For Mick Cronin and Andy Enfield, good results could direct to phone calls to mentor somewhere else

Their telephones could ring before long, Mick Cronin and Andy Enfield realizing the point of the inquiry really should their caller IDs present Louisville, Ky., or College Park, Md.

Coach Cronin, we’d like to gauge your curiosity in turning out to be the future mentor at Louisville.

Mentor Enfield, how would you really feel about coming home to Maryland?

For UCLA and USC basketball fans, the hope is their respective coaches take care of any appeals to depart Los Angeles as junk calls. The departure of either coach would be a reduction much more excruciating than any setback in the rivalry activity Saturday night at a offered-out Pauley Pavilion.

They are greatly regarded two of the hotter names on the coaching market supplied what they have finished for their systems.

Cronin, 50, guided UCLA to a Closing 4 in his second year whilst restoring the Bruins to blueblood position.

Enfield, 52, took USC to its very first Elite 8 in 20 decades when compiling the winningest 6-calendar year stretch for any mentor at the university.

Each individual has been selected the Pac-12 Conference’s mentor of the year, Cronin profitable the award for his first season with the Bruins before Enfield snagged the honor past time.

Their overlapping accomplishment has designed college or university basketball stylish once again in a town dominated by championship-hoarding specialist athletics groups. When the Trojans conquer the Bruins final thirty day period at a marketed-out Galen Center, it was the 1st time they experienced met although both nationally ranked due to the fact 2007.

The winner of Saturday’s showdown amongst the No. 17 Bruins (22-6 all round, 14-5 Pac-12) and No. 16 Trojans (25-5, 14-5) will secure the No. 2 seed for the convention match, with a prospect for a in the same way lofty seed in the NCAA tournament.

Although equally coaches appear to be best fits for their recent work opportunities — Cronin oozing his admiration for UCLA’s tradition, not to point out the L.A. climate, and Enfield turning out to be the normal-bearer for USC’s achievement — the entice of the openings across the nation is undeniable.

Louisville performs in the basketball-crazed Atlantic Coast Meeting, options a rabid lover base and resides in a 22,090-seat arena that is constantly packed when the group is profitable. It was also the place wherever Cronin apprenticed as an assistant beneath Rick Pitino for two seasons just before landing his to start with head coaching task at Murray Point out.

Maryland would supply a homecoming for Enfield, who was born significantly less than two hrs absent in southern Pennsylvania, played collegiately at Johns Hopkins in close by Baltimore and put in two decades completing his MBA in University Park. The Terrapins boast a extra storied tradition than the Trojans, owning appeared in a Final 4 in 2001 and successful a national championship in 2002 less than Gary Williams.

There is also the prestige aspect to look at. Maryland basketball will come with a cachet that USC just can’t match when remaining massively overshadowed on its campus by the soccer crew.

Nearing the close of his ninth time at USC, Enfield has built clear he’s delighted with the program’s climb to a perennial contender. No Pac-12 workforce has gained more conference game titles than USC over the last 5 years, and the arrival of a top rated-10 recruiting course upcoming time ought to only solidify the Trojans’ elite status.

USC coach Andy Enfield

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Related Press)

But the prospect of stepping into a prepared-manufactured hoops haven, exactly where fans cram the arena for every single property video game, is anticipated to be anything Enfield would significantly think about should he be extended an offer.

Predictably, neither Cronin nor Enfield would say much about feasible desire from other universities. Cronin just lately explained it would be “wildly inappropriate” to remark on any work opening. Enfield, when asked very last week if he’d been contacted by Maryland, stated only that rumors of outside the house desire meant “our coaching staff members and our players have completed a fantastic work.”

UCLA and USC have rewarded their coaches with modern extensions that may possibly will need sweetening to continue to keep them in location. Soon after last season’s NCAA match operate, Cronin gained a two-year extension value a confirmed $4 million for each yr that runs as a result of the 2026-27 time. Enfield quietly been given a a few-yr extension right after final year that goes as a result of the 2025-26 season, although the terms were being not made community.

Even if Louisville and Maryland look in other places for their upcoming coaches, Cronin and Enfield determine to be in the conversation for any top rated university jobs that arrive open.

Requested how he would react if an additional college pursued Cronin, UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond sounded completely ready to put up a battle.

“Mick has accomplished an fantastic work main our men’s basketball program,” Jarmond instructed The Times. “He’s a person of the finest coaches in the region, not only due to the fact he wins with integrity, but also mainly because he understands how to get the best out of his athletes and he cares about their advancement as individuals. I know Mick has incredible respect for the four letters. I consider his greatest times are ahead of him in this article in Westwood, and I’m likely to do anything I can to guarantee that.”

Comparable assistance from USC’s Mike Bohn has not absent unnoticed by Enfield. The mentor consistently has expressed appreciation for his athletic director, who explained to The Situations earlier this season that Enfield experienced “established himself as an elite coach.”

“They usually reported, if you construct it, followers will appear,” Enfield mentioned this 7 days. “Well, we’ve been winning for seven decades, and it is awesome to at last have this application currently being recognized by our college students and our administration.”

It’s a calling that could direct to a call, beginning the cycle anew.

UCLA-USC

When: Saturday, 7 p.m.

Wherever: Pauley Pavilion.

On the air: Tv set: ESPN Radio 570, 790.

Update: UCLA desperately needs to finish its 5-video game shedding streak in opposition to USC, the Bruins’ longest slide in the rivalry because the 1940s. “We’ve got to set our life on the line,” UCLA senior guard David Singleton claimed. Topping the Trojans probably will have to have a better defensive work on guard Drew Peterson, who scored 27 factors during USC’s 67-64 victory past thirty day period at the Galen Centre that arrived with star ahead Isaiah Mobley sidelined. UCLA coach Mick Cronin claimed there was a 50-50 likelihood that major scorer Johnny Juzang could participate in right after missing the very last 2½ online games with a sprained right ankle.