Championship Week Open Thread

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ZCat said:
Wow. Just turned on CBSN. They were showing conf tourney highlights. First 2 teams they show scoring in 80's or more: if memory serves: Duke 92 -89 over NC St then GT, Clemson I think tied 80 -80 to OT.
Mick has gotta take the leap and go for a philosophy change. Doogle is right, it is hard for him to change, but he has to. HAS TO. This is not an attack. Just a comment. The elephant is in the room.
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Three of the four teams you mentioned are not going to the tournament.
 
JackBauer151 said:
I get the point but coaching all areas matters. NC State is LOADED with top 100 recruits. They went 16-17 this year. I wish the Bearcats would score 80 every game but that would matter a whole lot less if we had that record. I want to WIN regardless of style. We need more talented players. I think it just comes down to that. This season I have watched time after time, player after player, miss two foot layups and WIDE open three pointers. If you are a big time D1 player those are shots you do not miss with regularity. We missed them constantly this year. I have my issues with Mick but what can he do from a coaching perspective with this problem? He cant shoot it for them. He can work on technique and mindset but at the end of the day on the offensive side those guys have to put the ball in the basket. The biggest issues I see with the offense seem to all come back to recruiting. Dont have a true point guard. Dont have consistent good shooters. Lack a true go to guy ect.... They are a good team collectively but not a great one. They don't need a change in philosophy, they need better players plain and simple.
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Agree completely Jack. Many think the problem is Mick doesn't spend enough time teaching offense and to much time teaching defense. Like you it all comes down to recruiting. Hopefully will get in a better league and coupled with the facility upgrades it will open a few more doors. Also like you the one word that has described this season for me is inconsistency. Never have I seen a whole roster of players ride the production rollercoaster like this one.
 
WAITE HOYT 2 said:
Agree completely Jack. Many think the problem is Mick doesn't spend enough time teaching offense and to much time teaching defense. Like you it all comes down to recruiting. Hopefully will get in a better league and coupled with the facility upgrades it will open a few more doors. Also like you the one word that has described this season for me is inconsistency. Never have I seen a whole roster of players ride the production rollercoaster like this one.
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Yes recruiting has been the problem. And facilities and conference are big recruiting obstacles.
 
Union Bearcat said:
Yes recruiting has been the problem. And facilities and conference are big recruiting obstacles.
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Hit it on the head. As long as we are in the AAC and play in a dated gym, recruiting will stay the same.

Only one of those factors we can control. I know they are working on it and seems like the renovation it going to happen. They can not push it back any further though.
 
So basically it is impossible for Cincinnati to recruit players who can do better than 57 ppg away from home in AAC games for 2 straight years?
 
We've already seen Mick recruit in a top conference. It wasn't any better than his recruiting in this lousy conference. We don't need to see it play out again.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
So basically it is impossible for Cincinnati to recruit players who can do better than 57 ppg away from home in AAC games for 2 straight years?
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Impossible? No. Difficult? Yes. You can get average basketball players and turn them into really good defensive players and win. It's much harder to turn an average offensive player into a really good one. Defense is about heart and offense is about talent. Mick tries to win with the type of recruit Cincinnati can land. THAT IS FRUSTRATING AS HELL! However it is the reality of the situation. I'd help lead the charge of a coaching change if after the new arena and getting into a new league the status quo stays the same. I just dont see how anything changes until the landscape changes for Cincinnati basketball. We are staying relevant. I want to be elite but other things outside of the coaching staff have to change for us to be able to compete on that level consistently. A final nugget, Dan Cronin (Micks brother) was on a podcast not to long ago and flat out said the Bearcats were recruiting a top player and the player told them he wanted to be a Bearcat for 10 years but wasnt going to play in AAC. Perception is reality and for us to move forward the perception has to change. Facilities, new league, and a deep run can help do that.
 
Mick's last 3 recruiting classes in the best basketball conference of all-time.

