INDIANAPOLIS — Mick Cronin knows what it’s like to lose by winning a conference tournament that plays its championship game on Selection Sunday.
It happened his last two seasons at Cincinnati.
“We played the last game and we found out where we were going for the NCAA tournament while we were cutting down nets or sitting in the locker room eating a cold pizza,” Cronin said in October. “Then you’ve got to fly home, then you’ve got to fly back to wherever you’re being sent. It’s not ideal, I can tell you that.”
In 2018, Cronin’s Bearcats played five days after winning the American Athletic Conference tournament title. They reached the second round of the NCAA tournament, losing to Nevada.
The next year it was the same quick turnaround, and the Bearcats lost to Iowa in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
As Cronin’s UCLA Bruins prepare to open the Big Ten tournament in a quarterfinal game Friday afternoon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, they must balance the desire for success with the realization that this isn’t the tournament that really matters.
“At UCLA, we win the conference tournament and people are going to be excited for about 45 minutes,” Cronin said with a laugh. “And that’s anywhere. We’re in an era where the NCAA tournament has become everything, and I’m not saying it’s all good. I don’t care who wins the conference tournament — even if we do. It’s going to be hard as hell to do, but I hope we don’t run out of gas if we do it because the real tournament starts about four or five days after.”
Earlier this week, Cronin said he was contemplating a new travel game plan, even calling Oregon coach Dana Altman to get his input. Should the Bruins reach the championship game Sunday, Cronin said it might be more beneficial to stay in Indianapolis and “just do our laundry” than to fly back to Los Angeles with the chance his team might need to board another flight two days later for its first NCAA tournament game.
Of course, this dilemma is contingent on one significant development.
“You’ve got to try to get to Sunday first,” Cronin said.
Winner of 11 of its last 14 games, fourth-seeded UCLA (22-9) will open the tournament against fifth-seeded Wisconsin (23-8), 12th-seeded Minnesota (15-16) or 13th-seeded Northwestern (16-15).
A quick exit could have some benefits. UCLA reached the Final Four in 2021 after losing a Pac-12 tournament quarterfinal to Oregon, showing the lack of correlation between success in one tournament and the other.
There’s also an increased injury risk the deeper the Bruins go in the conference tournament. Two years ago center Adem Bona suffered a shoulder injury in a Pac-12 tournament semifinal that limited his availability in the NCAA tournament.
Then there’s the flip side. A Big Ten tournament title could give the Bruins more than a quick burst of dopamine and a banner to put up inside the practice facility.
Currently projected as a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament by Bracketmatrix.com, which aggregates bracket projections, UCLA probably could rise as high as a No. 4 seed. That threshold comes with a major benefit — as a so-called protected seed, the Bruins would be placed in a close geographic region, probably either in Seattle or Denver, meaning reduced travel and more fan support.
Cronin said he was much more concerned about location than seeding given that his only team to reach the Final Four started the NCAA tournament as a No. 11 seed forced to play a First Four game.
Even if the Bruins don’t obtain a protected seed, Cronin said, he hoped the NCAA tournament selection committee would make allowances for the team’s brutal travel schedule. This will be UCLA’s third trip to Indiana in the last five weeks, prompting Cronin to joke that he would need to pay taxes in the Hoosier state.
“We’re on the quarter system, OK?” Cronin said. “We’ve got finals coming, the last week of school and you know where we’ve been in January and February, so for me, I would hope that there’s some consideration for the travel piece.”
If nothing else, traveling halfway across the country to play in a win-or-go-home tournament will prepare the Bruins for what they can expect a week from now.
“You’re fighting for a title, for a Big Ten championship, so it means something,” senior guard Lazar Stefanovic said. “Every game you go into, you go into to win. So that’s how we’re preparing, nothing else changes. We’re trying to win.”
