Before the stat of the regular-season, if someone had asked me my opinion on Mick Cronin my response would have been that I 80 percent love that he’s our head coach but 20 percent that I don’t. Mick reignited the winning culture during the few post-Bob Huggins years here at UC, and he has since been able to maintain that winning culture in the regular-season. He’s always been a defensive-minded head coach, and I can always admire and respect a coach who is deeply committed to his or her philosophies. But after last year’s devastating loss to Nevada, I recognized the one thing I did not like about Cronin was, at that time, that he was so deeply committed to his coaching style that it struck me as rigid.
It wasn’t just being defensive-minded. There was also the constant yelling on the sideline that portrayed him as someone who was being hard, sometimes too hard on the players. Those two Waterloos played a large role in the Bearcats epic collapse in the tournament. Cronin coached last year in a way where if they weren’t dominating games, it was a problem. I get that the Bearcats had an immensely talented team last year, but the way he coached and how it rubbed off on the team hurt them in the tournament. As devastating as “That Game in Nashville” was, it could have been seen coming.
Fast forward to today where the Bearcats are in the exact same position as they were last year (25-4, 14-2 AAC), in a position to win a second straight regular-season title, and I cannot be more thankful Mick Cronin is our head coach. In a city where we have generally not been big fans of head coaches or managers over the years, Cronin has become a breath of fresh air this year. I noticed that listening to him on his weekly radio show Monday night at Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse with how entertaining of a rock star he is, without him even trying to be one.
He has changed since last year in the tournament. He’s coaching this Bearcats team to win games. That’s it. He’s also coaching like he and the players have no pressure to win any game. That could be because of the not-so-high preseason expectations, but Cronin coaching to just strictly win games has this team in a great position heading into March. I think he’s also having a lot of fun coaching this team because there is no pressure on this team to win. They’ve been playing loose and relaxed in every game since the Ohio State game to start the season. He told the players after the Ohio State game that they just had a bad night. That’s all it was. It was the first game in a beautifully-renovated arena against a high-quality, in-state opponent. I sure am glad I didn’t give up on this team after that night.
The three-game stretch in a span of six days in mid-January was a stretch where we found a lot about this Bearcats team. All three games resulted in wins, but we also knew the Bearcats could play better, especially on the defensive end and rebounding. I didn’t know, at first, why Cronin was mad after the UConn game because they had won a tough game that tipped off less than 48 hours after an overtime win at Tulsa with three Bearcats battling the flu in that game. He was still being hard on the players during the next game against USF, but then he got ejected. I really think that was a turning point for him this season. This is what I wrote after that game.
Here’s what I hope for. I hope this ejection makes Cronin take a step back and realize that he’s coaching a young team that, despite its lack of defensive discipline and execution at times, is scoring a lot of points and winning games. He can preach about defense and rebounding all he wants, but it might take this team time to reach their full potential in both areas. This is a young team defending an outright regular season and conference tournament championship, getting every AAC team’s best shot and they’re winning games. It’s easier for a team to try and get better when they’re winning. Logan Johnson told me Wednesday that this team is confident as long as they put in the work. That’s all I needed to hear.
I didn’t know if Cronin would actually do what I hoped because, again, I know how committed he is to his coaching style and philosophies. But here’s the deal: he has done EXACTLY what I hoped he would do. He’s clapping more on the sidelines, which shows he’s more of a calming presence as someone mentioned to me last week. I can’t recall an exact quote from Cronin about the defense and rebounding taking time to evolve, but both areas certainly have. They were on full display in the second half in the game at Temple, a game where Cronin mentioned in the postgame show on 700 WLW about how proud he was of the players representing Cincinnati basketball with their rebounding, especially on the offensive glass. There have been postgame shows since with Cronin mentioning how proud he is of the Bearcats’ resilience, defense, etc.
Recently Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty wrote a column about how it was time for the Bearcats to put on a show for the NCAA Tournament selection committee. Now, I respect the heck out of “Doc”, as Daugherty is known as, but I strongly disagree with what he wrote, which was written after the UCF game on Feb. 21. “Doc” blah, blah, blahed Cronin saying after the UCF game that his team was just trying to get one-point blowout wins at this point in the season. But Cronin knows his team better than any of us do, including “Doc.” Since the first UCF game, the Bearcats have won their last three games by four, three and two points respectively.
If “Doc” had written this column 10 years ago, I would have totally agreed with him. But this almost decade’s worth of the NCAA Tournament has seen three double-digit seeds in the Final Four, 19 double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16 including a 13-seed (Ohio in 2012) and a 15-seed (FGCU in 2013), four 15 seeds upsetting 2 seeds and the first ever 16-seed upsetting a No. 1 seed. My point here: SEEDS DON’T MATTER! As long as the Bearcats are winning games, that’s all that matters as we head into the conference and NCAA Tournaments.
After the Ohio State loss to start the season, it was clearly the offense that led to the Bearcats dropping their first game in newly-renovated Fifth Third Arena. Of course, though, Cronin was in no mood to talk about his team’s offensive struggles. He mentioned that if the Bearcats had held Ohio State to the same number of points in the second half as they did in the first half, 27, Cincinnati would have won by two points. Anyone can say what they want, but he was right. Looking back on it, that was the first time where it showed that the person who knows this Bearcats team the best is Mick Cronin himself.
Sure enough, the Bearcats defense was great in the games that followed the season-opener. But the offense was great as well. So here’s the deal: Cronin knows that there are nights when the shots aren’t falling. When they’re not, wins can still be achieved as a result of great defense. Look at the SMU game last week where the Bearcats shot 26.6 percent from the floor, and they still won by three. That win, as ugly as it was, was a testament to how far the Bearcats have come as a team this season. Again, great defense can win games when the shots aren’t falling. Cronin knew what he was talking about after the Ohio State game after all. He knows his team better than anybody else, and I cannot be more thankful that he is our head coach.
Let me be Frank and Cut to the Chase 