKEAWAYS, DEFENSIVELY ESPECIALLY?

Well, it was based off of who we were playing. It’s a bigger challenge if the guy they’re guarding is a really tough matchup of, extremely fast guy where Tyler gets caught in switches. Or, like, in the USC game, there had been times in the season where they had taken Agee out and played Agbo at center–now we would have had a real problem, right, if you’ve got Aday on him. I think those are the things that you’ve got to be–if you want that lineup in and you want Tyler at the four, defensively, how are you going to handle that if he’s guarding the fourth guard and a smaller team’s playing four guards. Now, Oregon, they don’t do that, Brandon Angel and Kwame Evans, so they don’t really play where they would play like a 6-5 guy that’s a speedy guy, so it’s kind of a game to game thing.

STICK ERIC IN THERE WITH TYLER AND ADAY?

Haven’t really done that yet because again, that puts Eric on a much faster guy, which isn’t really his strength. I think he’ll be able to get there–hopefully, he’ll be able to get there. I think that would be our best rebounding team.

DYLAN HAD A LOT OF OFFENSIVE RESPONSIBILITIES LAST GAME, WAS THAT A FUNCTION OF TYLER BEING OUT?

Um, look, I think he’s playing better, I mean, Dylan, he’s playing well. You’ve got to give him credit, obviously he had a rough start to the season. I think his experience is coming through right now, maybe I’m coaching him better. You know, I give him all the credit, though. He’s playing better and I think that his cramping almost cost us the game–it cost us the game at Villanova last year, for sure–he went out the last eight minutes. Now you’re out there in the last five with a really well-coached team, coach Musselman’s been around, now. He saw it, so now he’s trapping us all over, he don’t know why but Andrews isn’t in the game, so he’s trapping us, you know, give him the ball in the pick and roll where he’s a scoring threat, you know, a lot of things you miss when he’s not out there in the last five minutes of a tough game on the road, so hopefully that’s not an issue the rest of the year.

HOW FEEL ABOUT HIGH-BALL SCREEN ACTIONS?

With him.

IN GENERAL?

You’d have to give me–I mean, there’s a million of them in a game, so you’d have to–they dropped it early and then they started trapping. You know, we’ve got to handle the trap better.

HOW MUCH MEAN TO HAVE A BIG CROWD COMING UP?

Yeah, I always say this–look, I appreciate the fans that come. I understand we’re not a college town. My thing is our students. We need our students. Students bring the energy. My dad’s not here now but when he gets here he’s 83, he’s only going to be so loud and he’s not going to be on his feet and nobody wants us to win more than him.

IS HE COMING?

Nah, he’ll be here for the next homestand, so the students are the ones that bring the energy, you’ve got to get the students–the students are the key to your energy level. But I focus on the positive stuff with that. You know, I’ve been around a long time. There’s great things with every job, you know, so you’ve got to weigh it, so I won’t trade.

IS OREGON PLAYING DIFFERENT THAN WHEN YOU FIRST PLAYED THEM?

Well, Jackson Shelstad got off to a slow start shooting the ball this season, for him, and now in the last five games he’s shooting 54% from three–56% overall–in their last five games, which is as good as you’ll–it reminds me of when I had to play UCLA in 2017 and they handed me the stat sheet and I said it was Lonzo Ball’s stats, so he’s really shooting the ball well and playing well. I think he’s struggling early on and now he’s been a huge factor for them. And all these teams, we’re all the same–you add a bunch of transfers and you’re probably more cohesive. Now, the schedule’s tougher. They’re undefeated in the nonconference and I think they’re 5-4 in the Big Ten. It just shows you how hard it is; the Big Ten’s just tough.

SOMETHING ABOUT SEBASTIAN THAT MAKES HIM GOOD AS A CLOSER IN GAMES?

Well, Sebastian’s got no fear and when you’ve got a guy like that, he believes he can score at any time. So, look, he’s got his strengths, he’s got his weaknesses–his attitude’s been great all year. He’s still a young kid, he’s got to learn a lot, he’s got to learn to be more consistent and his defense has got to improve, but when you try to put a team together, you’ve got different components, so it’s nice to have a Mariano Rivera that can get a bucket–he can get you an out. We just signed somebody else to the Dodgers–didn’t we just sign another reliever? It’s unbelievable. Coach Roberts, man, I’m jealous–I’m putting pressure on him early. So it’s nice to have somebody get you a bucket when you need a bucket and it’s in his DNA; it’s the way he’s wired.

ADAY CONTESTED SEVEN OR EIGHT THREES IN LAST GAME?

Aday’s defense and rebounding are what’s gotten on the floor more and got him more minutes. I’m most impressed with that. I know he can score if he gets a fair whistle–and offensive rebound. He’s just taller than everybody; you know, it matters, he’s taller than everybody and when he puts his arms up and he can touch the rim without jumping, so the only chance you have is to throw him around and push him around at all times and he’s got to get–the more he puts his hands up and the more he fights back, the more the officials are going to actually call the foul, OK? And it makes him a huge factor rebounding-wise. But his defense has grown immensely because last year I spent half the year saying mano arriba–I mean, his hands were down so much it was unbelievable. I mean, I literally spent half the season saying manos arriba and I got tired of saying it, so now his conditioning is much better. I still think the key to him is his base on his balance, so it’s not as much upper-body strength as his lower-body strength and coordination, but also just, you build a competitive will to be able to play through fatigue and fight through tough things and you know, you learn how to get in the ring and fight the fight; it’s not a video game, and he’s just gotten in the ring and he’s learning how to throw and take punches.

BITTLE HIT A FEW THREES ON HIM IN FIRST GAME AND YOU TOOK HIM OUT, DO YOU THINK ADAY’S EXPERIENCE …

He’s gotten much better at that. But look, Nate can shoot–he’s eight for his last 22 from three. I’ve known Nate since I recruited him–he’s always been a tall guy who could shoot, so it’s just part of it. I mean, look, Aday contested those [laughs], so there’s a lot of good players in this league can make a lot of shots.

WILL ADAY EVER HAVE A THREE-POINTER IN HIS ARSENAL?

He’s got to get more arc on his–his free throws were flat. You get tired, your brain goes to mush and your mechanics break down, and his free throws, he throws a dart and he doesn’t lift his elbow. Same with his jump shot. My big thing–he has potential, he’s got to, it’s all mechanics with shooting. I’ll give you a funny one and then we’ve got to go practice, right, Alex? You watch, Bas has hit a few tough, contested threes that were big shots. I would tell you the reason he made them was they were contested because his habit is to shoot out the window instead of through the roof and now it’s [inaudible]. But because they were contested, he had to lift his elbow and finish high, therefore he shot the ball with arc, the way he should have and the way we try to work with him on, and that’s why he made them. All right, we’ve got to get ready for Oregon, so we don’t have much time.