{"id":614642,"date":"2026-02-20T23:21:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614642\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T23:21:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:21:21","slug":"ucla-coach-mick-cronin-apologizes-to-steven-jamerson-for-ejection-but-says-brand-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614642\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA Coach Mick Cronin Apologizes To Steven Jamerson For Ejection, But Says ‘Brand Is Important’"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCLA<\/a> head coach Mick Cronin might not “give a rat’s ass<\/a>” about the Michigan State<\/a> student section, but he wants Bruins redshirt senior Steven Jamerson II<\/a> to know that he’s sorry for making a scene and ejecting the big man for a flagrant foul<\/a> he committed during the team’s Tuesday night loss to the Spartans.<\/p>\n

Even before the referees reviewed the play and assessed Jamerson with a flagrant-1 foul, Cronin grabbed Jamerson\u2019s jersey and pointed for him to leave the court in the waning minutes of Tuesday\u2019s 23-point loss to the Spartans in East Lansing.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t think, to be honest, the entire world has ever seen that in a game,” Bruins guard Trent Perry<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

“I already apologized to Steve, OK?” Cronin told reporters before UCLA’s practice. “It\u2019s 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\u2019t even know if he deserved that.”<\/p>\n

Cronin said Spartans coach Tom Izzo “thought the same thing when I communicated with him.”<\/p>\n

Cronin joked that Jamerson “asked me for $10,000 more in NIL because of that.”<\/p>\n

Mick Cronin apologizes for how he represented the UCLA brand when he ejected his own player vs. Michigan State \"Mick<\/a> <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“Steve is everything that\u2019s good about college basketball,” Cronin said. “He\u2019s everything that I believe in about college basketball. That being said, I\u2019m trying to protect, like I take it really seriously. Our guys don\u2019t get techs. We\u2019re not taking guys out in the air.”<\/p>\n

Cronin said he’s sometimes too candid in his comments. He has complained about travel and tipoff times since UCLA joined the Big Ten<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

“I have to do a better job of this, that in this climate, you\u2019ve got to be careful with what you say. I\u2019m a good fit here because I know I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

“I apologize to our people \u2014 school, students, everybody in our community \u2014 because it\u2019s important. These jobs, you gotta raise money, you gotta be friends with donors, I mean I believe in all that stuff.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Perry, who is Jamerson’s roommate, has provided a reassuring ear.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Guard Skyy Clark said the team is supporting Jamerson.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Clark said a players’ only meeting was called after the blowout road losses and another one was likely later Friday.<\/p>\n

“We just gotta stay together,” he said. “That’s been the main focus.”<\/p>\n

Cronin pushed back against perceptions that by ejecting Jamerson he doesn’t have his players’ backs.<\/p>\n

“I know what I\u2019m about,” the eighth-year coach said, “so I don\u2019t really worry about that.”<\/p>\n

Clark, a Louisville<\/a> transfer and the Bruins’ third-leading scorer, has found a balance between Cronin’s varying forms of criticism.<\/p>\n

“I say just listen to the message and not how it\u2019s being conveyed. If you do that, then you really hear what he\u2019s trying to say instead of how he\u2019s 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.”<\/p>\n

UCLA is 17-9 overall and 9-6 in Big Ten<\/a> play, good for ninth in the conference. The Bruins are back in action at home on Saturday night against the No. 10-ranked Illinois Fighting Illini<\/a> (8 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app<\/a>), with each of their remaining five regular-season games airing on FOX or FS1.<\/p>\n

Their lone signature win of the season was a 69-67 win over then-No. 4 Purdue<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

“We saw that we can do it and so why not do it again?” Clark said.<\/p>\n

Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA head coach Mick Cronin might not “give a rat’s ass” about the Michigan State student section, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,7641,217,231,772,1544,4262],"class_list":{"0":"post-614642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-big-ten","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-ucla-bruins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116105530465265733","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}