Mick Cronin held Tyler Bilodeau after seeing him in shootaround
UCLA survived Friday's game without Tyler Bilodeau. Mick Cronin kept Bilodeau out of the game after seeing his forward in Friday morning's shootaround.
It didn’t have to be pretty for the UCLA Bruins in round one of the NCAA tournament. UCLA escaped the first round matchup with a 75-71 win over UCF despite Tyler Bilodeau being sidelined with a knee injury . UCLA nearly had Tyler Bilodeau on Friday UCLA thought they were going to have Bilodeau for the game but his knee was barking at him when he woke up and Mick Cronin opted to let him rest up.
UCLA wasn't able to breakaway from the Knights but the Bruins survived the wonky game. Mick Cronin protected his guy “I didn’t like the way he was moving in shootaround this morning,” Cronin said of Bilodeau . “He wanted to play and I said no.
If you want to know why I said no, then you should probably never coach. ” The game crawled to the finish Not only did the game lack rhythm, with the final minutes of the game taking over 30 real life minutes but UCLA survived some abnormalities, which Cronin pointed out postgame. A game of abnormalities “Crazy stuff happens in March, like Trent (Perry) missing three free throws.
Never happens but he’s human and I still want the ball in his hands,” Cronin said. “Skyy didn’t get to double-figures because of his foul trouble, got his tooth knocked out . No call, a couple of times.