Analyzing the job Mick has done

[cincycpaw]

Everyone's already touched on the specifics so I'll just go with grade.

Before this season started, I would have said an A- and trending up.

Now I'll say a B+ with a bit of a murky future depending on the development of this year's recruiting class. May take a step back short term.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

Program building: A
Recruiting: B-
Offense: C-
Defense: A-

Total: B

 

[L-T]

Program building: A
Recruiting: B-
Offense: C-
Defense: A-

Total: B

Good Reply! To give someone an A+ implies he has hit a home run in every single category of performance and that's just not the case. I think I would add some categories to what you have above.

Graduation Rates: A
Player Development: D (maybe a little harsh, but I just don't see players improving much under Mick)

Overall, for me, B-/C+.

 

[WAITE HOYT 2]

L_T like your adding the graduation rate to the criteria. Seems many forget these are student athletes.

 

[WAITE HOYT 2]

Program building: A
Recruiting: B
Offense: C
Defense: A-
Graduation rate: A

TOTAL SCORE: B

PROGRAM BUILDING:
From what he inherited until now is light years.

Recruiting:
As his Coaching ability continues to get recognition his level of recruit will continue to rise. Mick has always been able to recognize talent. Recognizing and signing when your the coach and not Pitino or Huggy is two different things. I think Mick has made great strides.

Offense:
Without the benefit of a quality big man to pose a inside scoring threat we are one dimensional. Many want to comment that Mick and staff should be able to coach up the big man. Unfortunitely it is hard to coach when talent is lacking. It is Micks responsibility to recruit such talent. Wilt the Stilt couldn't coach Modj,Gaines or Narsuk into a viable BE frontline center. They are back ups at best. They are a very good offensive reboundong team.

Defense:
The team plays Hardnosed team defense. His concepts are good and Like his mentors if you don't play good D you won't see the floor. I think he would like to press more but in order to press you need a good rotation. Unfortunitely when the second unit comes in the drop off offensively is too much to justify pressing.Past the starting wing players points are very hard to come by.

Graduation rate:
Mick has done a great job bringing student athletes into the program and graduating them. An occassional one and doner is fine but at the end of the day these kids need to mature and develope socially even if it means giving up some potential earning years. To many fall victim to the sharks waiting to take advantage of them and end up broke.

 

[UCBearcats]

What the heck is program building defined as?? I would say the total grade is what determines program building.

Recruiting - B-
Offense - D-
Defense - A
Player Development - C-
Graduation Rate - A
Potential - C+

Overall I'd give Mick a solid C+. I think he's done a slightly above average job as UC's head coach and will continue to show us similar results to what we've seen this far.

 

[westsidecat]

program building - b. can't give him an a. if you look uc is under 500 and in 10th place after playing in the big east championship game just 12 months ago. unacceptable imo. but overall solid work.

recruiting - c. look at the bigs, we have 3 guys who would be back ups on most clubs, and one who shouldn't even be here. like it or not lance was a headcase and many schools shy away from him and yancy was a gift after iu was busted. look at the class coming in, guess what, another big who isn't even listed on recruiting sites, who i believe didn't have another high major offer. lawrence is the only high level recruit he has won. cronin has been beat to death on the recruiting trail and why some refuse to belive it is beyond me.


offense - f. this team is a joke on the offensive side of the ball. they always have struggle to score, but this year takes it to new level of suck. i'm not even going to get in to the offense.

defense - a. it's nasty and will always be nasty.

overall - c. not bad, not great, just average.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

What the heck is program building defined as?? I would say the total grade is what determines program building.

Recruiting - B-
Offense - D-
Defense - A
Player Development - C-
Graduation Rate - A
Potential - C+

Overall I'd give Mick a solid C+. I think he's done a slightly above average job as UC's head coach and will continue to show us similar results to what we've seen this far.

