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UCLA’s Skyy Clark ready for UConn after some late-night dental work

March 22, 2026

PHILADELPHIA — Skyy Clark has a full smile again.

UCLA’s senior guard did, in fact, require some late night dental work Friday, after one of his upper teeth broke thanks to an inadvertent elbow from Central Florida’s Themus Fulks during a scramble for a loose ball late in the Bruins’ 75-71 NCAA Tournament first-round victory.

When he broke into a grin at the start of the Bruins players’ media session Saturday, the replacement looked as good as new. It may have sounded like coach Mick Cronin was kidding after Friday’s game when he talked about the need for a “late night oral surgeon,” but that need was indeed filled.

“I’m all good now, so shout out (to) Dr. Goldfine,” Clark said at the top of Saturday’s media session, referring to Jeffrey Goldfine, the dentist who told The Associated Press he’d been called into his suburban Philadelphia office to perform the 90-minute procedure to replace the damaged portion of the tooth, which Bruins reserve Jack Seidler had retrieved from the court.

“I just threw that piece away,” Clark said. “He just put a temporary on, and after a few weeks, I get to get a new one.”

Clark also said the dentist removed the nerve and the root, shave the tooth “down to a nub” and replaced it. Goldfine told AP he placed a metal rod in the tooth to build it up around the existing tooth, adding, “We want to see him smile while he’s making a shot,”

Worth noting: Clark was out of the game for maybe 40 seconds after that mishap. And that could be an indication of the mindset that has gotten these Bruins to this point, a second-round game at 5:45 p.m. PDT Sunday against another tough-minded team, Connecticut.

(And yes, Clark will be wearing a mouth guard against the Huskies.)

“He’s a dog,” teammate Trent Perry said. “The only time he gets hurt is when he pulled his hamstring. At the end of the day, he’s a dog. He’ll do everything for us to win.”

Clark, who averaged 11.5 points and 1.2 steals in his 25 games and had a better than 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, missed 10 games in January and early February with that hamstring injury. The Bruins were 7-3 in that span, losing Big Ten games at Wisconsin and Ohio State and at home in double overtime to Indiana. At one point, Cronin mused how much his team missed Clark.

UCLA has won seven of its last nine, and one of those losses was the Big Ten Conference Tournament semifinal to Purdue, with Donovan Dent leaving that game with a calf injury and Tyler Bilodeau having sprained his right knee the previous game, a quarterfinal victory over Michigan State.

Bilodeau’s participation Sunday is still uncertain, though there was nothing listed on the NCAA availability report as of 2:30 p.m. PDT Saturday. Cronin was noncommittal when he met the media later Saturday, saying he’d have to see how Bilodeau looks in the team’s morning shootaround.

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

These Bruins look a lot more efficient than they had earlier in the season, and against Central Florida they recorded nine blocks, four of them by Xavier Booker in the center position usually occupied by Bilodeau, and 13 steals, six of them by Dent.

“That’s what we have been trying to do all year,” Clark said. “I think the last few games of the regular season is when we really locked in on that and started playing like that Mick Cronin style of defense. We’ve just been sticking with it. It’s working so why change it?”

This from the same group that, according to Perry, Cronin had called his worst defensive team.

“Yeah, well metrically it was,” Cronin said. “If you look at (KenPom.com, the basketball analytics site run by Ken Pomeroy), at that point, they were the worst defensive team in my 23 years. That’s changed. We pushed a lot of buttons schematically, some things. But generally, our care factor has been much better.”

It’s called motivation, and Cronin’s version of tough love – not dissimilar to the methods of UConn’s Dan Hurley – got his players’ attention.

“I challenge them,” Cronin said. “Why is Nebraska fifth in the nation in defense when (coach Fred Hoiberg’s) son, Sam, a 5-11 former walk-on, is their best defender? Because he plays so hard.”

And how does he know that the buttons he’s pushing are working?

“Yeah, well, obviously, performance would be the main one,” he said. “Focus on scouting reports, focus in walkthroughs. The number one (indicator) was our effort defensively against Nebraska (in a 72-52 win March 3 at Pauley). (Friday night against Central Florida) our effort was great. They hit some wild shots late, man. We would have had them in the 60s easy. 27 in the first half. So results, but, yeah, effort and focus from your guys.

“Look, Ray Lewis said this a long time ago in football. The film don’t lie. … The film shows effort and it shows lack of effort. I see more effort (these days) on film.”

That’s a start, at least.

jalexander@scng.com

NCAA Tournament Second Round

Who: No. 7 seed UCLA (24-11) vs. No. 2 seed UConn (30-5)

When: 5:45 p.m. Sunday

Where: Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia

TV: TNT/AM 790

Orange County Register

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UCLA’s Skyy Clark ready for UConn after some late-night dental work

NCAA Tournament Second Round

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