Handing Arizona a top-five preseason ranking and watching Mick Cronin bully them in a Las Vegas phone booth for 40 minutes is the purest comedy college basketball can offer on opening night. No. 22 UCLA walked into T-Mobile Arena on Monday and cooked No. 5 Arizona 84-75, handing the Wildcats their first season-opening loss in 20 years. Tommy Lloyd’s squad spent the entire first half getting punked on the glass, trailing 43-29 at the break after bricking 12 of their first 13 three-point attempts. While national voters spent October glazing Arizona’s flashy roster, Cronin brought a pair of brass knuckles and a 99-overall physicality slider to the Strip.
I love the panic already setting in among Wildcat apologists who point to Ivan Kharchenkov dropping a career-high 38 points and 10 rebounds as proof that Arizona simply ran out of time after cutting the lead to 71-70 with 3:11 left. That excuse completely ignores how Cronin intentionally weaponized single-coverage math to choke out everybody else in a red jersey. UCLA lived with Kharchenkov hunting two-point drives on an island because the Bruins refused to send panic help off the corners or surrender deep paint seals to Motiejus Krivas.
“Mo [Krivas] got into some foul trouble, but he still played 31 minutes and only made two baskets,” Cronin said postgame, via UCLA athletics. “We did a tremendous job on Mo.”
Neutralizing an anchor center like Krivas turns Tommy Lloyd’s high-low actions into stagnant isolation ball. Arizona finished with 13 assists against 11 turnovers, and nobody outside of Kharchenkov and second-half gunner Derek Dixon (18 points on 5-of-17 shooting) broke double figures. Without RJ Godfrey available after his eligibility lawsuit was denied, Arizona’s frontcourt rotation got exposed whenever Krivas had to contest away from the rim.
Cronin Turned the Offensive Glass Into a Crime Scene
I look at the shooting splits and laugh at anyone claiming college basketball is strictly a pace-and-space beauty contest now. UCLA shot a gritty 38.0 percent from the field (27-of-71), and it barely mattered because they owned every loose ball in the building. Despite missing forward Filip Jović in a walking boot with a left ankle sprain, the Bruins ripped down 16 offensive rebounds, more than they recorded in any game last season.
“I thought, our defense got us separation and our rebounding,” Cronin said after the win, per UCLA athletics. “Our rebounding is exponentially improved, and we took care of the ball.”
Those 16 offensive boards translated into a 19-9 advantage in second-chance points, and UCLA committed only seven turnovers against 16 assists across a 45-foul street fight. Every time Arizona thought it had survived a half-court possession, Eric Dailey Jr. (13 points, eight rebounds) or Jaylen Petty (13 points, seven rebounds, seven assists) created another possession out of thin air. UCLA’s bench also obliterated Arizona’s reserves 17-4 in the opening half, helping turn a tight early script into a 14-0 run and a 16-point cushion before Arizona even figured out the shot clock was running.
Trent Perry Has Maximum Clutch Gene
When Kharchenkov hit two free throws to trim the margin to 71-70 at the 3:11 mark, a softer roster would have folded like North Carolina’s $20 million lineup nearly did against Western Carolina earlier in the day. Instead, Xavier Booker buried a cold-blooded three-pointer with 2:59 left to push the lead back to 74-70, blocked a shot at the rim down the stretch, and let Nikola Kusturica thread a full-court baseball pass to Dailey for a dagger dunk with just over 40 seconds remaining. Then point guard Trent Perry stepped to the charity stripe and put the Wildcats in a body bag.
“Got us enough of a lead, and Trent’s [Perry] one of the best closers in the country,” Cronin said, via UCLA athletics. “He got my friend Dave Rabibo two state titles because he didn’t miss a free throw. That’s the least of my worries. If we can get the lead, he’s like Mariano Rivera at the foul line.”
Perry finished with 21 points and five assists despite shooting 4-of-12 from the floor because he went a spotless 11-for-11 at the line. My favorite stat from Monday night is how Cronin’s squad scored the final six points of the game after Dixon cut the deficit to 78-75 with 1:06 on the clock. While Illinois was busy hanging 120 points and 51 three-point attempts on Fairleigh Dickinson in a track meet, Cronin proved that physical point-of-attack resistance, second-chance possessions, and a guard with ice in his veins will embarrass top-five hype on a neutral floor every single November.
“They’re smart enough to understand that the least important thing on the stat sheet is total points,” Cronin said, via UCLA athletics. “They get it. They understand that basketball is about what you do without the ball, how you communicate, and everything else that contributes to winning.”
I have zero sympathy for poll voters who keep falling for preseason aesthetics over Big Ten trench warfare. UCLA is now 7-1 in season openers under Cronin and already owns a resume-defining neutral-court scalp before hosting North Florida on Friday. Which ranked powerhouse is going to be the next fraud exposed when the game slows down to a half-court brawl and the whistle stops bailing them out?
