JasonS
Football Moderator
By Mike DeCourcy
The Cincinnati Bearcats celebrated wildly when they saw the name of their school appear on the television screen while watching the NCAA Tournament selection show on CBS. Coach Mick Cronin was a little surprised by the reaction because he wasn’t surprised in the least his team was in the field.
“I knew it was going to happen all year,” Cronin told Sporting News. “I’d never even thought we were on the bubble—I just knew we had a good enough team we were going to bounce back. I’ve been confident in my team all year.”
And so he was. Thursday at 9:55 p.m. ET, when the West No. 6 seed Bearcats open the NCAA Tournament at Washington’s Verizon Center against No. 11 seed Missouri, they’ll be a long way from the 12th-place conference finish the league’s coaches predicted for them.
During the preseason, as Cronin’s peers and most in the media noted the departure of top scorers Lance Stephenson and Deonta Vaughn, Cronin tried to explain removing those two fine players would help promote better ball movement and thus compensate for their departure. Some read that merely as criticism of Stephenson and Vaughn. They did not believe.
When the Bearcats opened the season 15-0, one of the last teams to lose a game, that achievement widely was dismissed as the product of an impossibly easy schedule.
There was no faking 11-7 in this year’s Big East, however. The Bearcats had to beat several somebodies to get there, and having fumbled away three home games in the league they ultimately had to beat somebody on the road: St. John’s, Georgetown, Marquette.
Reaching this level is an underappreciated achievement. Cronin arrived at Cincinnati in March 2006, after he’d taken two Murray State teams in three seasons to the tournament—and after then-president Nancy Zimpher had botched the departure of Bob Huggins so badly UC recruiting all but ceased for nearly two years. The roster essentially consisted of one player who had one year of Division I experience and one more year to play. That was it.
From that, Cronin built a program that has consistently been competitive in the Big East, that has earned victories over the league’s major powers and elite coaches, that ultimately found a way to return to the NCAA Tournament.
He did it without the full support of what had been Cincinnati’s fan base. Once, the number 13,176—the capacity at Fifth Third Arena—had been among the most reliable figures in college sports. In recent years, it wasn’t uncommon for crowds to number half that even with the attraction of games against Big East opponents. It didn’t matter that he was a native, a Cincinnati kid.
He did it with fewer resources than many of the teams in his league, including nearly all those Cincinnati needed to overcome to be successful in the Big East. Cronin’s pay ranks near the bottom third of coaches in the league. When Syracuse is able to attract high-level mid-major opponents to the Carrier Dome with guaranteed paydays, Cincinnati is going on the road to play at Toledo and Miami because its budget demands some 2-for-1 arrangements.
And Cronin did it without ever uncovering a consistent source of offense from this group of players. Guard Dion Dixon one night. Center Yancy Gates another. Promising freshman Sean Kilpatrick the next. Gates has had 10 games where he did not score in double figures. Dixon has had 11, including two where he went scoreless.
In 2006, 14 BCS conference programs changed coaches. Only five remain. Bob Huggins spent only a year at Kansas State before moving on. Tony Bennett left Washington State for a more comfortable situation at Virginia. Greg McDermott left Iowa State for a soft landing at Creighton.
And a lot of the others were fired.
Cronin is one of the few who remain, and he faced longer odds than any of them. He was handed an empty gym and a fan base either angry or disillusioned or both. Sunday, his rebuilding project got the ultimate validation.
Or maybe not. Monday, the Cincinnati coaches did not smile. They were back to business.
“You’ve got to think when Butler had its first practice after the bracket last year, they didn’t think they were going to be a shot away from the national championship,” Cronin said. “We had to start over, build our defense back out, do the uncomfortable things that go into winning.
“The easiest thing to do is go have fun, play, and whatever happens, happens. Forget that.”
Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-ba...nin-but-dont-tell-them-that-yet#ixzz1GnMrBOG1
The Cincinnati Bearcats celebrated wildly when they saw the name of their school appear on the television screen while watching the NCAA Tournament selection show on CBS. Coach Mick Cronin was a little surprised by the reaction because he wasn’t surprised in the least his team was in the field.
“I knew it was going to happen all year,” Cronin told Sporting News. “I’d never even thought we were on the bubble—I just knew we had a good enough team we were going to bounce back. I’ve been confident in my team all year.”
And so he was. Thursday at 9:55 p.m. ET, when the West No. 6 seed Bearcats open the NCAA Tournament at Washington’s Verizon Center against No. 11 seed Missouri, they’ll be a long way from the 12th-place conference finish the league’s coaches predicted for them.
During the preseason, as Cronin’s peers and most in the media noted the departure of top scorers Lance Stephenson and Deonta Vaughn, Cronin tried to explain removing those two fine players would help promote better ball movement and thus compensate for their departure. Some read that merely as criticism of Stephenson and Vaughn. They did not believe.
When the Bearcats opened the season 15-0, one of the last teams to lose a game, that achievement widely was dismissed as the product of an impossibly easy schedule.
There was no faking 11-7 in this year’s Big East, however. The Bearcats had to beat several somebodies to get there, and having fumbled away three home games in the league they ultimately had to beat somebody on the road: St. John’s, Georgetown, Marquette.
Reaching this level is an underappreciated achievement. Cronin arrived at Cincinnati in March 2006, after he’d taken two Murray State teams in three seasons to the tournament—and after then-president Nancy Zimpher had botched the departure of Bob Huggins so badly UC recruiting all but ceased for nearly two years. The roster essentially consisted of one player who had one year of Division I experience and one more year to play. That was it.
From that, Cronin built a program that has consistently been competitive in the Big East, that has earned victories over the league’s major powers and elite coaches, that ultimately found a way to return to the NCAA Tournament.
He did it without the full support of what had been Cincinnati’s fan base. Once, the number 13,176—the capacity at Fifth Third Arena—had been among the most reliable figures in college sports. In recent years, it wasn’t uncommon for crowds to number half that even with the attraction of games against Big East opponents. It didn’t matter that he was a native, a Cincinnati kid.
He did it with fewer resources than many of the teams in his league, including nearly all those Cincinnati needed to overcome to be successful in the Big East. Cronin’s pay ranks near the bottom third of coaches in the league. When Syracuse is able to attract high-level mid-major opponents to the Carrier Dome with guaranteed paydays, Cincinnati is going on the road to play at Toledo and Miami because its budget demands some 2-for-1 arrangements.
And Cronin did it without ever uncovering a consistent source of offense from this group of players. Guard Dion Dixon one night. Center Yancy Gates another. Promising freshman Sean Kilpatrick the next. Gates has had 10 games where he did not score in double figures. Dixon has had 11, including two where he went scoreless.
In 2006, 14 BCS conference programs changed coaches. Only five remain. Bob Huggins spent only a year at Kansas State before moving on. Tony Bennett left Washington State for a more comfortable situation at Virginia. Greg McDermott left Iowa State for a soft landing at Creighton.
And a lot of the others were fired.
Cronin is one of the few who remain, and he faced longer odds than any of them. He was handed an empty gym and a fan base either angry or disillusioned or both. Sunday, his rebuilding project got the ultimate validation.
Or maybe not. Monday, the Cincinnati coaches did not smile. They were back to business.
“You’ve got to think when Butler had its first practice after the bracket last year, they didn’t think they were going to be a shot away from the national championship,” Cronin said. “We had to start over, build our defense back out, do the uncomfortable things that go into winning.
“The easiest thing to do is go have fun, play, and whatever happens, happens. Forget that.”
Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-ba...nin-but-dont-tell-them-that-yet#ixzz1GnMrBOG1