Tyler Bilodeau injury update: Mick Cronin provides latest on UCLA forward ahead of UConn game

After securing a spot in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32, UCLA is now waiting to see if Tyler Bilodeau will be able to play against UConn. Bruins head coach Mick Cronin provided an update as Bilodeau works his way back from injury and said he’d likely know more on Sunday.

Bilodeau was a late scratch for UCLA ahead of Friday’s Round of 64 game against UCF. He suffered a leg injury in the Big Ten Tournament against Purdue and has not played since. There was a sense he could give it a go in the opening round Friday, but UCLA announced he would not play out of abundance of caution.

Cronin said UCLA didn’t do much in terms of practice on Saturday during what he called a “glorified walkthrough,” and the Bruins are heading to Penn to do more preparation. It sounds like the program is taking it day-by-day with Bilodeau’s status for the Round of 32.

“I’ve got to see him moving with confidence,” Cronin said. “I’ve got to watch him and make sure he’s not doubting his stability and his health on his knee.

“At the end of the day, I’ve got to do whatever I think is right for him. So we’ll see how he looks tomorrow. That’s what happened yesterday. He looked great on Thursday but did not on Friday. I had to scratch Sovereignty from the Breeder’s Cup classic.”

Bilodeau was dealing with soreness on Friday before sitting out the game against UCF. He is UCLA’s leading scorer with 17.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game this year.

After the Bruins took down the Knights, Cronin didn’t waste any time before addressing Tyler Bilodeau’s absence during his postgame press conference. He said the UCLA star looked good in practice before the game, but the program is simply being careful.

“Before you guys ask, he had a good practice yesterday, woke up stiff today,” Cronin said. “I didn’t like the way he was moving in shoot around this morning. He wanted to play and I said no. If you want to know why I said no, then you should probably never coach. You got to be responsible for the people underneath you and try to do the right thing.

“You might see me being hard on guys, but when the rubber meets the road and they need somebody, I’m the guy, so they can take it to the bank. I’m not going to put that guy in harm’s way. Hopefully, he has a good day tomorrow. Before you ask, we’ll see how he is on Sunday.”