Mick Cronin dispersed his team on Selection Sunday.
“Go home,” the UCLA basketball coach told his players. “Get some sun. Relax.”
The Bruins didn’t get back to campus until a few hours before the NCAA Tournament bracket was released after playing three games in as many days in the Big Ten Tournament.
So Cronin told everyone to go watch the selection show on their own.
If everything goes as planned, they’ll be together plenty over the next few weeks.
The seventh-seeded Bruins are playing their best basketball of the season heading into their first-round game against 10th-seeded Central Florida on Friday at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
“We feel like we’re at one of the highest points of the team on the whole season,” point guard Donovan Dent said Monday, “so we’re just hoping to keep riding that wave and keep flowing.”
Once they get Dent and Tyler Bilodeau back from the injuries that sidelined them last week, the Bruins expect to reach another level. They’ll need to be at peak form to survive an opening weekend that could also include what would amount to a home game for second-seeded UConn in the second round.
“The most important thing at this time of year,” Cronin said, “is being healthy – we’re working on that – and I think having their mind fresh, being excited and ready to go.”
Dent proclaimed himself fully recovered from the calf injury that knocked him out of the Bruins’ game against Purdue on Saturday. Meanwhile, Cronin said that Bilodeau should be able to practice in another day or two after suffering a right knee sprain against Michigan State.
“It gives him three or four days of getting swelling and soreness out,” Cronin said, “so hopefully if he can go Wednesday and Thursday, he can be 100 percent.”
When the Bruins (23-11) watched the bracket release, their biggest hope was to play on Friday instead of Thursday. The extra day not only would benefit Dent and Bilodeau in their recovery but also a weary team making another cross-country trip.
Wish granted.
“We needed Friday,” Cronin said.
UCLA’s first-round opponent is a relatively anonymous major conference team that’s logged several brand-name wins.
Central Florida (21-11) has beaten Kansas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and BYU, which should grab the Bruins’ attention. The Knights finished in a four-way tie for seventh place in the Big 12 Conference standings before losing to Arizona in a conference tournament quarterfinal.
Driven by the playmaking of point guard Themus Fulks, Central Florida likes to push the pace and averages 81 points per game.
“When you have a guy like that,” Cronin said of a player averaging 6.7 assists per game, “it makes your offense easy because they make plays, they can make reads, they break your defense down.”
If recent trends persist, UCLA should be better equipped to slow the Knights after considerably tightening its defense. The Bruins held Purdue to 73 points, which was the Boilermakers’ lowest total on the way to winning the Big Ten Tournament.
“We saw what we can really do,” Bruins guard Skyy Clark said, “if we really just play hard and play that Mick Cronin style of basketball.”
Should the Bruins prevail, they would likely face UConn in a game that would keep fans as riveted by the volatile coaches as the game itself. There could easily be prop bets on whether Cronin or Huskies counterpart Danny Hurley would be most likely to pick up the first technical foul.
Other intriguing story lines might await in a loaded East Region. UCLA could face third-seeded Michigan State in the Sweet 16 in a third matchup of the season between Big Ten rivals who split the first two meetings.
Cronin would be reunited with former boss Rick Pitino should the Bruins play St. John’s in the Elite Eight. Other possible battles of the blue bloods could come against fourth-seeded Kansas or top-seeded Duke.
“I mean, that’s what we come here for,” Dent said of winning big games this time of year. “We know they hang up banners here; that’s what we’re hoping to do here in this March run.”
Maybe the Bruins will get a chance to catch up on rest by then. They couldn’t get out of Chicago after playing Saturday, forcing them to return home a day later than they had hoped.
Cronin was so groggy that he told his girlfriend to nudge him awake if he fell asleep for the selection show. That was part of the reason he had sent everyone home, noting it was the first time in his career he had not watched it with his team.
“Get home and freshen up,” Cronin said, “because we don’t plan on coming back for a while.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
