LOS ANGELES (AP) — UCLA coach Mick Cronin said Friday he apologized to Steven Jamerson II for sending the center to the locker room late in a blowout loss at No. 15 Michigan State after he committed a hard foul.
Even before the referees reviewed the play and assessed Jamerson with a flagrant-1 foul, Cronin grabbed Jamerson’s jersey and pointed for him to leave the court in the waning minutes of Tuesday’s 23-point loss to the Spartans in East Lansing.
“I don’t think, to be honest, the entire world has ever seen that in a game,” Bruins guard Trent Perry said.
“I already apologized to Steve, OK?” Cronin told reporters before UCLA's practice. “It’s the only reason I sent him to the locker room. I thought he literally made a dirty play and tried to wipe the guy out. Once I saw the film, I mean, he still got an F-1. To be honest with you, I don’t even know if he deserved that.”
Cronin said Spartans coach Tom Izzo “thought the same thing when I communicated with him.”
Cronin joked that Jamerson “asked me for $10,000 more in NIL because of that.”
He went on to speak glowingly of Jamerson, who played three seasons at the University of San Diego before transferring to UCLA last summer for his final year of eligibility. Jamerson has started once in 26 games, averaging 2.2 points and 2.4 rebounds in 11.3 minutes. He was unsuccessful in walking on at Michigan State earlier in his career.
“Steve is everything that’s good about college basketball,” Cronin said. “He’s everything that I believe in about college basketball. That being said, I’m trying to protect, like I take it really seriously. Our guys don’t get techs. We’re not taking guys out in the air.”
Cronin said he's sometimes too candid in his comments. He has complained about travel and tipoff times since UCLA joined the Big Ten last season, and been harshly critical of his players at times after games. After the Michigan State loss, he also had a testy reply to a reporter's question about Spartan fans.
“I have to do a better job of this, that in this climate, you’ve got to be careful with what you say. I’m a good fit here because I know I’m not bigger than the brand and the brand matters here, the school matters. The last thing I want to do is bring negative publicity to our school," Cronin said.
“I apologize to our people — school, students, everybody in our community — because it’s important. These jobs, you gotta raise money, you gotta be friends with donors, I mean I believe in all that stuff.”
Jamerson wasn't made available to media on Friday when he practiced with the team. Asked how the redshirt senior took Cronin's apology, the coach replied, “Oh, he's the best, man. ... It's not like I kicked him off the team.”
Perry, who is Jamerson's roommate, has provided a reassuring ear.
“He's been very mature about it,” Perry said. “I'm just glad that he's keeping his head and I'm also checking in with him every single day.”
Guard Skyy Clark said the team is supporting Jamerson.
“Coach gave a pretty sincere apology,” Clark said. “I mean, obviously he was a little in his head about it, but you know, we gave him some words of encouragement.”
Clark said a players' only meeting was called after the blowout road losses and another one was likely later Friday.
“We just gotta stay together,” he said. “That's been the main focus.”
Cronin pushed back against perceptions that by ejecting Jamerson he doesn't have his players' backs.
“I know what I’m about," the eighth-year coach said, “so I don’t really worry about that.”
Clark, a Louisville transfer and the Bruins' third-leading scorer, has found a balance between Cronin's varying forms of criticism.
“I say just listen to the message and not how it’s being conveyed. If you do that, then you really hear what he’s trying to say instead of how he’s trying to say it,” he said. “That's just how he coaches. He was mentored under some pretty similar coaches, and so that's just his style of coaching.”
The Bruins (17-9, 9-6 Big Ten) host 10th-ranked Illinois (22-5, 13-3) on Saturday. They're coming off back-to-back blowout losses at then-No. 2 Michigan (30 points) and Michigan State.
Their lone signature win of the season was a 69-67 win over then-No. 4 Purdue last month.
“We saw that we can do it and so why not do it again?” Clark said.
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