The Utah Utes had been on the losing end of seven consecutive meetings with the UCLA Bruins going into Thursday night's game, and apparently that had been the cause for quite a bit of pent-up frustration. Or at least that's what the scoreboard showed at the end of the game.

Despite only trailing by ten points at halftime, the UCLA basketball team ended up getting routed by the final scored of 90-44. The 46-point defeat is the second largest in school history, only surpassed by a 48-point beatdown at the hands of Stanford back in 1997. Here's the bigger problem: that UCLA team wound up going to the Elite Eight in 1997. This year's version, led by fifth-year head coach Mick Cronin, has now dropped to 6-10 for the season, and isn't sniffing the bubble at the moment. Understandably, Cronin was very upset after the game.

“We got our ass kicked every way we could–coaching, playing, hustle, everything,” Mick Cronin said after the game, per Ben Bolch of the LA Times. “I’ve got no positives for you as far as one guy.”

Comb through the box score and you'll see that Cronin isn't exaggerating. There really weren't any positives you could point to. Every single Bruins starter shot under 50%, and as a team, the Bruins were 31% from the field, 17% from 3-point range, and 50% at the line. They committed 13 turnovers compared to 8 assists, and again, it was a 46-point defeat. If Mick Cronin really wanted to grasp for straws, he could've said something like “Well, the first half wasn't that bad,” but that would be like saying “Well, the first four days aboard the Titanic were pretty good.”

Under Mick Cronin, who is in his fifth year as the Bruins head coach, UCLA has made three straight tournament appearances, all which extended until at least the Sweet Sixteen, including a Final Four run in 2021. It was UCLA's first Final Four appearance since 2008.