UCLA Hopes for Bigger, Better Pac-12 Tournament and Vegas Experience

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Mick Cronin is the coach of UCLA’s basketball team. He has a special connection to Las Vegas as he was asked to become the head coach of UNLV in 2016, but decided to stay at Cincinnati instead. The Bruins have been playing five games in Las Vegas over the last two years and had another game against North Carolina scheduled for December 2021, however it got canceled because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

This week, Coach Cronin and his team are heading to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Conference Tournament. Even though they have been here before, last season didn’t turn out how he wanted it to as they sadly lost in the finals to Arizona 84-76.

Recently, the Bruins were beaten by Illinois and Baylor. Mr. Cronin was obviously displeased as his voice could be heard while he scolded his team at half-time. Despite this, he assured that no one should worry about their upcoming game against a highly ranked team because he wants the players to have fun this week. To demonstrate his point, he even took them out for a night of golf at Topgolf on Tuesday!

This week is really important for the Bruins team because if they win the tournament, they are most likely to be the top seed in the West Region. And if they manage to win the very first two games at the NCAA Tournament, then they’ll get a chance to play in Las Vegas for the regional. The players have been working hard to try and become the top seed in the West, as it can bring plenty of practical benefits for them.

Cronin said it would be better to have less travel for the Final Four 2021, which takes place in Indiana’s bubble. This is because there will probably be more fans if you don’t have to travel far away. Unfortunately, Bruins’ guard Jaylen Clark won’t play in the conference tournament due to a lower-leg injury and that is a huge loss for the team.

Coach Cronin said more playing time for other players would be helpful, but he understands how important Jaylen Clark is to his team. He said that Clark was so good in defending that it’s almost certain he will win the award (given out to best defender). Coach also said he wasn’t sure when Clark might come back.

Arizona (25-6) is the second best team in the Pac-12 and it would be surprising if they didn’t compete against UCLA in the Championship game for a second year. On Saturday, Arizona went to Los Angeles to challenge the Bruins and unfortunately lost 82-73. According to their coach, Tommy Lloyd, even any other team would have had a hard time playing against them at home on Senior Night.

“You may have played really good against UCLA, but unfortunately you still lost by a few points,” Lloyd said. “It’s something that we should all learn from and move on from. Hopefully our players have also moved past it.”

The Wildcats ended the regular season with two defeats in their last three games. Also, they were beaten by their rival team Arizona State with a shocking buzzer beater shot of sixty feet.

UCLA and Arizona will most likely make it into the NCAA Tournament, but they will also probably get high rankings. The other teams in the conference have less certainty though. USC has the highest rank among all Pac-12 schools at number 45 on something called “NET Ranking”. Oregon ranks 47th and Arizona State is 64th.

This Sunday could be a really anxious one for the teams in the Pac-12 conference because they are all waiting to find out which other teams will be chosen to join them in the tournament.

UCLA is the top favorite to win a big tournament, according to experts. This means that if someone bets $100 on them, they will get back $150! Arizona and USC are right behind them in terms of their chances to win. UCLA got a lot of awards this year – Jaime Jaquez Jr was named Player of the Year, Adem Bona as Freshman of the Year, and Tyron Cronin as Coach of the Year. Oumar Ballo from Arizona won Most Improved and Reese Dixon-Waters from USC was Sixth Player of the Year.

If you want to stay up to date on college basketball news, check out these websites and social media platform -https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball, https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll, and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25.