Throughout this season, UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin has been dismissive about the impact of crowds in college basketball. He even went so far as to say in January that he believes in “coaching and execution” but not homecourt advantage.

Now, with the NCAA Tournament, nobody has homecourt advantage. However, teams still have challenges to manage. Those are extensive in dealing with travel away from home, which has partially contributed to Cronin’s downplaying of crowds and impactful environments.

“I’m a big believer that that stuff can be overrated,” Mick Cronin said. “It can be. But I like to think I build our guys where we’re tough enough that the environment shouldn’t affect you, but it tends to help the home team play better. As I always say, guys want to win at home when their girlfriend is in the stands. They don’t want to play bad. She’s not on the road. They tend to play a little bit harder when she’s there.”

UCLA is now in its first season of Big Ten play and, at times, he’s made it clear that he’s not a fan of the travel that has come with the conference that goes from California to New Jersey. He’s also, at times, called out his own team for not staying focused. Regardless, now the focus and travel are challenges they need to embrace because the NCAA Tournament is an entirely unique challenge.

“In college basketball, I’ve said this to you, it’s the most home-court advantage sport in all of North American sports. 75 percent, roughly, of games are won by the home team. That’s why this tournament is wild, man. Everybody is sitting there right now and all these geniuses on TV are going to sit there and talk about how they know who the eight teams are going to be in the Elite Eight, like they know, and they’ll be wrong on 70 percent of them. It’s just because of neutral sites too,” Cronin said.

“It’s a neutral site game and matchups. Matchups are really, really important. I’m a big believer in that. You don’t have time to adjust your matchups. It’s not a seven-game series. It’s a one-and-out environment. That’s what we were alluding to. A team like Wisconsin does what they did the other day, you’re going home. Strap it in, this tournament’s wild.”

UCLA ended up getting a seven-seed in the NCAA Tournament. In their first game, the Bruins are set to take on the Utah State Aggies. That, as Cronin explained, needs to be the focus and not any outside noise.

“We’ve got to win Thursday. You don’t think about anything else. We’ve got to win Thursday,” Cronin said. “All that matters is preparing for Utah State better than we’ve prepared for any team this year. That’s what matters. Keeping your focus on that. Not on travel, not on tickets, not on where the game’s at.”

UCLA and Utah State are set to tip off on Thursday at 9:25 p.m. EST. The winner will play either Tennessee or Wofford.