Huggins' NCAA History at UC

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BearcatAlum1

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Some of you will appreciate this and some of you won't. I do not dislike Bob Huggins. He is the biggest reason that I grew up a UC fan. PLEASE, do not take this thread the wrong way (even though some of you will).

This is not to make our current coach look better. I'm not one to point the failures of one man to lessen the failures of another man. It was brought up on another thread and most (if not all) of us true UC fans love to look at the history of our program.

Here is Huggins' NCAA history while at UC.

Accomplishments: 20-14 overall; 1 Final Four; 3 Elite 8s; 4 Sweet 16s; only ONE 1st Round loss; 14 straight seasons in the NCAA.

Shortfalls: NEVER beat a higher ranked team, ever; No Elite 8s after 1995-1996 season; 1 Sweet 16 in final 9 seasons despite having: One 1 seed, Two 2 seeds, Three 3 seeds, a 4 seed and 5 seed; advanced past first weekend of tournament ONCE in final 9 seasons;

If you "seed out," Huggins should have had at least seven Sweet 16s in the final nine seasons.

I think the biggest glaring statistic is the fact that Huggins only made it past the first weekend of the Tournament once in his final 9 seasons. That is why UC got the reputation as being "choke artists" in the NCAA Tourney.


1991-1992 (4 seed)
1st Round: Delaware (13) 85-47
2nd Round: Mich St. (5) 77-65
Sweet 16: Utep (9) 69-67
Elite 8: Memphis (6) 88-57
Final 4: Michigan (6) 72-76


1992-1993 (2 seed)
1st Round: Coppin St. (15) 93-66
2nd Round: New Mex St. (7) 92-55
Sweet 16: Virginia (6) 71-54
Elite 8: North Carolina (1) 68-75


1993-1994 (8 seed)
1st Round: Wisconsin (9) 72-80


1994-1995 (7 seed)
1st Round: Temple (10) 77-71
2nd Round: Uconn (2) 91-96


1995-1996 (2 seed)
1st Round: UNC Greens (15) 66-61
2nd Round: Temple (7) 78-65
Sweet 16: Georgia Tech (3) 87-70
Elite 8: Miss. St (5) 63-73


1996-1997 (3 seed)
1st Round: Butler (14) 86-69
2nd Round: IowaSt (6) 66-67


1997-1998 (2 seed)
1st Round: N.Arizona (15) 65-62
2nd Round: West Virginia (10) 74-75


1998-1999 (3 seed)
1st Round: George Mason (14) 72-48
2nd Round: Temple (6) 54-64


1999-2000 (2 seed)
1st Round: UNC Wilm (15) 64-47
2nd Round: Tulsa (7) 61-69


2000-2001 (5 seed)
1st Round: BYU (12) 84-59
2nd Round: Kent State (13) 66-43
Sweet 16: Stanford (1) 65-78


2001-2002 (1)
1st Round: Boston U (16) 90-52
2nd Round: UCLA (8) 101-105 (this might have been my most entertaining UC NCAA game)


2002-2003 (8 seed)
1st Round: Gonzaga (9) 69-74


2003-2004 (4 seed)
1st Round: E.Tenn St. (13) 80-77
2nd Round: Illinois (5) 68-92


2004-2005 (7 seed)
1st Round: Iowa (10) 76-64
2nd Round: Kentucky (2) 60-68



If anyone wants to do the work and pull the season records for our teams, that'd be nice.


BearcatAlum1
 
Last edited:
BearcatAlum1 said:
If you "seed out," Huggins should have had at least seven Sweet 16s in the final nine seasons.

I think the biggest glaring statistic is the fact that Huggins only made it past the first weekend of the Tournament once in his final 9 seasons. That is why UC got the reputation as being "choke artists" in the NCAA Tourney.



BearcatAlum1
Click to expand...

Wow, interesting there. I think that is hard to believe for some UC fans. Do you think its in part of coaching, or would you say it's possible they were overrated during the season? Or, which is always an option, do you think it may be just that hard to win in the NCAA tourny?
 
