Alexander: On Wooden Legacy night, current UCLA team responds to a challenge
LOS ANGELES — Yeah, Coach would have approved. I think.
Still, on the night when the two teams with which John Wooden was most closely associated played each other – an occasion that UCLA made a tribute game, and that the Bruins’ players made count with a down-to-the-wire 69-67 victory over Purdue on Tuesday night – I’m sure there would have been some things that would have had the scrappy player at Purdue and later legendary coach at UCLA scratching his head.
The bobblehead, for example. If Wooden were still with us, I suspect he would be shaking his head “no” if someone brought to him the idea of a bobblehead in his image that perpetually nodded its head “yes.”
(And just wait until that thing goes up on eBay.)
Or storming the court, with the elated UCLA students pouring onto the floor after their team had held on. This was a natural reaction, given that Purdue (now 17-2 overall and 7-1 in the Big Ten) came to town ranked fourth in both the AP (writers) and USA Today (coaches) polls. UCLA (11-6, 5-3) was not only unranked in both polls, it received no votes in either one.
More ominously, if you put such stock in those things, the Bruins were among the last four out in ESPN’s weekly Bracketology feature. (And the worse indignity, if you’re a Bruin? USC was among the last four in.)
With all of that as background, and the ebb and flow of a game where the teams took turns making runs, UCLA had the last one, rallying from a 67-61 deficit with 1:56 to play, going in front on Tyler Bilodeau’s 3-pointer from the right wing with 6.6 seconds left, and denying the Boilermakers on their last possession when C.J. Cox attempted a 3-pointer from the left wing that bounced off the front of the rim and into the hands of Xavier Booker as time expired and the students swarmed.
That probably wouldn’t have flown in Wooden’s day – besides which, as former UCLA sports information director Marc Dellins pointed out, those dynastic Bruins didn’t lose at home, and in most cases didn’t let it get that close.
(We will refrain from speculating what Coach might have had to say about NIL, and players transferring in search of larger paydays. But I don’t think it’s hard to imagine.)
Consider this, though: During the halftime ceremony to honor Wooden’s memory, Jamaal Wilkes talked of how Wooden would terrify his players simply by reciting the strongest phrase in his vocabulary: “Goodness gracious sakes alive!” It must have been the tone of voice.
But, just as Wooden’s pupils of the 1960s and ’70s responded to that impetus, the 2025-26 Bruins showed Tuesday night they are equally capable of responding to Mick Cronin’s, um, harsher critiques of their play.
He basically ripped Dent, who followed a season-high 25-point performance in a loss to Iowa with four subpar games, including a scoreless effort last Thursday at Penn State and a tough afternoon in Saturday’s loss at Ohio State. Last season’s Mountain West Conference Player of the Year at New Mexico was finding the Big Ten waters choppier.
“He and I – actually I – had a little talk,” Cronin said. “He listened.”
“He got on me pretty bad after that Ohio State game,” Dent said. “Everyone was there in the locker room. He challenged me, like, personally, mentally, every way possible. He was challenging me this whole week. And I think that’s the response he wanted right there, just being able to come back out and not back down from what he was saying, just play hard.”
Tuesday night’s response: 23 points, 13 assists and three blocked shots, the same total as Xavier Booker. Booker is a 6-foot-11 forward/center. Dent is a 6-2 guard.
Yeah, the coach got Dent’s attention.
“Absolutely,” Dent said.
This is what a player has to expect when he enters Cronin’s program. You are going to be challenged at full volume. If you don’t meet his standards, you will hear about it. And if you don’t have a thick skin, you won’t make it at UCLA.
“I do everything transparently in front of the team,” Cronin said. “Yeah, you think they have one-on-one meetings in the Marines and basic training and civil training? No. They tell you what time it is. In our program, it’s the same time for everybody, always.
“He (Dent) was out there fightin’, scrappin’, playing with his heart. Not watching. Giving everything you got for your team. That’s what sports is about. … What he did tonight, we need from him every night. And you ain’t gonna get 23 and 13 every night. But he’s all over the place defensively, rising to the challenge, giving everything (he’s) got.”
How long does it take a player to learn how to respond when your coach puts you on blast, privately and publicly?
“He says the same thing in the media that he says to us, so it’s not like it’s anything different than what we hear,” Dent said. “So it’s like, when we hear it on the media, we (already) heard it in person. So I think, we’re all kind of just like, we are used to it, and in a way we’re just going to respond the way we want to respond.
“It’s just mental toughness, honestly,” wing Eric Dailey Jr. added. “He’s not doing it to drag us. He’s doing it to challenge us. And when you’re challenged like that publicly, you gotta respond publicly. And that’s what we did tonight.”
As intimidating as it might have seemed back in Wooden’s day, “Goodness gracious sakes alive” never sounded quite like this.
jalexander@scng.com