I have no problem with those who want to criticize Cronin's current recruiting (even though he's gotten a 4-star high school commit and two 4-star transfers so far). But can't they just wait until the roster is finalized? Until then one can't make a valid assessment. I won't even judge until I see them play against the pros this summer.
Recruiting success has to be based on the players you get, not the ones you don't get. Do they fill needs and improve the team? (How far did Blackwell get Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament?) Five star high school recruits are fool's gold. The leave after one year disrupting roster continuity, use a disproportionate amount of the NIL budget leaving you short in other areas, may be talented but are inexperienced (a freshman mistake got Duke eliminated from the tournament) and tend to be ultra conservative when it comes to injuries to preserve their NBA chances (highly rated Caleb Wilson, Darryn Peterson and Alijah Arenas all missed a large portions of the season). There are only a handful of elite transfers and the competition for them is enormous, not to mention their price.
Do you really think s different coach would get these top recruits? The only sure bet would be Billy Donovan and if he didn't take arguably a better job at North Carolina, he wasn't going to come here. Cronin is the tenth coach UCLA has hired since Wooden. Every one ended up failing or quitting. (Cronin has the 2nd best winning percentage of all who lasted more than three seasons.) The real question to ask isn't "Why can't Cronin get elite players?" (ignoring the fact that he got Donovan Dent) but "Why can't UCLA hire elite coaches?".
Although many might not be impressed by our transfers since they didn't put up big numbers, one has to look at their production when they were on the court. For example both Macura and Jovic averaged more rebounds per 40 minutes than any Bruin last season. Azavier Robinson averaged more steals per 40 minutes than any Bruin in the last ten years other than Jaylen Clark. Age is also important. All have multiple season of eligibility left. Petty and Robinson are 19 and 20, meaning they project future improvement. Macura and Jovic are 21 and 22 with lots of previous experience in Europe.
The four transfers fill roster needs: defense, rebounding, athleticism and depth. All that's needed to have a better roster than last season is a scorer to replace Bilodeau and unlike Bilo, if he plays a little defense, not even as much scoring. Why are so many ignoring that we had a very good team without the injuries? We beat Purdue, Illinois, Michigan St. and Nebraska, all highly ranked and who went deep into the tournament. Figure all the returning players to improve at least a bit. The Euros are much better than Jamerson since he produced little or nothing on offense and the guards will make up for Dent and Clark with equal or better defense and outside shooting (and hopefully health).
So at a minimum, hold your fire until at least all the recruiting is complete. But even then we won't really know how successful it is until a year from now when we see how much the new players have contributed to the team's success.