Since I was the first to include this category, I will specifiy. Some guys are just good coaches...take a guy like Brian Kelly. What Mick did was build a program from scratch the hard way, he didn't take on several risky transfers in order to win quickly. Mick took 4 year players that he knew would be here to create stability and a winning culture. Also he has rehabbed the program's image by recruiting kids that graduate and represent the program well (Xavier incident not withstanding). To get the program back on stable footing and on par with the other NCAA tournament quality teams in the BE is deserving on an "A" in my book.

 

[L-T]

Since I was the first to include this category, I will specifiy. Some guys are just good coaches...take a guy like Brian Kelly. What Mick did was build a program from scratch the hard way, he didn't take on several risky transfers in order to win quickly. Mick took 4 year players that he knew would be here to create stability and a winning culture. Also he has rehabbed the program's image by recruiting kids that graduate and represent the program well (Xavier incident not withstanding). To get the program back on stable footing and on par with the other NCAA tournament quality teams in the BE is deserving on an "A" in my book.

Mick didn't exactly take 4 year players. He started with a bunch of jucos. He's now starting to dip back into the juco ranks (with very little success I might add) with Mbodj, Rubles, and Nyarsuk. Crean was the one who took 4 year players from the start, suffered huge losses early, compared unfavorably to Mick in years 1-3, but has blown past Mick now reaching #1 in the nation in year 5, plus recruiting at a very high level! I give Crean an A in program building...not Mick...but Mick certainly has done pretty well bringing us back....but there can't be a huge slip this year or his grade comes way down. No NIT!!

 

[TheLongHaul]

Nyarsuk wasn't a JUCO, fyi.

Nothing personal for the JUCO's Mick brought in but I wish he would/could have gone the high school route and immediately began building. Unfortunately he was so far behind the recruiting game when hired if he tried to take high schoolers he wouldn't have been able to field a team. He needed the JUCO's just to fill roster spots. Secondly, Cronin hadn't been established. Crean was already a big name coach with a track record and accepted the job at one of the most storied program ever, which just happened to be the home of a talent hotbed. He was able to get high school players quickly for those reasons. There was just no way Mick could have done that.

 

[L-T]

Nyarsuk wasn't a JUCO, fyi.

Nothing personal for the JUCO's Mick brought in but I wish he would/could have gone the high school route and immediately began building. Unfortunately he was so far behind the recruiting game when hired if he tried to take high schoolers he wouldn't have been able to field a team. He needed the JUCO's just to fill roster spots. Secondly, Cronin hadn't been established. Crean was already a big name coach with a track record and accepted the job at one of the most storied program ever, which just happened to be the home of a talent hotbed. He was able to get high school players quickly for those reasons. There was just no way Mick could have done that.

Disagree that Crean was a big name coach. Coaching at Marquette does not qualify you as "Big Name". He had Dwayne Wade and made the final 4 one year and a 1st round loss the other...followed by two NITs, then 3 more NCAAs, losing twice in the 1st round and once in the 2nd round. Before Wade, he had one NIT, one no tournament at all, and one NCAA (another 1st round loss). Other than his one trip to the final 4, nothing impressive at all in his resume.

 

[westsidecat]

Disagree that Crean was a big name coach. Coaching at Marquette does not qualify you as "Big Name". He had Dwayne Wade and made the final 4 one year and a 1st round loss the other...followed by two NITs, then 3 more NCAAs, losing twice in the 1st round and once in the 2nd round. Before Wade, he had one NIT, one no tournament at all, and one NCAA (another 1st round loss). Other than his one trip to the final 4, nothing impressive at all in his resume.

crean was a "big name" coach. iu wouldn't have hired him if he name didn't open eyes. crean had a great run at marquette and made hisself a "name" for many coaching openings throughout the country.

 

[westsidecat]

i will say this about crean... use to have a ton of respect for him, but telling/teaching his kids to flop at the end of games is a joke. lost a lot of respect for him the last few weeks.

pretty shameful imo.

