UCLA basketball coach Mick Cronin did it again Tuesday night — he keeps doing this — and someone needs to get him under control. I’d suggest Cronin needs to control himself, stop bullying his players and others, but these aren’t isolated incidents. This keeps happening. It’s who he is:
A bully. A vicious one.
Yeah, I hear some of you: Wah, wah, you’re so soft…
Maybe so. But maybe being soft, being vulnerable, is more of what this world needs. Everywhere you look, on the streets and on social media and even in our seats of government, we’re being hard, being invulnerable, being downright mean. Look around. You like what you see? Not me.
College basketball hot seat: 13 coaches who may be in trouble
March Sadness: College basketball's 10 most disappointing teams
And what we’re seeing from Bruins coach Mick Cronin is appalling. Here’s what we saw Tuesday night, and please, see the whole picture. Don’t focus on one thing — the foul by one of his players — and decide: Welp, that’s what the kid deserved.
Nah. UCLA senior forward Steve Jamerson II didn’t deserve this.
Neither did the reporter who asked Cronin, afterward, about the atmosphere in East Lansing, Michigan.
Here’s how it started:
Michigan State’s Carson Cooper is running down the court, ahead of the pack, going up for a dunk. The No. 15 Spartans lead UCLA by 27 with 4½ minutes left, well on their way to victory, when Cooper rises for a dunk. Behind him, Jamerson arrives a split-second late. He goes for the block, nothing dirty — watch the play yourself — but Cooper’s momentum, combined with the contact Jamerson makes on his arm, sends Cooper to the floor.
Cooper rises, angry. Hey, that’s his right. Jamerson stands his ground. His right, too.
And then Mick Cronin did one of the single cruelest things I’ve ever seen.
First, UCLA's Mike Cronin ejects his own player
You’re picturing the scene, right? The Breslin Center is furious, turning all its rage on Jamerson. That was the crowd’s right. So far, nobody has done anything wrong. Jamerson was hustling, competing. Didn’t look frustrated, just a split-second late as he contested the shot. Cooper was angry. The crowd was furious.
It happens.
But then Cronin does something that can’t happen. Cronin grabs Jamerson by the shirt, by the arm, and tells him to get out. Points angrily to a staffer, then to Jamerson, and gives the “get him out of here” signal.
Watch the video. See that look on Jamerson’s face? He’s bewildered, dejected. The entire building has just turned on him, and now his coach is sending him off the court, into the locker room, to face all that fury by himself? The video shows students giving Jamerson the middle finger, and shouting at him. You can see the finger(s). Can’t hear the shouting, thank goodness.
You hope Jamerson didn’t hear it, either, but that’s naïve.
This was the worst example, but just the latest example, of Cronin humiliating his players. His postgame news conferences tend to go viral after losses, because he questions his players’ toughness or effort in the most straightforward terms, and has even suggested — rather blatantly — that his players aren’t smart enough.
“The most important thing for a teacher is for his students to have aptitude or they can’t learn,” he said in 2024 after a loss to Stanford. “If a team makes adjustments, we struggle to adjust to instruction on the fly.”
"It’s really hard to coach people that are delusional," Cronin said in 2025 after a loss to Michigan. "We got guys who think they’re way better than they are. They’re nice kids. They’re completely delusional about who they are.”
“You can't call your mommy; she can't help you,” he said in 2024. “You've got an opportunity of a lifetime and it may not last forever depending on your performance.”
Cronin thinks he’s old-school tough, and that players are soft. He’s not the problem — they are.
“If you’re hard on Little Johnny in this era,” he said earlier this month, after a win at Rutgers, “you might get investigated.”
At first, forgive me, I found it almost refreshing. Maybe that’s because I was inclined to like Cronin — because I’d always liked Cronin — since meeting him 20 years ago when he was coaching Cincinnati and I was living there, covering college basketball for CBSSports.com. In 2011, when players from Xavier and Cincinnati brawled, Cronin’s postgame disgust was so real, so deserved, I texted him that night to thank him for standing up for decency.
