Mick Cronin

[skyblade]

We have no one to shoot 3s next year.

We only lose one reliable 3-point shooter. There are a few guys that can replace that. The two most likely to improve are Scott and Williams.

Scott. Hit just above 30% this year. Push that up to 35% next year and it will force teams to stretch to guard him.

Williams started and ended poorly, but had a stretch where he shot over 40%. Ended up at just 27.6%. We need him to (and I think he can) get to at least 35% next year.

The two next most like are probably Johnson and Moore.

Johnson maybe he can significantly improve his shot over the off-season.

Moore maybe he can figure out the mental aspect over the off-season.

 

[Jon Rycek]

Let's face it Mick Cronin is no more qualified to coach UC basketball than I am.
But I know my limitations but the UC athletic director doesn't re Cronin. How many years do we have to suffer with this loser before a change is made? No one can tell me that UC does not have better players than a lot of teams that are still in the tournament. Cronin can't recruit top players because the better ones know better than to sign with UC.

Lmao

 

[Jon Rycek]

After the loss yesterday (and it was worse in person), I asked my friend...what does the end of season meeting with Mick and the AD go like?

Overall this team performed well this season. Finishing 2nd was good. Winning the conference tournament was awesome. Losing in the first round was disappointing. Overall it was a really good season. Would have been great with 1 win in the tournament.

Still - the trend in March is not good. There has to be an honest dialogue with the coach about March expectations and what is missing. Mick and Bearcats underperformed in the tournament the last 3 years now. And last year was the year mick needed to make a run and had everything break right.

Something needs to change. No more excuses for recruiting. Mick needs to step it up there, cause with the right players and a couple of shooters, mick system can work. It wins a lot of games, just missing depth on the front court and a lack of space maker shooters. So either mick needs to change it his recruiting has to change/step it up.

I am tired of waiting till next year...but the reality is this team could be very good next year. And then we lose a lot. So I think next year is my final season of waiting for a sweet 16 run. Make it happen or start thinking about who can replace Mick.

Best post so far

 

[Jon Rycek]

Why do we believe we will be better next year? The two red shirts? The one incoming frosh? The lojo who hardly saw minutes this year? I’m missing why people think we will be that much better if at all next year. Of all the us players only a few have shown significant development. Will brooks be that much better? Mamadu? Scott?

We can always point to Jackson and kilpatrick as making significant jumps but there are far more examples of no development... Shaq, sanders, wilks, and more.

Just asking what the reasoning is that we will be better outside of a year playing for brooks, Scott, etc...

Why wouldn’t we be? Did you not see the progression of brooks, Scott and Williams. They will all be even better next season. LOJo still practiced against a great defensive team all year, he didn’t play because we had two good senior guards. His time is coming and he is gonna step up, playing in blowouts or against shitty teams would not have helped his progression any more than playing in our practices. With this way of thinking, why does any one ever redshirt? You can still develop and not play a ton of minutes. And we are bringing in Mr Ohio as another guard. We will be much better next year, there’s no denying that other than being in literal denial

 

[mdchick]

If you guys think we can get a better coach than Cronin your out of your minds and if a guy did come here and he was successful we would be the next Xavier because they would leave for something better.

Cronin has gotten way better offers at more prestigious schools around the country and has held true, in so sick of this fire Cronin none sense, if your upset because of last year fine, but has done everything right since he has been are head coach and I wouldn’t want any other coach in the country than him, he will get it done.

 

[sedziobs]

Whether or not Mick is responsible for player development is beside the point. On average, we can expect incremental improvement in players as they get older. Some may improve a lot, some may get worse. We can't predict which will happen. But overall, our returning players should be better as a group.

There are some areas we know we'll be better next year. We'll be bigger and more athletic at point guard. We'll have more depth at the 4. We can hope that some players will step up to let us improve in other areas. Mamadou could get stronger, Keith or Scott could become reliable from 3, Brooks could learn to limit his fouls, Logan could cut down on turnovers, Samari could be a scorer right away. Some of those are likely to happen.

If the sum of all of these improvements is greater than Justin and Cane's production, we'll be a better team next year. I think that's more likely than not.

 

[Alum2013]

If you guys think we can get a better coach than Cronin your out of your minds and if a guy did come here and he was successful we would be the next Xavier because they would leave for something better.

Cronin has gotten way better offers at more prestigious schools around the country and has held true, in so sick of this fire Cronin none sense, if your upset because of last year fine, but has done everything right since he has been are head coach and I wouldn’t want any other coach in the country than him, he will get it done.

I dont have a problem with Cronin per se. I have a problem with his apparent refusal to change with the game. His defensie system is becoming more and more archaic and he doesn't appear to have any offensive system at all. We have one person on the team next year who shot over like 30% from 3. The game is now the 3 ball. It has been for years now. He needs to adjust and change with the game which so far he has seemed reluctant to do or admit that he's willing to try.

