Hope we not quitting trying save face. You guys mentioned going on break for holidays was bad idea. Either way get well soon young men!
Will the Bearcats play a game the rest of the season. Temple canceled. Likely houston canceled.
Hopefully John busy watching film. Coming up with a new plan. But sounds like the Bearcats haven't practiced any.
What makes this season acceptable?
Covid + poor UC basketball means my fandom never reaches the level it used to be at. I’ll be cancelling my season tickets (though depending on demand, I may buy them and sell them individually to make extra cash and attend a game or two) and pulling back my donations.
I'm right there with you.
Normally I’d be upset with UC not playing as it’s all that’s going on that I care about this time of year. . But I’ve just picked up new hobbies.
Covid + poor UC basketball means my fandom never reaches the level it used to be at. I’ll be cancelling my season tickets (though depending on demand, I may buy them and sell them individually to make extra cash and attend a game or two) and pulling back my donations. If I do just cancel I’ll offer the season tickets to someone on this board.
So many people hurting financially right now that donating to athletic department of a school that to me clearly cares more about football is silly. I’m just going to take a wait & see approach, if In a few years, everything is stable then I’ll spend money again. But for now I got my refund for my season tickets and simply donated to a few causes and spent money on local restaurants.
Basketball is fun. But when it’s no longer fun and watching your team is more painful than fun, then it’s time to pack it in.
As for the resuming of play: what’s the point? It seems costly personally, financially and health wise to continue to play basketball in a losing season that doesn’t affect eligibility. Just call it quits & live to fight another day. Send these kids home to be with their families. Because being 22 and completely isolated as an unpaid athlete is just stupid. If one kid has long term affects from Covid for playing an unpaid game, then it’s 1 too many
When we lost a few in a row I just started to be interested in watching player development and trying to get excited for the future. It is a different kind of enjoyment but it's also a lot less stressful than watching the end of so many close games that determine if we are on the bubble or not. If there is no success to follow then the enjoyment will obviously start to disappear.
I have enjoyed watching Eason and he is still on a leash right now so there is more to see. I was having some fun seeing Harvey start to come into his own. Davenport has been a great story. Seeing Mason so comfortable out there was a bit surprising. Watching growth and development is still worth tuning in for to me.
Oh I’ll still watch games. I just don’t mind losing. It used to put me in the shittiest mood. Now, it’s normalized a bit more and I’m not bothered. But if they called it quits, I wouldn’t be that upset.
I’ve been thinking about canceling my season tickets even before this season. This is just the nudge I needed. I’ve always said that Bearcats basketball fandom (in terms of season ticket sales) is very fragile. I think a lot of programs can weather the storm of Covid and poor performance. But if you couple it with micks inability to win in March, then I think we will see an overall drop in enthusiasm and thus a drop in attendance. John can still win the fan base back but he has his work cut out for him. I hope he does. I’m just not going to spend my money for a while.
I don't think losing is being "normalized". I mean we are just a few games away from winning the league last year.
This team does not have the right players in leadership roles and most of them are young. I don't blame this on Cronin or Brannen. Last year we had lead by example Jaron and vocal leader Scott. Williams is not the same type of player we are looking for.
But I think that is something that Brannen sought out (or is seeking) in recruiting. Fire, leadership, competitiveness, work ethic, attitude etc. When he's had a few years to recruit we will have at least half the squad made up of players with some (or all) of these qualities. The Madsens as most can see have fire and strong work ethic. Mikey...yes. Davenport...yes. Eason is very competitive and exciteable. Harvey...not so much...MAW...meh.
But you can't have all of your players 3 or 4 stars with all the qualities most other coaches would be searching out. I think Brannen is on the right track to have at least 3 of them on the court at almost all times in the future. I don't necessarily see a bump in quality in terms of BB skills etc but I see the character of the team he wants to build and that is why I am optimistic and waiting it out rather than get on his case right now.
I think what concerns me most about John is that his teams take too damn long to get rolling.
If you don’t want to make excuses for the coach, fine. But if there was ever a year to give the guy a break, this would be the one. Basically a brand new team, besides Keith who hasn’t been good, and had limited practices, multiple week long shut downs.
We’ve had all these arguments. Most of our roster is freshmen or sophomores. The freshman have barely practiced. 2 of the main sophomores look a lot better. Davenport and Harvey. Tre Scott had his best year under Brannen. The players not progressing is just false. Keith is what is was with cronin. Same player. Is that just his ceiling? Maybe that’s just who he is. Not everyone can be great or the man. Some players are just support players.I don’t think we should be the kinda fans that give coaches breaks. We suck plain and simple. Veterans have gotten worse and we’ve not seen very much growth from new comers. We’ve regressed in every statistical category when teams who also have 2nd year coaches are ranked and trending up. We decided not to adapt to Covid and thus have no 2021 class.
And there are talks of shortening the Conference tourneys so maybe only the top 6 teams get in or something, which means our poor play could even further eliminate us from at least being a Cinderella team if they do something like that.
John is 2 seasons in and we still have no idea what our identity is. We have no culture.
Every Team has had to deal with covid. So, no excuses.
We expect to win at cincinnati. We aren’t in the big east. We are in the frickin AAC... if we finish in the bottom 3rd its borderline a fireable offense.
WSU has a frickin interim coach, they are 8-4 and 4-2 in the league. They damn near lost their whole team in the offseason. Then their coach. Are they making excuses? Nope