Jay Bilas calls Mick Cronin press conference rant, 'petulant and unnecessary,' calls out other losing coaches

ESPN’s Jay Bilas called Mick Cronin’s press conference rant “petulant and unnecessary,” but didn’t stop at the UCLA coach. Bilas named others like TJ Otzelberger and Bill Self as coaches, among a broad group that simply can’t do the normal thing at press conferences.

It’s all fine and dandy when those coaches and their teams win. But when they lose, especially in the case of Cronin lately, they go on tirades, berate reporters on scene and more.

“I really didn’t like the press conference thing,” Bilas said on Mad Dog Unleashed. “I thought it was kind of petulant and unnecessary and for the life of me, and this goes beyond Mick, I can’t understand why so many of these coaches go into these press conferences. Why does Iowa State’s TJ Otzelberger and Bill Self at Kansas, how can they go into these press conferences after getting it handed to them and behave themselves? It’s not that hard. What do they expect that they’re in a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry, nobody’s going to be interested?

“And I’m — look, I’m okay with the feeling that the media doesn’t understand basketball the same way the coaches do. Congratulations. When I go into a restaurant. I’m not a chef, but I get to opine on the meal. I’m paying for it. I get opine on it and, you know, I don’t see why this is so difficult.”

Cronin apologized to his own player, Steven Jamerson, whom he ejected from the game last week. On top of that, the UCLA coach promised to dial it back in press conferences, leaving it at that. Bilas said that the situation is over and done with, but doubled down on the fact that coaches should be able to handle themselves properly.

“I understand, ‘hey, I’m a competitor,’ but the competition is over, and now it’s time to talk about it,” Bilas said. “And it’s not that hard. Like they win and they’re nightclub comics and they lose and they can be petty at times, and, and I think, hopefully, you know, I felt really good that Mick apologized about the whole thing and to me, it’s over.

“But I guess I’m talking more broadly and globally on this. But these things aren’t that hard. There’s no reason to act that way. If you don’t like a question, just say, look, I prefer not to answer that. Whatever. It’s not that big of a deal.”