 

[Bearcat04]

Mick didn't exactly take 4 year players. He started with a bunch of jucos. He's now starting to dip back into the juco ranks (with very little success I might add) with Mbodj, Rubles, and Nyarsuk. Crean was the one who took 4 year players from the start, suffered huge losses early, compared unfavorably to Mick in years 1-3, but has blown past Mick now reaching #1 in the nation in year 5, plus recruiting at a very high level! I give Crean an A in program building...not Mick...but Mick certainly has done pretty well bringing us back....but there can't be a huge slip this year or his grade comes way down. No NIT!!

Prior to getting the IU job Crean spent 10 years coaching at a good Marquette program that he eventually took to the Final 4. That's an established coach. Mick spent 4 years with a good OVC program, but it's the OVC. Then he took over a team with no players in arguably the toughest basketball conference that we've ever seen. On top of that, IU is a much easier program to turn around.

 

[cincycpaw]

i will say this about crean... use to have a ton of respect for him, but telling/teaching his kids to flop at the end of games is a joke. lost a lot of respect for him the last few weeks.

pretty shameful imo.

Much better to have a couple of guards that flop all game huh?

 

[westsidecat]

Much better to have a couple of guards that flop all game huh?

i've never seen cronin on tape telling and showing anyone how to flop...unlike crean in his last two losses.

one way to stop all teams from doing it, make it a reviewable call, and t up the flopper and issue a bench warning.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

From a "Macro" viewpoint, Mick's body of work looks pretty good. Started from Oblivion, built us methodically to a sweet 16 six years later. Grad rates have improved. Good defensive coach....etc.

It's when you look from a "Micro" viewpoint where things get cloudy and murky. His recruiting has not lived up to the reputation that preceded him. He primarily recruits 3 star players and projects, which is fine if the coach is known for developing players. Nothing he has done leads one to think he is making players massively better over 4 years. I don't need to discuss specific players, but in general, we don't see a lot of improvement in 4 years from his players. Therefore, in my opinion, his recruiting must get a lot better. These 3-star guys just aren't getting Big East ready fast enough.

Again, if we have lesser players, then we need a coach who can game plan and strategize to make the players successful. He seems to be able to do that defensively, but certainly not offensively. And, whatever coaching he is doing on inbounds plays just defies logic. I can't believe a coach can't come up with something to get the ball inbounds, much less score off of it occasionally.

Bottom line, he did something to pull us from the black hole post-Huggs and we're all grateful for the job he did. I just don't see a lot of the key ingredients necessary to make us an elite program on a consistent basis, and that is what we should demand. We can be that program, and we shouldn't accept anything less. I appreciated the job Rick Minter did for us. We were in the black hole when he took over as well, and he made us competitive and got us back in the bowl conversation, had some of the all-time best assistant coaches in here on our sidelines. But, is was apparent that he wasn't going to take our program to the next level, and we made a change. And, it proved to be a good decision.

I don't know if we're at that point with Mick, but we're getting closer. Taking a step back this year is not good. With graduation hitting us fairly hard, a return to what essentially is Conference USA next year, no huge offensive upgrade on the horizon, I'm hoping this step back doesn't become a 2, 3, or 4 yr. slide back into mediocrity.

The inbounding in the Louisville game was horrific, but I wouldn't say it's been a problem all year. I remember analysts actually saying all year how good a job we do of getting the ball in to a guy under the basket on inbounds plays under their own hoop to get a good easy look. I think Louisville just did a good job scouting us and with the refs allowing a lot of contact (on both sides) I think it just snowballed on them.

 

[Gotcha23]

I understand the question. The answer is the same. I would rather lose first round in the NCAA than win the NIT.

100% agreed. NIT is a joke. Its depressing being in that tourny.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

100% agreed. NIT is a joke. Its depressing being in that tourny.

I rather lose on a 90 foot buzzer beater in the play-in game of the NCAA tournament than play in the NIT.

 

[CaptDale]

We are in the NCAA tourney. 21 wins and after a win Sat. 500 in BE. No doubt we are in.

I hope you're correct. But I wouldn't use the 21 wins (I think it's only 20 unless you're counting your chickens...) as a criteria because 8 of those wins were against teams that a good HS would contest.