Jay Bilas hit out at UCLA head coach Mick Cronin for calling his players “soft” following a 94-75 loss to Michigan on Tuesday.

If that was Cronin’s attempt at motivating his team, it didn’t work as they fell at Maryland, 79-61, on Friday to drop to 11-5 and 2-3 in the Big Ten.

Bilas, on Saturday’s College GameDay, accused Cronin — who was ejected from Friday’s game — of throwing his players under the bus, saying that he “didn’t care for” the sixth-year head man’s remarks and that they should have been kept in-house.

“Coaches like to talk about accountability a lot, and rightfully so. I mean, accountability’s important in everything,” Bilas said. “But I don’t think that’s what accountability really looks like. That to me looked simply like blame. I heard a lot of ‘I’. ‘I’m doing this, and I’m doing that, and nobody else is doing it’.”

Bilas brought up a quote from longtime Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, who stated several years ago that coaches who talk negatively about their players are “seeking comfort because their teaching is struggling”.

Ultimately, Bilas said, the buck stops with Cronin.

“Mick Cronin recruited all those players … and he hired all those coaches,” he said. “I get it. Coaches like to think they’re more passionate and tougher than their players, but … Mick Cronin’s not tougher than his players. When he was playing, he would not have gotten one loose ball, one rebound against the guys he’s got now.”