UCLA’s late nights, long trips and endless games: ‘We’ve sold our soul to television’
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SEATTLE — Alaska Airlines Arena had mostly cleared out late Friday night, a few fans lingering to take photos with players and coaches on the court.
Outside UCLA’s locker room, a group of family and friends gathered around forward Tyler Bilodeau, their expressions reflecting concern over the ankle he had turned during the game.
Having completed his radio interview after the Bruins’ hairbreadth victory over Washington, coach Mick Cronin asked a colleague where he could find the one reporter traveling to cover the team. The coach turned a corner to find the reporter and a team videographer waiting for him down a nearby hallway.
“Do you think they played the game late enough?” Cronin cracked before taking the first question. “What time is it?”
Aday Mara scores 12 points and Dylan Andrews hits a clutch three-pointer in the final seconds to help lift UCLA to a 65-60 victory over Washington.
The clock was pushing 11 p.m. The night was far from finished. There was a 25-minute bus ride to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, followed by a roughly 2½-hour flight back to Los Angeles.
“We’re going to get home at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning,” said Cronin, whose Bruins (14-6 overall, 5-4 Big Ten) had just won a third consecutive game to nudge their conference record over .500. “We should have just had this game at midnight. When you sell your soul to television, that’s just the way it is, and that’s college sports — we’ve sold our soul to television, so we’ll get home in the middle of the night, get some rest and prepare as best we can to play a team [USC] that played on Wednesday, took Thursday off and was focused on us while we’re up here, so there’s a lot of inequities in this thing.
“I’m sure at some point later in the year it will go our way — I haven’t found that yet, but I’m hoping.”
This was the conclusion of a brutal stretch for the Bruins. The team had just played four of its last seven games on the road, including a home game sandwiched between two trips that might as well have been held in Las Vegas instead of Los Angeles.
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That way, at least UCLA’s opponent, Michigan, would have had to change hotels and do a bit of traveling itself instead of lingering in Southern California for two days off before facing the Bruins after beating USC.
Cronin praised his trainer, Tyler Lesher, and director of basketball performance, Dave Andrews, for keeping players fresh given a Big Ten schedule that calls for longer trips and less consistency than the Bruins enjoyed in the Pac-12, when most of their games were on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Their new schedule involves games on every day of the week except Wednesday as part of the Big Ten’s efforts to provide attractive inventory to television partners.
“The Pac-12, it’s horrible for your national exposure when all your teams are playing at the same time,” Cronin said, “so if you want big TV contracts, you want national exposure, you’ve got to spread your games out and this is part of it.”
UCLA is also taking significantly longer trips, though maybe not as long as Cronin alluded to when asked about inequities between Big Ten teams residing on the West Coast and their conference counterparts.
“We’ve seen the Eiffel Tower — or, we’ve seen the Statue of Liberty twice in the last three weeks while we were landing,” said Cronin, who could be forgiven for the slip-up given all the miles logged. “We also saw the Capitol building. And then we gotta go back [to Indianapolis] for the Big Ten tournament!”
The only thing keeping this schedule from having a truly professional feel is the lack of back-to-back games. Cronin said practices were truncated and some days involved only weight lifting and workouts for players who didn’t play in games.
“It’s like an NBA deal right now — a lot of film, a lot of walk-throughs, a lot of shell without hitting each other and we’ve got to keep them fresh for games because not only is it playing every three days for us, it’s traveling,” Cronin said. “It’s just part of it when you’re buried on the coast.”
The Big Ten tried its best to build fairness into conference schedules by allowing UCLA to play road games against its three closest opponents — USC, Oregon and Washington — and grouping two other trips so that the Bruins wouldn’t have to travel far between games.
Next month, UCLA will trek 166 miles between games at Illinois and Indiana. On their final trip of the regular season, the Bruins will travel 141 miles between games at Purdue and Northwestern.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin questioned his players’ effort and toughness, a strategy that has helped the Bruins make postseason runs in the past.
But there were also some lost opportunities. Perhaps a one-off trip to Nebraska earlier this month could have been included as part of a three-game trip. Maybe UCLA’s trip to face Maryland and Rutgers could have been scheduled immediately after the Bruins faced North Carolina at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Equal rest has been another point of contention. Maryland was coming off two extra days of rest when it throttled UCLA on its home court. USC will also have had two extra days of rest when the teams meet Monday evening at the Galen Center.
Cronin was incredulous when a reporter recently asked if Big Ten teams coming west to face UCLA were enduring similar wear-and-tear issues as the Bruins.
Said Cronin: “Wear and tear on them?”
Said reporter: “Yeah.”
Said Cronin: “Is that a joke? Please tell me that’s a joke.”
Said reporter: “Is it even comparable?”
Said Cronin: “Comparable? Have you ever looked at the NBA stats on the gamblers and all those people do on west versus east? Talk to [USC coach] Eric Musselman, ask him that question, who coached in the NBA. Good luck, west going east. Ask me UCLA’s record east of the Mississippi in the last 20 years. When I got the job, I looked it up for scheduling purposes. It’s under .500, OK? We have to go back [east] four times. Oh, the Big Ten teams get to come to Los Angeles, where it’s 70 degrees, one time a year. They don’t even have to switch hotels. We’re 12 miles apart. Are you kidding me? Please, tell me you’re kidding me. I mean, is this a plant? Is this a planted question? I mean, you cannot be serious with that.”
A week later, deep inside Alaska Airlines Arena, Cronin patiently answered a reporter’s questions about travel and playing on nearly every day of the week, even if he had trouble keeping them straight.
“All I know,” Cronin said, “is we’ve got SC on Monday, correct?”
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