Mick Cronin's complaints have spiced up UCLA's Big Ten debut, but how many are valid?

In the moments following an 82-76 win at crosstown rival USC on Monday night, UCLA mens basketball coach Mick Cronin appeared more relaxed than at any time during his inaugural Big Ten campaign.

His Bruins (15-6, 6-4 Big Ten) have responded to a four-game losing streak by winning four straight and sit in the Big Tens upper third at the midway point of their first season in the new league.

A lively Cronin said performance and toughness form the backbone of victory, and if anyone knows that its Cronin, who is as tough as they come.

Advertisement To ask me if Im happy? Understatement, understatement, Cronin told reporters.

Its a new look for Cronin, who has generated more headlines for his grievances than for his teams play on the floor.

This month alone, he complained his team was too soft, then that his schedule was too hard, then that his players dont receive enough rest, a point he referenced again following the USC game.

And in his most impassioned critique, Cronin teed off about how television contracts rule the sport.

Every time he stepped in front of a camera it became another episode of Grumpylocks and the Three Bruins.

Conference expansion, especially in the 18-team Big Ten, has created logistical issues for college basketball coaches, who never shy away from sharing their feelings.

Case in point: Within 15 minutes of the Big Tens internal release of its mens basketball schedule last offseason, coaches objections flowed into the league office.

Its just their nature.

But this month Cronin has taken his griping to a new level, even for a basketball coach.

Some of his outrage is valid, especially when it comes to his own team.

After losing Jan.

7 at home to Michigan, Cronin knocked his Bruins for being soft.

Cronins reputation as a tough, gritty coach is time-honored.

If you dont fight, youre not one of his guys.

But when you push that button publicly, youd better hope you get the right reaction.

Three days later, Cronin was ejected in the second half of a 79-61 loss at Maryland.

It was a dismissal he said he sought out because hed had enough of the officials letting the Terrapins batter his Bruins.

On the same road trip, UCLA stumbled at Rutgers to extend its losing streak to four.

UCLA returned home to face Iowa , built a 36-point lead and blasted the Hawkeyes 94-70 to stop the skid.

A reporter asked Cronin whether hed noticed any comparable wear and tear among the eastern opponents that come west to play UCLA and USC.

That framing sent the coach over the top.

Mick Cronin on UCLA's travel, and if other teams coming out west balances it out: "Oh, a Big 10 team has to come to LA, where it's 70 degrees, once.

You're asking me to feel sorry because Iowa had to come to LA for a few days? We've seen the Statue of Liberty twice in 3 weeks!" pic.twitter.com/NQgmenQvVY The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 18, 2025 Oh, the Big Ten teams get to come to Los Angeles where its 70 degrees one time a year , Cronin said in mocking fashion.

They dont even have to switch hotels.

We (UCLA and USC) are 12 miles apart, are you kidding me? Please tell me youre kidding me.

Weve seen the Statue of Liberty twice in the last three weeks while we were landing.

We also saw the Capitol Building.

Are you kidding me? And weve still got to go back, and then weve got to go back for the Big Ten tournament.

They do it one time.

I mean, hes asking me to feel sorry because Iowa had to come to L.A.

for a few days? Advertisement With 18 teams, Big Ten travel is relentless, no question about that.

And its worse for the West Coast teams.

But the league office involved everyone in the discussion about scheduling principles.

Those principles include no more than two consecutive two-game road trips, two days between games within the same road trip to minimize time spent away from campus and balanced scheduling for the first 10 and second 10 regular-season games.

Schools can play a maximum of five games in a span of 13 days and no more than four games over 10 days.

Each team faces 14 opponents once and three opponents twice, with the double-plays based on rivalries and geography.

The Big Ten also chose to bunch road trips for the West Coast teams heading east or for the East Coast and Midwest teams going to the Pacific time zone.

For the 14 schools traveling west, they play at either USC and UCLA or Washington and Oregon three days apart, with one long flight out and back separated by a bus trip (USC to UCLA) or a shorter flight (Washington to Oregon).

Of the 10 league road games for the four West Coast schools, four are single-game trips: the three road games against other West Coast schools, plus either a flight to Nebraska (UCLA, USC) or Minnesota (Oregon, Washington), the westernmost teams in the old Big Ten.

The other six games are batched in three longer trips.