 

[skyblade]

I dont have a problem with Cronin per se. I have a problem with his apparent refusal to change with the game. His defensie system is becoming more and more archaic and he doesn't appear to have any offensive system at all. We have one person on the team next year who shot over like 30% from 3. The game is now the 3 ball. It has been for years now. He needs to adjust and change with the game which so far he has seemed reluctant to do or admit that he's willing to try.

Yet the team that shot the fewest threes of any team to make the NCAA tournament (Kentucky) and one of the worst three point shooting team by percentage in the NCAA (Duke) are two top contenders to win it all.

Defensively being able to defend the three is huge (Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan, Houston and Texas Tech are all in the top 30 of 3-point percentage defense). But offensively being able to hit threes doesn't matter as much if you have other ways to score (post players, slashers or fast-breaks).

 

[Alum2013]

Yet the team that shot the fewest threes of any team to make the NCAA tournament (Kentucky) and one of the worst three point shooting team by percentage in the NCAA (Duke) are two top contenders to win it all.

Defensively being able to defend the three is huge (Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan, Houston and Texas Tech are all in the top 30 of 3-point percentage defense). But offensively being able to hit threes doesn't matter as much if you have other ways to score (post players, slashers or fast-breaks).

Which we don't. Getting 3pt shooters is easy. Getting 5 of the top 25 players in the nation on one team is not. Comparing us to Duke or UK is pointless because they have 5 players as good or better than our best.

 

[skyblade]

Which we don't. Getting 3pt shooters is easy. Getting 5 of the top 25 players in the nation on one team is not. Comparing us to Duke or UK is pointless because they have 5 players as good or better than our best.

Getting 3-point shooters is easy, but it doesn't lead to winning. There are plenty of mid to low major programs that bomb away from three. When they are hitting it's great and every now and the it leads to an NCAA tournament run. But for every mid-major that makes a run in the NCAA tournament by hitting 3's, there are about 50 that shoot it well and didn't do anything (or didn't make the tournament).

Shooting 3's is a very unreliable way to win games. Look at Wofford, their best 3-point shoot couldn't hit anything and they lost to Kentucky. When you rely on 3-point shooting and can't hit it's pretty much game over. Being able to score easy points at the bucket is a much more reliable way to score.

I'm not saying our offense is great. Just that we need slashers and guys who can score at the bucket as much or more then we need 3-point shooters. If Cronin followed the refrain of just get 3-point shooters we'd end up losing quite a few more games.

 

[Alum2013]

Getting 3-point shooters is easy, but it doesn't lead to winning. There are plenty of mid to low major programs that bomb away from three. When they are hitting it's great and every now and the it leads to an NCAA tournament run. But for every mid-major that makes a run in the NCAA tournament by hitting 3's, there are about 50 that shoot it well and didn't do anything (or didn't make the tournament).

Shooting 3's is a very unreliable way to win games. Look at Wofford, their best 3-point shoot couldn't hit anything and they lost to Kentucky. When you rely on 3-point shooting and can't hit it's pretty much game over. Being able to score easy points at the bucket is a much more reliable way to score.

I'm not saying our offense is great. Just that we need slashers and guys who can score at the bucket as much or more then we need 3-point shooters. If Cronin followed the refrain of just get 3-point shooters we'd end up losing quite a few more games.

I'd rather lose a few more games but make a sweet 16/elite 8 run every 5 years than win regular season and be bounced the first weekend for 7 years in a row.

 

[bearcat1518]

When you rely on 3-point shooting and can't hit it's pretty much game over..

Lol. Isn't that true for 2-pointers as well? Bearcats ranked #243 in FG percentage this year. (That's regular FG%).

No one is saying to "rely" on 3-point shooting. But let's be honest...you need to have guys that can shoot it. Especially in today's game.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Getting 3-point shooters is easy, but it doesn't lead to winning. There are plenty of mid to low major programs that bomb away from three. When they are hitting it's great and every now and the it leads to an NCAA tournament run. But for every mid-major that makes a run in the NCAA tournament by hitting 3's, there are about 50 that shoot it well and didn't do anything (or didn't make the tournament).

Shooting 3's is a very unreliable way to win games. Look at Wofford, their best 3-point shoot couldn't hit anything and they lost to Kentucky. When you rely on 3-point shooting and can't hit it's pretty much game over. Being able to score easy points at the bucket is a much more reliable way to score.

I'm not saying our offense is great. Just that we need slashers and guys who can score at the bucket as much or more then we need 3-point shooters. If Cronin followed the refrain of just get 3-point shooters we'd end up losing quite a few more games.

If you can’t shoot it makes it that much harder to get points in the paint because defense doesn’t need to respect the shot. They can just pack the lane and makes getting inside difficult.

I agree we don’t want to be wofford but a higher shooting % from outside the paint would be nice.

 

[skyblade]

Lol. Isn't that true for 2-pointers as well? Bearcats ranked #243 in FG percentage this year. (That's regular FG%).

No one is saying to "rely" on 3-point shooting. But let's be honest...you need to have guys that can shoot it. Especially in today's game.

You need to be able to score (although we scored enough vs Iowa, we just didn't stop them from scoring). But it doesn't have to be a bunch of sharpshooters. Guys who shoot around 35% are enough of a threat to draw the defense out.

