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UCLA Sports

UCLA coach Mick Cronin is confident coronavirus won’t jeopardize next season

UCLA coach Mick Cronin speaks at a news conference.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin believes the Bruins will be playing basketball next fall, but he believes the coronavirus could keep fans from attending games.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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With more than six months buffering the scheduled start of UCLA’s basketball season from the novel coronavirus outbreak, coach Mick Cronin is hopeful that the show will go on inside Pauley Pavilion.

“I’m confident that we’re going to play our season,” Cronin said Friday during a live Facebook chat from the living room of his Encino home. “I don’t know where that goes with fans [being allowed to attend games], but I think it goes hand in hand. I don’t think you see games without fans. I’m a positive guy, so I’m on the positive side.”

UCLA’s season was abruptly halted last month before the Bruins could play their first game in the Pac-12 Conference tournament after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. The Bruins learned shortly thereafter that the NCAA tournament had been canceled as part of a widespread shutdown of sports that have yet to resume in the United States.

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FC Midtjylland's Gustav Wikheim of Norway and his teammates celebrate with the cup after the club won the Danish championship after beating AC Horsens in the last game of the Superliga, on May 21, 2018 in Herning, Denmark. (Photo by Bo Amstrup / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo credit should read BO AMSTRUP/AFP via Getty Images)

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The NBA and NHL are still contemplating ways to save their seasons, or at least the playoff portion, and Major League Baseball has yet to start its season. The NFL and college football have not announced any definitive plans for seasons that are scheduled to start in the fall. Next up on the sports schedule would be the 2020-21 NHL, NBA and college basketball seasons.

“If there’s minor delays, those could be possible,” Cronin said, “but I talk to NBA people and they still think they’re going to play their playoffs, so if they play the playoffs in the summer, what does that tell you? That we’re going to play.”

UCLA’s schedule next season includes a home game against Marquette and a road game against Nevada Las Vegas, Cronin said. The Bruins will also play Kentucky as part of the CBS Sports Classic in New York and will play in the Wooden Legacy at the Anaheim Convention Center as part of a field that also includes Kansas, Georgetown and Virginia.

UCLA will also play 20 Pac-12 games for the first time as part of an expanded conference schedule.

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Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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