HOUSTON, Last month at Big Ten Media Day, Matt Norlander and I were conducting interviews with various coaches and players, among them UCLA's Mick Cronin, who was in a noticeably good mood. He was smiling. He was laughing, so much so that, at some point later in the day, Norlander noted to me that Cronin, largely attached to an alternative reputation he knows he has, seemed happy and almost giddy talking about his team.
I don't remember the exact wording. I wasn't taking notes. But what I remember is us laughing about how funny it would be if Cronin was in such a good mood because he was the first to know his 2026-27 Bruins were going to be better than anybody expected.
I didn't think much about that interaction after that afternoon. But then I settled back into my hotel room late Monday, here on campus at the University of Houston, where Kelvin Sampson's Cougars started the season 1-0 with a 94-55 victory over La Salle, and watched Cronin's postgame interview following an upset of Arizona with TNT's Allie LaForce, and there he was smiling big again, to the point that Brian Anderson, the network's elite play-by-play guy, mentioned it afterward.
Final score: UCLA 84, Arizona 75. Is this Cronin's favorite UCLA team ever? He didn't say that, exactly. But after what was the biggest victory anybody notched on what amounted to opening night of the 2026-27 college basketball season, the 55-year-old eighth-year coach of the Bruins sounded like a big fan of what he and his staff have assembled in Westwood.
UCLA is up to No. 14 in Tuesday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 college basketball rankings, where Florida remains No. 1 following Monday's 77-67 win over Miami. Next up for the Bruins is Friday's matchup with North Florida inside Pauley Pavilion. UCLA will open the Big Ten portion of its schedule on the first day of December at home against Oregon.
Top 25 And 1 rankings Biggest Movers
