Around the Country

BearcatTalk

Help Support BearcatTalk:

GarradJ21 said:
Hard to judge guy on a 10 year basis when starting with football players on the team. I'd say with the recruits coming in and the players we have give him at least 2 more years and see what we can make of it. Each year kept getting better as far as wins and accomplishments until the sweet 16 year, however that is 4 years ago. Now, recently I feel like each year the recruiting classes are getting better.

Also, not a doubt in my mind, with the conference we are in, facilities, money, and everything else coaches will use this as a stepping stool just like in football.

I'm 25 years old. The coaching change was made after my freshman year of high school. Before that, I can remember getting bounced every year first or second round for about 5 years straight. Were you guys beginning to turn on Huggins too?
Click to expand...

Huggs only went out in the 1st round in 2 of his 14 years, but he also made the Final 4 once, Elite 8 3 times, Sweet 16. The only ones who turned were the ones upset with the drinking and reputation. But, most still loved Huggs. Huggs also had many great recruits, NBA players, League Championships, National Player of the year, all-americans, Tournament championships, players that actually improved a lot, top 10 rankings, #1 rankings, etc. Comparing Cronin to Huggs is apples to oranges. Cronin isn't even in the same breath. Mick did ok pulling us out of the toilet, but he flat-lineed.
 
There is no comparison, but things were a lot different. Also considering CUSA team to a Big East team. Interested to see how far we would have climbed some of those years if we didn't play UConn Syracuse and Gtown back to back to back.

This won't go anywhere along with Cronin not going anywhere so you could always make a choice to stop caring and move on from UC? I still see some light.
 
Last edited:
L-T said:
Huggs only went out in the 1st round in 2 of his 14 years, but he also made the Final 4 once, Elite 8 3 times, Sweet 16. The only ones who turned were the ones upset with the drinking and reputation. But, most still loved Huggs.
Click to expand...


Those that loved Huggs, still do, and the vast majority of them dislike Cronin, and have from day one.


The early years with Huggins were great, but the program had started to go down in his later years here. The 1 sweet 16 in 9 years speaks to that. The 2002 team was probably the last really good team he had. 03, 04, 05 the team finished 44, 20, and 22 on kenpom. Those teams are extremely comparable to the teams we have now (21, 26, 42, 23, 34 rankings the last 5 years).


But it was good enough with Huggins coaching them. Not good enough now.


If you want to have the viewpoint what Mick is doing now isn't good enough, that's fine, but then you must also acknowledge where the program was towards the end of Huggins' time here.
 
cincrulz11 said:
Those that loved Huggs, still do, and the vast majority of them dislike Cronin, and have from day one.


The early years with Huggins were great, but the program had started to go down in his later years here. The 1 sweet 16 in 9 years speaks to that. The 2002 team was probably the last really good team he had. 03, 04, 05 the team finished 44, 20, and 22 on kenpom. Those teams are extremely comparable to the teams we have now (21, 26, 42, 23, 34 rankings the last 5 years).


But it was good enough with Huggins coaching them. Not good enough now.


If you want to have the viewpoint what Mick is doing now isn't good enough, that's fine, but then you must also acknowledge where the program was towards the end of Huggins' time here.
Click to expand...

Exactly- and it hard to read negative after negative. That's only going to make it worse when all in all its not as bad as people are making it out to be. The real judgement should be from gates senior year. And yes we have been bounced out twice in the first round but I think this year and the next few to come are going to be the real deciding factor. This year is not over.
 
cincrulz11 said:
Those that loved Huggs, still do, and the vast majority of them dislike Cronin, and have from day one.


The early years with Huggins were great, but the program had started to go down in his later years here. The 1 sweet 16 in 9 years speaks to that. The 2002 team was probably the last really good team he had. 03, 04, 05 the team finished 44, 20, and 22 on kenpom. Those teams are extremely comparable to the teams we have now (21, 26, 42, 23, 34 rankings the last 5 years).


But it was good enough with Huggins coaching them. Not good enough now.


If you want to have the viewpoint what Mick is doing now isn't good enough, that's fine, but then you must also acknowledge where the program was towards the end of Huggins' time here.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is true at all. I don't know a single person who wasn't excited about the Cronin hire.
 
GarradJ21 said:
Your comment serves no point when we have no clue who you know nor care?
Click to expand...

What purpose does it serve to just make up your own facts about how people felt about a hire 10 years ago? The statement I was commenting on can't be proven one way or the other. It's just something someone wishes was true.
 
GarradJ21 said:
Your comment serves no point when we have no clue who you know nor care?

My biggest point is how negative some people are. I need to just stop pulling this website up, it's my own fault.

Back to "around the country." Big weekend like usual. Can't wait until noon tomorrow
Click to expand...

Use your ignore feature.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
Notable Games:

Colorado vs Iowa State...is this @ISU or neutral?

Robert Morris @ Penn (we play Robert Morris on Sunday)

Miami (OH) @ Xavier
Click to expand...
I'm sorry I read it wrong and thought you said no one was happy but you said no one that wasn't happy about it. My bad, read it all wrong.
 
Last edited:
jacobkdoyle said:
I don't think this is true at all. I don't know a single person who wasn't excited about the Cronin hire.
Click to expand...

