In Reply to: As you know, once one's legs tire every aspect of one's posted by ej on January 11, 2026 at 10:51:35
ball-centric creative PGs and physical fast-twitch centers are often the key offensive fulcrums to a Power Conference Div 1 hoops team.
Cronin is rarely able to recruit those kinds of players ~ in 13 yrs at Cincy and now 7 at UCLA. He has a rigid scheme of halfcourt O sets with little creativity in terms of running specific plays for said PGs and Cs. It's "how he always does it and is more of a: 'my way or the highway' rigid O.
I'm no expert on Dent's tenure at New Mexico, but it seems that under Cronin's vanilla O schemes, Dent has lost some confidence in his shooting game, albeit improving in his floor game. Given his lesser freedom in free-styling QBing the team, that swing isn't entirely unexpected.
His assists per game are up significantly (6.5 vs a 4-yr career 5.0). His TOs per game are up minutely (2.4 vs 2.3) but that mirrors his shots per game plunging to 11.5 from last yr's 14.9 as the ball is in his hands more to set up his teammates under CMC's halfcourt O sets.
And, sure, it also reflects a perplexing loss of confidence:
FG % this yr: 42.4% vs his college career of 49.2%!'
3Pt % this yr: 9.1% vs 32.7%!; and
FT % this yr: 60.5% vs 71.6%!
So, do you turn him loose, particularly from behind the arc where opposition teams have progressively let him roam free?