Still Got It: Mick Cronin Went From Smiling And Fired Up To Immediately Taking A Shot At The NCAA For Being A Shitshow These Days

I'm torn on last night. On one hand, Arizona and UCLA playing each other every year is good for the sport. That was the west coast rivalry for a little bit there. But I fucking hate everything about this being a neutral court game, a nonconference game and on opening day. This needs to be a Saturday night in January on campus. But, I'm trying not to complain too much despite how stupid it all is here.

We also had a hell of a game. UCLA looks the part. They are damn good, even though they blew a double digit second half lead there to make it close, but they look the part of a Final Four contender. They even have Mick Cronin smiling and dancing! 

You know how good of a team you have to be to get Mick Cronin to smile in November? This wasn't him finally making a Final Four or a run in the Tournament. This was him beating Arizona to go 1-0. But we're still talking about Mick Cronin here. He's not going to waste a chance to complain. He'll never waste a chance to call out the NCAA

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Again, the NCAA did try to do this. They said no 5-for-5 this year or no guys who left college can come back. The other half of the problem are the coaches who just didn't care and went to a local judge to get these guys eligible. I do think the NCAA fucked up by being way too reactive instead of proactive. At some point you need to get ahead of the story and that's where the NCAA made a mistake. But the coaches who just said, ah fuck it, we can get a lawsuit to win here, they deserve blame too. 

This is good warmup for Mick. We know he'll lose his mind, especially when UCLA has to come play out East. Good to see him smile, weird to see him smile. The guy still got it though. He knows how to take a shot.