Now this is me, standing up for decency, and telling Mick — or telling UCLA — this has to stop. What happened to Steven Jamerson was the breaking point, for me.
What happened afterward, to a reporter? Another brutal, bully move.
Then Mick Cronin bullies a reporter
This story hinges on Xavier Booker, who spent the past two seasons at Michigan State before transferring to UCLA this season. The Breslin Center student section, the 5,000-strong Izzone, taunted Booker by chanting his name.
Afterward, a reporter asked Cronin what he thought about that.
“I could give a rat’s ass about the other team’s student section,” Cronin said. “I would like to give you kudos for the worst question I’ve ever been asked.”
A second reporter starts to ask a question on another topic, but Cronin ignores him to turn on the first reporter. His team has just been embarrassed. Cronin’s about to take it out on someone else.
“You really think I care about the other team’s student section?” he asks.
The second reporter tries to defend himself, and if his voice went up ever so slightly — and that’s all it was — could you blame him? He was being humiliated by the coach of UCLA, with cameras running. He was standing up for himself, and you know bullies:
They don’t like that.
“Are you raising your voice at me?” Cronin demanded.
The reporter, trying to calm the situation, backed down and said he wasn’t.
“Yeah, you are, yeah, you are,” Cronin said. “Come on, dude … everybody’s standing here listening to you. Everybody. This is on camera. They can hear you. I answered the question. I could give a rat’s ass about the other team’s student section. I coach UCLA. I don’t care about Michigan State students. Who cares?”
This was the biggest kid in the schoolyard, pushing down a smaller one and then mocking him. It’s what Cronin had done to Jamerson, using the assembled crowd to reinforce his own cruelty.
This is who Cronin is with cameras rolling, and NBA scouts tell me he’s even worse behind closed doors, at practice. A Western Conference scout, a longtime friend of mine, was discussing Cronin’s recent odd behavior with me before tipoff at a recent Big Ten game. This was before the incident Tuesday night at Michigan State — that’s how bizarre Cronin has been behaving — when the scout told me:
“He mother(bleeps) them in practice like you wouldn’t believe,” the scout said. “Oh, he (bleeps) them. Mick is the only coach I know who doesn’t film his practice. You know why? He doesn’t want evidence.”
An Eastern Conference scout, another longtime friend who has attended UCLA practices, said he’s heard the same — that Cronin doesn’t film practice — and added: “John Wooden would be beside himself” at the way Cronin treats his players on a daily basis.
“Not sure why he’s so combative,” the scout continued. “He’s an excellent coach, and actually a great guy off the court.”
As I said, I’ve found Cronin to be charming away from the court as well, and was such a fan of his — past tense, was — that I suggested the Indiana basketball program hire Cronin last season after firing Mike Woodson. It’s OK to admit when we’re wrong.
What is Cronin waiting on? How about you, UCLA? Contrast UCLA’s silence, its unspoken approval of Cronin, with what Kansas State did Sunday, firing basketball coach Jerome Tang for a postgame rant that included: “These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform, and there will be very few of them in it next year.”
You ask me, Kansas State wasn’t standing up for its players but being cheap and opportunistic, using Tang’s rant to try to fire its losing coach for cause — and get out of his $18 million buyout. That might stick in court, but probably not.
Contrast Cronin’s postgame behavior Tuesday with Purdue coach Matt Painter the same night, when Michigan trounced his team at Mackey Arena and Painter stuck up for his players, said he “liked” them and even “loved” them, and then joked with reporters afterward.
“That was way too much talking,” he said as he rose to head back to the locker room.
“That’s on you,” a reporter teased.
“You have to own your part,” said Painter, teasing back, maybe the nicest great coach ever.
Mick Cronin? If he’s not the meanest coach in the country, God help the players of any coach who deserves the title more.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mick Cronin ejects UCLA players, rips into reporter. Can't stop bullying