Good work BearcatAlum1.

Interesting. It shows how successful he was and at the same time that he wasn't getting it done.
 
Kenyon Martin going down pretty much took the air out of the number one ranked team. Just goes to show how important the mindset is for a team.
The tournament game in which UC lost to UCLA (damn Kapono) had Stokes going for 30+, but couldn't stop Jason, nor get him to foul out while he played with four. They just ran into a team that got hot in the 2nd half.

BTW-for the record...I love Huggins (hence the named Huggins Inn), and not so much a fan of Zimpher. There I said it, and will probably not be banned for saying such.
 
Kingsley Court said:
Wow, interesting there. I think that is hard to believe for some UC fans. Do you think its in part of coaching, or would you say it's possible they were overrated during the season? Or, which is always an option, do you think it may be just that hard to win in the NCAA tourny?
Click to expand...

1. The great majority of the time, our regular season accomplishments (league titles, defensive ranks, etc.) were a product of the competition. That's not to diminish that we could play with the best in the country, and did on many occasions. Bottom line = we rarely had the talent deserving of our seed, IMO.

2. It is tough to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. It is tough to win. However, I stand strong in my belief that any team seeded 1-4 should make the sweet sixteen 90% of the time. Consider that we were ranked in very highly in the national polls and it makes you wonder.
 
Kingsley Court said:
I really would have liked to see huggins coach UC in the big east.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. He couldn't pull the talent to UC on a regular basis (save a few classes) while in CUSA. Certainly not compared to the talent he pulls now on a regular basis (or at K-State).

His recruiting at West Virginia has been very solid and he is going after some major recruits for 2010 and beyond.

Huggins is a very good coach and recruiter. He identifies well with many people.
 
I would argue 1 seeds should make it 90-95 percent of the time, 2 seeds should make it 90 percent of the time. 3 seeds probably should make it 80-90 percent of the time. I would then argue that 4 seeds should make it 75 percent of the time. The reason being, I think the 4-5 matchup is always a difficult one, and in most cases could very well be a toss up. I get your point though.
 
Kingsley Court said:
II would then argue that 4 seeds should make it 75 percent of the time. The reason being, I think the 4-5 matchup is always a difficult one, and in most cases could very well be a toss up. I get your point though.
Click to expand...

Your math smells fishy..............doesn't a toss up suggest 50/50, not 75/25?


Just messing......
 
Yeah I know, but for some reason I think 4 seeds have a little bit of an advantage over the 5 seed. I guess I should have gone 60ish, but depending on the 4 and 5 seed the percentage could be higher or lower.
 
ha, not really. But I think we should get back to the toppic at hand because you bring up a very good point, and you had a lot of good research.

For the longest time I thought the perception around the country was that UC was a choke job. Now I wonder if people thought that it was because they thought they were overrated, or rather just for some reason couldn't get over the hump. The did have some crushing losses in some of these games, but losses none the less. Interestng topic.
Do you think that Huggs could have been fired in the future if he kept getting top 4 seeds and not getting out of the first weekend? I don't think that would have ever happenend, but I guess it depends on how much of post season success is a factor.
 
Kingsley Court said:
For the longest time I thought the perception around the country was that UC was a choke job. Now I wonder if people thought that it was because they thought they were overrated, or rather just for some reason couldn't get over the hump.

Do you think that Huggs could have been fired in the future if he kept getting top 4 seeds and not getting out of the first weekend? I don't think that would have ever happenend, but I guess it depends on how much of post season success is a factor.
Click to expand...

1. I have family in California that gave me $hit because UC was always "choking" in the tournament. UC was respected for having a good program, but we were laughed at after the 95-96 season.

2. I think fans were getting frustrated with Huggins before he was terminated. I was frustrated, as was every other UC fan that I knew at the time.

Funny thing is that our current team has as much talent as some of those 1-4 seeds, but we play in the BigEast against other 1-4 seeds.
 
