2015-2016 Season

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College basketball is about coaching and the line in college basketball between the haves and the have nots is much more blurred than in college football.

Waite brought up UK in a previous post and obviously UK is the gold standard in college hoops these days. It wasn't that long ago though that UK was firing Tubby Smith because he wasn't living up to their expectations and hiring Billy Gillespe who took that great program and all it's resources and drove it into the ground. It wasn't until UK went out and hired Calipari that they got back to being a dominant program.

If you want to look at college football you can look no further than Alabama. Before they hired Saban they were largely irrelevant for 15 years.

I don't point this out to say that we should have expectations like either of those two schools or that we could lure a coach like either. I point it out because just having a great program doesn't equate to success. Likewise, not having all the same advantages as a UK or Alabama doesn't mean you can't still compete. You have to have the right coach in place to drive the ship.

All the other factors people use to make excuses don't matter much, what matters is the coaching, or lack thereof.

UC still has many things in place that make it a very attractive job for the right coach. Just look at Mick's salary alone. We could take almost any up and coming young coach and immediately triple or quadruple their salary if that's what it took.

Does anyone really think someone like Archie Miller wouldn't have to seriously consider a UC offer that paid $2.5 million a year plus bonuses??? Does anyone really think someone like Archie Miller, given his bloodlines and success he's had at Dayton, couldn't do just as good if not a heck of a lot better than what we're getting right now?
 
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L-T I was at Woodward with Mick. I believe Mick was a favor owed from flint. The peek brothers got him in door at uc also. Antwan actually made it to NFL and played basketball for us. Mike his big brother was probably one of best EVER from city couldn't make grades at Louisville. Mike and flint were local inner city talent you made favors to keep at home. Look at Yancy getting Jackson and his lil brother on team. Pretty sure we made kj family some type of back door promise also.
 
Sitting out Scott might cost Mick his job. I know at least he can grab a rebound or put his hands up on D. Moore gives other team too many EXTRA possessions and leaves too many points on floor
 
This season has gone the opposite of the way I thought it would, almost like the football season. But the thing with college hoops this year is that there is no favorite if you just get in you can make a run. And this team still has the same players it had in November so although I mad at everything right now, I'm not ready to quit just yet. Lunardi still has us hanging on barley playing in the play in game, and Palm has us out. What do you guys think it will take to get in (without winning AAC touney)? How many losses can we afford (1? 2?) we still have Memphis twice UConn twice @houston and top10 smu at home to close the season so it won't get any easy in conference
 
Now that we've been swept by Temple, the "we're this close to being a Top 10 team" excuse doesn't work anymore. So we move on to the refs and the arena. There HAS to be a reason we're failing and there's no way it can have anything to do with the coach. No. It's coaching. And it's scheme. Very simple if you're willing to be honest with yourself.
 
Now that we've been swept by Temple, the "we're this close to being a Top 10 team" excuse doesn't work anymore. So we move on to the refs and the arena. There HAS to be a reason we're failing and there's no way it can have anything to do with the coach. No. It's coaching. And it's scheme. Very simple if you're willing to be honest with yourself.

I know your fed up with cronin but do you want him fired or want him to change?
 
I know your fed up with cronin but do you want him fired or want him to change?

He won't change. That's my problem. I was dumb enough to think this year would provide a higher level and more entertaining product. Cronin puts a lid on pretty much every player he coaches.
 
You can't win with Shaq and #10 getting 30min

Caupain would be fine playing 30 minutes if he is hitting shots. He gives you weak defense and weak passing, so he absolutely must hit shots at an efficient rate. Scoring 14 points is meaningless if it takes him 15-20 shots to do it. The percentage that he shot last year would be fine at this year's volume.
 
I know your fed up with cronin but do you want him fired or want him to change?

Ben Howland was fired after 3 final 4s. College basketball is all about recruiting and coaching. Our coach ignores 50% of the game, and therefore, good recruits go elsewhere. It's been 10 years. He isn't about to change or he would have been smart enough to do it by now.
 
Caupain would be fine playing 30 minutes if he is hitting shots. He gives you weak defense and weak passing, so he absolutely must hit shots at an efficient rate. Scoring 14 points is meaningless if it takes him 15-20 shots to do it. The percentage that he shot last year would be fine at this year's volume.

BTW Caupain has the lowest eFG% (42.7) of any UC guard since Dion Dixon (42.5) in 2011-12.
 
You can only thrive as the slowest team in America if you have an efficient offense with multiple outside shooters and stretch big men. We have 1 shooter. Caupain, Johnson, Evans and Thomas are shooting a combined 25.3% from 3 in conference play. And on top of that, we take inefficient long 2s all game long. But Cronin can live with it bc his whole goal at this point is to hold the score down to inflate our ranking in defensive point totals.
 
Last night, I went on youtube and rewatched the Depaul game in Kenyon's senior year, the game that cemented him as unamious national player of the year. What a starting lineup! 2 MacDonald's All-Americans, 1 concensus national player of the year, 1 national juco player of the year, and one guy who got the hell out of the loser school to the north, TOSU, to come and play for a great coach in a mid-major conference. Coming off the bench was our next 1st team all-american out of Cleveland, who shunned the loser school to the North, TOSU, to come here to play in a mid-major conference for a great coach, a coach who actually improved players and got them to the next level. But then, college basketball has changed now. Ask Butler, Dayton, VCU, Gonzaga, San Diego St., Xavier, George Mason, Wichita, etc. That kind of thing is impossible nowadays
 
You can only thrive as the slowest team in America if you have an efficient offense with multiple outside shooters and stretch big men. We have 1 shooter. Caupain, Johnson, Evans and Thomas are shooting a combined 25.3% from 3 in conference play. And on top of that, we take inefficient long 2s all game long. But Cronin can live with it bc his whole goal at this point is to hold the score down to inflate our ranking in defensive point totals.

"We're hoping to have a lot more possessions in our games because we're going to be able to sustain our press" Cronin said. "The biggest change for us is going to be pressing and the ability to bring full-court pressure the entire game. We're going to play 10 or 11 guys."
 
"We're hoping to have a lot more possessions in our games because we're going to be able to sustain our press" Cronin said. "The biggest change for us is going to be pressing and the ability to bring full-court pressure the entire game. We're going to play 10 or 11 guys."

You may remember that coach. He moved on to an average basketball program, already has taken them to a Final 4, and last week beat #1 and lost to #2 at the buzzer, playing a style of ball that we once played and with the kind of recruits we once got, and they are 16-2 and ranked ahead of all those blue-blood schools who supposedly get all the good players. Must be the attractiveness of Morgantown, because as we know, college basketball is different today..
 
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You may remember that coach. He moved on to an average basketball program, already has taken them to a Final 4, and last week beat #1 and lost to #2 at the buzzer, playing a style of ball that we once played and with the kind of recruits we once got, and they are 16-2 and ranked ahead of all those blue-blood schools who supposedly get all the good players. Must be the attractiveness of Morgantown, because as we know, college basketball is different today..

BTW that quote is from October 2013. Doesn't matter though, you can recycle it and repeat it before every season.
 
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