Man sitting in the stands in those early years. A lot of people could not stand him one bit. It's possible I just happened to be located near very vocal haters, but I definitely got the impression early on that he was not well liked at all.
 
cincrulz11 said:
Man sitting in the stands in those early years. A lot of people could not stand him one bit. It's possible I just happened to be located near very vocal haters, but I definitely got the impression early on that he was not well liked at all.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised to hear that.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
I'm surprised to hear that.
Click to expand...

i don't think it was the hire itself so much as there were a lot of people - and again, it's all about perspective; this could just be a smaller group of people who are louder than everyone else - that thought the return to perennial tournament team should be a lot quicker, and that the style of play was not visually pleasing and exciting.

to me, it feels like some of the people in that camp held their disdain for mick even after that return was completed. i thought we had flushed all that **** out with the sweet 16 year, but it appears to be creeping back up.

i think another good tournament run would placate a lot of those folks. for me, as i've stated, i think a lot more is put stock is put into tournament runs than is deserved - unless you're handily beating teams, a large portion of your fate is decided by luck and chance. pretty easy to cruise to the sweet 16 if you catch a non-threatening first round game (as opposed to playing a talented team that's inconsistent, like the ucla team that beat our huggins team, for example) and then a dork team like lehigh or georgia state.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
I don't think this is true at all. I don't know a single person who wasn't excited about the Cronin hire.
Click to expand...
jake you must have been living in another city. They hated him. Sippin mic k,mick the rat.longtimer and many others posted stuff all over the boards. Never before have I seen such garbage. They brought up very personal info about his divorce and much more. After he turned this thing around if I was him I would have been on the first thing smokin if I got another offer. He has put up with a ton of stuff. Bearcat Jeff and Jason alao saw it first hand on other sites as well. We have some still posting here.

I loved the Huggins years. Turned the program around and made it fun. Mick didn't fire Bob. Bob fired Bob. He was in a tuff spot and did a nice job digging us out of a huge hole. Hope he can get the job done. If not I'll root for the next coach.
 
Last edited:
WAITE HOYT 2 said:
jake you must have been living in another city. They hated him. Sippin mic k,mick the rat.longtimer and many others posted stuff all over the boards. Never before have I seen such garbage. They brought up very personal info about his divorce and much more. After he turned this thing around if I was him I would have been on the first thing smokin if I got another offer. He has put up with a ton of stuff. Bearcat Jeff and Jason alao saw it first hand ion other sites as well. We have some still posting here.
Click to expand...

From day 1?

I was in the camp that was happy we didn't keep Kennedy. I also wasn't on any message boards back then, so I may have missed a lot of that stuff.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
From day 1?

I was in the camp that was happy we didn't keep Kennedy. I also wasn't on any message boards back then, so I may have missed a lot of that stuff.
Click to expand...
i wish I would have missed all the garbage. It was embarrassing. They especially hated him from day 1. In many eyes he was a traitor who left UC to take a job with the enemy. Louisville! Which helped him land the Murray St job which led him home to UC
 
Madman81 said:
i don't think it was the hire itself so much as there were a lot of people - and again, it's all about perspective; this could just be a smaller group of people who are louder than everyone else - that thought the return to perennial tournament team should be a lot quicker, and that the style of play was not visually pleasing and exciting.

to me, it feels like some of the people in that camp held their disdain for mick even after that return was completed. i thought we had flushed all that **** out with the sweet 16 year, but it appears to be creeping back up.

i think another good tournament run would placate a lot of those folks. for me, as i've stated, i think a lot more is put stock is put into tournament runs than is deserved - unless you're handily beating teams, a large portion of your fate is decided by luck and chance. pretty easy to cruise to the sweet 16 if you catch a non-threatening first round game (as opposed to playing a talented team that's inconsistent, like the ucla team that beat our huggins team, for example) and then a dork team like lehigh or georgia state.
Click to expand...

I think that's bc it is starting to feel like maybe that was the peak. One Sweet 16 game, one conference finals appearance, and one co-conference championship doesn't secure you a job for life at this level.
 
People absolutely hated Mick from day 1.... He didn't have a chance following Huggs. I don't think he gets the credit he deserves. I don't think people remember just how bad the fallout was from Huggins being fired, and where the program was when that happened. Mick has done a great job, not only with the team but with graduation rate and program image, I for one commend him for the job he's done. I think we can all agree we wan't deeper runs in the tourney though.
 
Lol, most of the nice stories told above are very inaccurate. Most people liked Mick from day one. I thought it was one on the best hires we could have ever made. His performance as a coach, and as the face of the program, started to turn people away. You began to notice players not getting much better over the 4 years. For example, our best player back then, Deonta Vaughn makes 1st Team all Big East as a sophomore, and by his senior year isn't even honorable mention. Plus, he started scheduling the most pathetic teams on the planet to come and play at home. His teams collapsed horribly at the end of about 4 out of 5 of his early years. The university executed one of the dumbest ticket/UCATS price increases of all time after his 2nd or 3rd year. The combination of all of this created a mass exodus out of the program. 90% of those who stayed with the program were not happy and voiced their displeasure with the coach and the university. Most of the ones who left, never came back. The few crazed Cronin supporters, who were still excited about him, dominated these forums and ruined them with their continuous personal attacks on anybody left who spoke out for change.
 

Similar threads

Q
Bryant
2
Replies
20
Views
37K
Queens_NYC
Q
Q
NIT Second Round: Hofstra
2
Replies
20
Views
34K
Queens_NYC
Q
S
@Wichita St
2 3 4
Replies
63
Views
38K
Cin City
C
Q
Houston
2
Replies
30
Views
35K
skyblade
S
Q
Evansville
2 3
Replies
43
Views
26K
waterhead
W

Latest posts

Back
Top