For USC and UCLA, the paired trips are to Maryland-Rutgers, Illinois-Indiana and Purdue-Northwestern all featuring bus trips between the contests.

For Oregon and Washington, the pairs are Iowa-Wisconsin, Michigan-Michigan State and Ohio State-Penn State.

Only the Ohio State-Penn State doubleheader requires a flight unless the programs opt for a five-hour bus ride.

UCLA catches its breath with three consecutive home games, starting with No.

16 Oregon on Thursday night.

The Bruins host No.

7 Michigan State on the back end of the Spartans two-game West Coast swing and Penn State for its first game in L.A.

Counting the crosstown trip to USC, the Bruins will have avoided flights for two consecutive weeks.

As for UCLA seeing the Statue of Liberty twice, one of its jaunts to New York included a single nonconference game against North Carolina in the CBS Sports Classic.

Its a prestigious neutral-site event, but until the Tar Heels join the Big Ten or ESPN reinstates the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, Cronins complaint about conference schedule fairness is invalid.

Advertisement Cronins most recent diatribe was one that a decade ago would have earned him a conversation with then Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.

Following the Bruins 65-60 win on Friday at Washington, Cronin once again ranted about the schedule, this time taking aim at television.

All I know is were at SC Monday, correct? Mick Cronin told reporters.

Were going to get home at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning.

We shouldve just had this game at midnight.

I mean, when you sell your soul to television, thats just the way it is.

Thats college sports.

Weve sold our soul to television.

So, well get home in the middle of the night, get some rest, and prepare as best we can to play a team that played on Wednesday.

Probably took Thursday off and is focused on us while were up here.

So, theres a lot of inequities in this thing.

Im sure at some point later in the year, itll go our way.

I havent found that yet, but Im hoping.

Pardon the eye-roll, but this is what happens when coaches get too far removed from their roots.

Low-major, Division II and Division III coaches regularly hop on buses and travel four hours one way for a game and return at 2 or 3 a.m.

Non-revenue sports athletes around the Big Ten hop on a bus for six hours or fly commercial for a competition.

Moaning about flying on charter aircraft reeks of privilege.

Rather than complaining to reporters about television, Cronin should direct that tirade toward his bosses.

USC and UCLA chose to join the Big Ten on June 30, 2022, destabilizing the Pac-12 in a chain reaction that ended with 10 of its 12 schools exiting for other conferences.

It can be argued that no school benefitted from leaving the Pac-12 more than UCLA and its athletic department drowning in debt.

In fiscal year 2024, UCLA athletics spent $51.85 million more than it made, according to data provided to The Athletic by state open-records laws.

In fiscal years 2020-24, UCLAs athletic department accumulated $200.6 million in debt.

The legendary mens basketball program, over which Cronin presides, saw a deficit of $823,709 over that five-year period and thats when removing the COVID-19-altered fiscal year 2021.

No longtime Big Ten public school member recorded a deficit over the same time period; Illinois mens basketball, for example, cleared nearly $51.6 million over the same four years.

UCLA needed a savior, and with help from Fox, the Big Ten obliged.

USC and UCLA immediately became financially vested members, a status no other Big Ten expansion team secured until at least six years into its tenure.

That support wasnt extended to Nebraska, which is by far the Big Tens most fiscally responsible athletic department.

Maryland and Rutgers borrowed against future earnings upon arrival and wont achieve the leagues full financial benefits until 2027.

Oregon and Washington, which received a Big Ten life jacket about 13 months after USC and UCLA accepted Big Ten membership, will earn half financial shares until 2029.

Advertisement Football drives expansion, and its debatable whether mens basketball even rides shotgun anymore.

Every school has reasonable complaints related to realignment, from Ohio State football hosting too many noon kickoffs to West Coast basketball teams traveling east.

Perhaps the Big Ten could trim its league basketball schedule to 18 games, shift longer trips to semester or quarter breaks or eliminate an extra off day during longer travel.

Those are terrific discussions for the offseason.

Cronin would be wise to tamp down the bluster, appreciate how much his Bruins have grown in the last two weeks and acknowledge the improved financial state of UCLA athletics.

The extra two hours on a one-way chartered airplane is well worth the sacrifice, and it provides him with a boulder for his shoulder.

Among basketball coaches, thats a win-win.

(Photo: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images).

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