2010 Kelvin Gaines-Justin Jackson

2011 Jeremiah Davis-Octavius Ellis-Gelawn Guyn-Cheikh Mbodj-Jermaine Sanders-Shaq Thomas

2012 Titus Rubles

This was quite a recruiting haul with the allure of the best basketball conference ever to sell to recruits.
 
JackBauer151 said:
Impossible? No. Difficult? Yes. You can get average basketball players and turn them into really good defensive players and win. It's much harder to turn an average offensive player into a really good one. Defense is about heart and offense is about talent. Mick tries to win with the type of recruit Cincinnati can land. THAT IS FRUSTRATING AS HELL! However it is the reality of the situation. I'd help lead the charge of a coaching change if after the new arena and getting into a new league the status quo stays the same. I just dont see how anything changes until the landscape changes for Cincinnati basketball. We are staying relevant. I want to be elite but other things outside of the coaching staff have to change for us to be able to compete on that level consistently. A final nugget, Dan Cronin (Micks brother) was on a podcast not to long ago and flat out said the Bearcats were recruiting a top player and the player told them he wanted to be a Bearcat for 10 years but wasnt going to play in AAC. Perception is reality and for us to move forward the perception has to change. Facilities, new league, and a deep run can help do that.
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I hear you Jack. I'm going to tighten the screws on our players a little this offseason though. Evans should take more shots this summer than any player in the AAC. Guys like Caupain and Clark need to work on feet and cardio. If people want to say we are limited bc of x, y and Z...that's fine. But there is no excuse for flat out clanking so many wide open shots. And no excuse for our veterans being so tired all the time. I obviously don't know what all our guys are doing in the offseason, but some of them might need to learn some in-the-gym habits from Cobb.
 
JackBauer151 said:
Impossible? No. Difficult? Yes. You can get average basketball players and turn them into really good defensive players and win. It's much harder to turn an average offensive player into a really good one. Defense is about heart and offense is about talent. Mick tries to win with the type of recruit Cincinnati can land. THAT IS FRUSTRATING AS HELL! However it is the reality of the situation. I'd help lead the charge of a coaching change if after the new arena and getting into a new league the status quo stays the same. I just dont see how anything changes until the landscape changes for Cincinnati basketball. We are staying relevant. I want to be elite but other things outside of the coaching staff have to change for us to be able to compete on that level consistently. A final nugget, Dan Cronin (Micks brother) was on a podcast not to long ago and flat out said the Bearcats were recruiting a top player and the player told them he wanted to be a Bearcat for 10 years but wasnt going to play in AAC. Perception is reality and for us to move forward the perception has to change. Facilities, new league, and a deep run can help do that.
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The issue for me is without those changes we are just rolling the dice if we replace Mick that we get a Coach that will not do as well. The landscape has changed in college athletics.
 
WAITE HOYT 2 said:
The issue for me is without those changes we are just rolling the dice if we replace Mick that we get a Coach that will not do as well. The landscape has changed in college athletics.
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Cronin isn't going anywhere. I just hope he stops coddling his players so much. UC doesn't owe any of them a basketball career.
 
jacobkdoyle said:
Cronin isn't going anywhere. I just hope he stops coddling his players so much. UC doesn't owe any of them a basketball career.
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I agree with the first part. I'm not so sure I agree with the second part. I think Mick has and will always publicly back his players but I don't think he is quite so "coddling" in practice or behind closed doors. Of course, it is all speculation on both of our parts so, it is what it is.

I'm actually very excited for next year because I see us having a 7 or 8 player rotation which I think will actually improve the team offensively. Here is who I see playing next year:

Clark
Caupain
Evans
Washington
Johnson
Cumberland
Scott
Jenifer (unless improves jump shot, limited minutes to give Troy a short rest)

I think this squad has the potential to be very good offensively. Clark will take another step forward offensively. Caupain will have a big year. Evans is probably the most gifted offensive player on the team and is starting to show that down the stretch. Cumberland is a straight scorer and there is no reason to think he can't do that at the next level.
 

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