UCLA's Mick Cronin Defends His Gritty Style Of Coaching By Telling The Haters 'He Doesn't Give A Fuck About Their Shit'

[USA Today] - News reports that he wasn’t UCLA’s first choice as a new head coach. Message boards that balk at his lack of NCAA tournament success at Cincinnati. Pundits who believe his grit-over-flair style won’t win over a hard-to-satisfy fanbase.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t give a (expletive) about that (expletive),” Cronin tells USA TODAY Sports.

I feel for Mick a bit here. I mean, as much as you can feel for a guy that’s the head coach at UCLA and making a good chunk of money. We all know the coaching search. He was roughly the 8th pick for UCLA.

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Obviously living in Cincinnati I’ve gotten to know quite a bit of UC fans. There may not be a coach that was more split despite a ton of regular season success than Cronin. Actually, let me clarify. There may not be a louder minority in terms of Cincinnati fans wanting Cronin gone despite the regular season success.

That’s how UC fans tended to talk about Cronin. Yeah he’s good in the regular season but you’ll never win in the NCAA Tournament with his offense/slow it down, grind it out style of play. It led to some early exits in the NCAA Tournament, most notably that meltdown to Nevada in 2018.

I don’t know how it’s going to work out for Mick and UCLA. It’s still a weird pairing. But, I will say this. I LOVE that Cronin doesn’t give a shit. I love that he’ll sit there and tell people to pretty much shut the fuck up.