How Did Coach Cronin Turn Around UCLA Basketball?

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images UCLA Coach Mick Cronin has a reason to smile after his Bruins have won five in a row.The UCLA Bruins are a half game out of first in the Pac-12 conference standings with just three games left in the regular season. But for an overtime road loss to a well-coached Washington State team, UCLA would be in first.

Who saw that coming?

If you say you did, you’re lying. After statistically the worst loss since Kenpom created his rating system, things looked really bad. I honestly believe that Fullerton was a game where you could have taken any combinations of scholarship players on the UCLA roster and won.

But that was just it, Cronin was not playing to win that…