I think Huggins struggles in the tournament were becauses his teams were tad overrated and very much underprepared. I believe the biggest reason for Huggins failures in the tourney were more that his teams never played anyone. I would say 80% of the games we played while in CUSA were cupcakes. In order for your team to be adequately prepared for a run in march they need to be tournament tested. Unfortunately the Huggins teams were not tested.

Look at our early bounces from the tourney....how many of those were extremely close games? The UCLA game the Patterson tip on the banked 3...quite sickening. You figure if they play a "murders row" big east schedule they would prob pull those games out.

Simply put they choked bc they were never in those situations before. His teams had to learn to win in the tourney whereas we are hopefully learning every game!
 
ohioubearcat said:
I think Huggins struggles in the tournament were becauses his teams were tad overrated and very much underprepared. I believe the biggest reason for Huggins failures in the tourney were more that his teams never played anyone. I would say 80% of the games we played while in CUSA were cupcakes. In order for your team to be adequately prepared for a run in march they need to be tournament tested. Unfortunately the Huggins teams were not tested.

Look at our early bounces from the tourney....how many of those were extremely close games? The UCLA game the Patterson tip on the banked 3...quite sickening. You figure if they play a "murders row" big east schedule they would prob pull those games out.

Simply put they choked bc they were never in those situations before. His teams had to learn to win in the tourney whereas we are hopefully learning every game!
Click to expand...

Good point. Agreed.
 
DontMissHim said:
This, amoung many reasons, is why my name is "dontmisshim".
Click to expand...

Ya because Micks 5 years here have been just exceptional. 5 years, umm how many NCAA Tournament Appearances? or how bout just NIT appearances? Look that up and let me know.


Now before you go on and say "Mick is rebuilding a progam" think about this:

Pryor to Huggins arriving in 1989, the last time UC made the NCAA Tournament was in 1977. Huggins took over a program that was playing in a recreation facility. UC was no longer a power it once was as in the 60's. He rebuilt the program almost instantly. He made the NIT in his first 2 years, and then ran off 14 straight NCAA Tournament Appearances.

This was a man who turned down at least 3 NBA jobs, and even the West Virginia job to stay here at Cincinnati. Give the man his credit for building a basketall powerhouse. Since his departure, this powerhouse is now the whipping boy in college basketball. Now once Mick departs you can keep that profile picture and keep your name because then it makes perfect sense.
 
TheFranchise said:
Ya because Micks 5 years here have been just exceptional. 5 years, umm how many NCAA Tournament Appearances? or how bout just NIT appearances? Look that up and let me know.


Now before you go on and say "Mick is rebuilding a progam" think about this:

Pryor to Huggins arriving in 1989, the last time UC made the NCAA Tournament was in 1977. Huggins took over a program that was playing in a recreation facility. UC was no longer a power it once was as in the 60's. He rebuilt the program almost instantly. He made the NIT in his first 2 years, and then ran off 14 straight NCAA Tournament Appearances.

This was a man who turned down at least 3 NBA jobs, and even the West Virginia job to stay here at Cincinnati. Give the man his credit for building a basketall powerhouse. Since his departure, this powerhouse is now the whipping boy in college basketball. Now once Mick departs you can keep that profile picture and keep your name because then it makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

Well, this qualifies as the first defensive post of the thread.

No one is diminishing what Huggins accomplished. He did some great things for UC basketball and helped re-establish us on the map. Not one person is trying to take that away from him.

Huggins did have shortfalls. He built this program back to national prominence, but struggled in his last 10 years in the NCAA Tournament. It really isn't that disputable.

Did I want to see Huggs go? No, not really. Was I getting anxious regarding the first weekend flameouts? Hell yes. Was I aware that it is an accomplishment to make the tournament and win a game 13 of 14 seasons in the Big Dance? Absolutely.

I don't get why you would compare Huggins to Mick. It really isn't comparable, so you are more or less making an argument equal to a fourth grader. Isn't there a show about that?

Huggins first 5 years > Mick's first 3.5 years. The situations may have been different, but wins/losses are all that matter.

Happy now?
 

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