I think getting mad about Huggins and Zimpher is like still being mad about the '94 baseball strike. Time to get over it.
I'm not happy about how the team has been coached under Cronin. But I'm afraid that switching coaches yet again would set the program back a couple years. And, who are they going to get?
Mick has the horses. He's not Tony Yates. The team is respectable again. Let's see if they can work their way into NCAA contention.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
Wasn't Downey in his final recruiting class?Originally Posted by bucksfan2
I always thought there were a lot of parallels between the IU and UC situations. IU firing Knight ended up being best for both Knight and maybe long term for the University(though hiring Kelvin Sanctions negated most of that.)
Just like IU, UC had a coach who was "bigger than the program" but had started to lose interest and had some outside issues that the University had to deal with(Knight:Anger, Huggs:Alcohol, Heart Attack) Just like IU, UC had a president who wanted to make a name for himself/herself by taking on the giant athletic figure (Brand:went to NCAA, Zimpher:Went on to a non-athletic SUNY which probably has some more prestige)
Just like Knight, Huggins probably needed a kick in the pants to re-charge the passion and re-energize his career.
Good comparison. I think the difference that I see is Knight was at the end of the line coaching with the current basketball players. He didn't want to deal with the one and done player. He didn't want to deal with the inflated ego. He didn't want to recruit the top tier players because of the baggage that came along with them. We saw that at Texas Tech, he had very competitive teams, that just couldn't match up athletically with the better teams in the country. Huggins on the other hand has shown the willingness to accept the current state of basketball, and so far has been very successful at WVU.
I am looking through the recruiting classes since 2002. With the exception of Hicks, Huggins didn't bring in another pro prospect. He mailed in some recruits, Telford, and took some serious chances that never panned out. He failed to land any 5 star players, and he hit the JC ranks hard, which really did nothing but provide a continuous stop gap.
Bearcats with a nice little road win today topping UConn 60-48.
They tried to give it away in the end, but Vaughn made four straight key free throws and Stephenson had a breakaway dunk to help seal the win.
Tuesday night in South Florida looms large. The total optimist in me says if they can win Tuesday night, then take two straight at home against Marquette and DePaul then they'll be giving themselves an excellent shot to reach the tournament (barring a Big East tourney collapse).
At least today was a start. They've got to keep it up.
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
ESPN guys mentioned that Xavier is on the wrong side of the bubble and liked what the win did for UC. Between the Michigan St/Penn State and OkST/OK games.
Hugs, smiling, and interactive Twitter accounts, don't mean winning baseball. Until this community understands that we are cursed to relive the madness.
They stepped it up today, but it's still getting incredibly frustrating watching them collapse at the end of games.
I agree, but the positive side is they held on. For once they pulled themselves together and got it done before they let it go too far. Hopefully this is what they needed to get that confidence going that they can close out games. Good win for UC, especially considering how poorly they shot for most of the game. I liked the defense for most of the game and holding a team under 60 points is nothing to sneeze at. Hopefully some of the fans inch back off the edge of that cliff that some were precariously hanging over, at least for today.
Next game is a big one.
Huge win today, and the next three are equally as huge. Win the next three and we are in very good shape for the tourney.
Xavier was never on the wrong side of the Bubble, but now they're REALLY not on the wrong side of the Bubble.
Xavier may have helped knock Florida out, which could help UC.
I'll take a W @ UConn any day. I don't care how they did it.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
The opportunity is definitely there just like it was the last couple of years. History shows us that Mick coached teams will not win the "winnable" games necessary to make the tournament in late Feb. In fact they tend to lose just about all their final games...So I'm not getting my hopes up.
Huge game tonight.
Cats are playing some bad basketball tonight. No one can tell me they are a well-coached team. Ugly. Plenty of time left but I would be surprised if they came back to win this one.
Posting Permissions
|
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |
Reply With Quote