Being one dimensional generally doesn't work out. Whether that's a team of sharpshooters or a team with a dominant big and a bunch of guards who can't shoot. Watching the tournament, it seems like the most consistent theme to winning is having slashers. They force the defense to collapse and rotate and create openings for themselves and other players.

I'm not saying we don't need better offense. Just that the refrain of we just need 3-point shooters doesn't hold true. We shoot 3's at a high enough clip to force the D out, what we don't do is get the easy shots at the rim.

 

[sedziobs]

Teams with a higher 3pt percentage than us that are out:

Wofford
Fairleigh Dickinson
Colgate
Marquette
Northeastern
Georgia St
St Mary's
Montana
Abilene Christian
Gardner Webb
Mississippi St
Belmont
Bradley
North Dakota St
Yale
Iowa St
NKU
Wisconsin
Vermont
St John's
Ole Miss
Utah St
Villanova
Iona
Kansas
Murray St
Old Dominion
Maryland
Nevada

Some will say it's not fair to include bad teams, say 13-16 seeds. But I think that's exactly the point. Having good shooters doesn't necessarily translate to a good team in college. And it doesn't necessarily translate to March success. College players have limited skill sets. Players with size and quickness that can also shoot and handle the ball are going to an elite program and then the NBA.

Teams with a lower 3pt percentage than us that are still playing:
Ohio St
Florida St
Buffalo
LSU
Duke

These teams are more in the mold of what we're trying to do. Sure, we can go after pure shooters and sacrifice defense, but we'd probably end up looking like Marquette who hasn't made the sweet sixteen since 2013 and has missed the tourney altogether 4 times since then. Obviously having better shooters will make us a better team, but only if we don't sacrifice much of what makes us a good team already. That's not easy to do for teams not named Duke, Kentucky or Kansas.

 

[cincyguy13]

Getting 3-point shooters is easy, but it doesn't lead to winning. There are plenty of mid to low major programs that bomb away from three. When they are hitting it's great and every now and the it leads to an NCAA tournament run. But for every mid-major that makes a run in the NCAA tournament by hitting 3's, there are about 50 that shoot it well and didn't do anything (or didn't make the tournament).

Shooting 3's is a very unreliable way to win games. Look at Wofford, their best 3-point shoot couldn't hit anything and they lost to Kentucky. When you rely on 3-point shooting and can't hit it's pretty much game over. Being able to score easy points at the bucket is a much more reliable way to score.

I'm not saying our offense is great. Just that we need slashers and guys who can score at the bucket as much or more then we need 3-point shooters. If Cronin followed the refrain of just get 3-point shooters we'd end up losing quite a few more games.

Yes, you need a mixture of everything but having a couple shooters that can make shots helps the offense a lot. Opens the whole floor ups. Teams can’t help on defense. Making slashers even more dangerous.

 

[sedziobs]

Yes, you need a mixture of everything but having a couple shooters that can make shots helps the offense a lot. Opens the whole floor ups. Teams can’t help on defense. Making slashers even more dangerous.

We had a couple 40% three point shooters. You really need four guys that can shoot to truly open the floor up. We're going to have to get that from our forwards. There's hope for Keith, Trevor, Diarra and Scott. We'll have to see about Prince and Laquill.

 

[Alum2013]

We had a couple 40% three point shooters. You really need four guys that can shoot to truly open the floor up. We're going to have to get that from our forwards. There's hope for Keith, Trevor, Diarra and Scott. We'll have to see about Prince and Laquill.

If Cumberland was the one driving, which he pretty much always was unless Broome was on the floor, the only person he could kick to was Jennifer. Outside of Jennifer and Cumberland we had no other reliable 3pt shooters this year. One of them was pretty much always the person driving so really we only ever had 1 3pt option at a time. That's not good. We don't need 5 people sitting at the 3pt line. I don't think anyone is saying that. But when 3 of your 5 don't have to be guarded that's a problem.

There's nothing about William's form to make me think he's going to become a 35-40% 3pt shooter. Scott is the only one who looks like he might be capable of stroking it, as far as our starters. Brooks shouldn't even try to make that part of his game but 1-4 need to be guarded at the 3pt line in today's game.

 

[sedziobs]

Right, which is why I said we need forwards that can shoot. Usually the guards are the slashers who will utilize the space created by shooters. That's why at least one of them needs to be a forward. Evans could have been that guy had he stayed.

Bad form can be corrected. The one that stands out in my mind is JaQuon Parker. He went just 3-20 his sophomore year and showed terrible form. By his senior year he made 40% on 100 attempts.

 

[sedziobs]

After missing the sweet sixteen in 7 straight seasons, Rick Barnes was fired at Texas despite going to the tournament 6 times and advancing to the second round 3 times in that span. He's now going to the sweet sixteen at Tennessee. Meanwhile, Texas hired Shaka Smart and hasn't won a tournament game since.

Firing a good coach who hasn't had success in March can backfire, even if you can hire a perceived great coach like Shaka Smart.