UCLA to hire Mick Cronin
A disaster of a coaching search ends with an underwhelming hire. I though Michigan had a home and home with Cinci upcoming but I can't find any recent info on it, but regardless this doesn't seem like it's going to move the needle much at UCLA.
On a different MBB note, TAMU RS JR SG Admon Gilder is going to graduate and transfer. Gilder missed this year due to a blood clot and he just got medically cleared to play this past week. Gilder had a decent game against Michigan in the Sweet Sixteen a few years ago scoring 10 points on 5-11 shooting with 3 assists and 4 rebounds. Gilder posted good numbers his Junior year when he last played, a 114 ORtg on 18% usage (116 and 17% against top 50 opponents) playing 69% of minutes on the season. He shot 40% from 3 (just under half his shots with 90% assisted), 51% from 2 (58% at the rim with 48% assisted), 82% from the line and is supposed to be a good defender according to Reddit TAMU fans. He has no connections I can find to Michigan but if Poole leaves Gilder would be a good plug and play candidate.
I'm looking forward to the third board post about this
Only if it's in Dolby Sound Surround.
DTS is far superior.
This one was good, but by the third one all the kinks should be ironed out, and it'll be perfect!
The first post was too definitive. UCLA hires last name, as if it is done, i.e. old news.
This post, well this post, you know what it says? It says UCLA "to hire" first and last name. There is still some doubt. I feel the excitement. The deal is in the final stages. I hope their AD brings his cell phone on the sailing trip.
Good move for Cronin. Very bad for UC, he was their golden ticket.
UC has made 9 consecutive NCAA tournaments - but they've only had 1 solidly good victory (Florida State in the Round of 32 in 2012) among all those trips.
Program was treading water.
Now, UC may hire some bozo as their next Coach and fall apart - who knows what happens. But I do think this isn't a truly bad thing for UC in the longer-term.
Time for Huggins to reunite with UC
Cincinnati is a top 25-35 basketball program in a non-Power 5 conference and maybe the best that also plays FBS football which has to drain away some potential resources. Is Cronin really that far away from the ceiling at UC? Is this a hidden gem that should be like Gonzaga? More likely, he's either reached the potential at UC or is damn close to it.
I think Cincinnati will find it much harder to replicate Cronin's success in their next hire than you may think.
I absolutely think UC's basketball potential is there. They can win national titles, IMO.
Huggins got the Bearcats to considerably higher levels than Cronin ever did. Huggins also started from a considerably lower floor.
I still think UC was the best team in the country in 2000. Then that damn Kenyon Martin injury in a stupid meaningless C-USA quarterfinal game. That was that, the team deflated, lost in the 2nd round to a undescript Tulsa team, and then MSU of all teams wins the National Title.
In retrospect, that was the high point of the Huggins at UC era. They were darn good in 2002 too, a #1 seed, but lost a 2OT game in the Round of 32 to a considerably under-seeded UCLA team. Then Huggins started feuding with the UC President, then he got his DUI, and he eventually was fired.
But for all that: UC was very very good in that 1992-2002 era, with a true #1 team in the country (2000) mixed in there.
Bob Huggins is a Hall of Fame coach. It's really hard to find those guys consistently. They don't exactly grow on trees. Even blue bloods struggle with that. UNC and Doherty. UK and Billy Gillispie
College basketball was in a vastly different era in 90s. Hell Huggins coached in the old Metro Conference which hasn't existed for a quarter century. The main football conferences weren't the Power 5 yet and the money wasn't as ridiculous as it is now.
And you'll notice that Cincinnati's football fortunes improved quite a bit right around the time Huggins left and Cronin arrived. Again, if you're not a Power 5 school, it's really hard to have enough resources to go around FBS football and basketball as well as finance Title IX and various Olympic sports.
I agree 100% that the 2000 Cincinnati team was the best team in the country that year prior to Martin's injury.
Didn't he have a health issue related to stress a few years ago?
If it has not been addressed, coaching at UCLA is not going to help that situation.
Aneurysm in 2015, cleared and has a clean bill of health.
Cronin is fired after 3 years of no Pac12 or NCAA tournament and/or early exits. He's a good coach, but that can't fix the problems of that program and the UCLA athletic department. And way too many other places to play (and bagmen with plenty of cash) that will get the top talent title shots and into the pros.
I live/work in the Cincy/NKY area - for the 4 UC grads that are on my team at work, the sky is officially falling.
Where does UC go from here? Regardless of Mick's inability to get over the hump and out of the Round of 32 in the NCAA tournament, he took them to the Dance something like 8 years in a row - levels of sustained success they hadn't seen since the Huggins era. I think the coach from NKU may be a good candidate to replace Cronin - although the timing/optics of this aren't great for their program.
A worst case scenario (for us) would be if they targeted someone like our own Coach Yaklich as Cronin's replacement...obviously pure speculation on my part but his defensive mindset would seemingly be a fit at a gritty, defense-oriented school like UC. Let us hope this does not come to fruition.
Levels of sustained success they hadn't seen since the Huggins era? Huggins coached the team until 2005. Andy Kennedy was the coach for the 05-06 season and left for Ole Miss that offseason. Cronin took over after that. He was literally one year removed from the Huggins era. I think you're overstating Cronin's level of success and the job he did there. Cincinnati made the tourney for 14 of Huggins' 16 years there. Kennedy took them to the NIT. They returned to the tourney in Cronin's first year. It's not like he took over a tire fire.
I think Cronin is a pretty good coach. I think it's a bad hire for UCLA, however. They want banners. Cronin is 6-11 in the NCAA Tournament. And it's not like Cincinnati is a basketball desert. They're in a solid area for bball and they have a strong history even outside of Huggins.
If UCLA wanted banners, they would have offered Calipari $12-$15 million a year and go from there. They wouldn't have offered him less to live in more expensive California and they wouldn't have balked at Dixon's and Barnes' buyouts. I'm not sure any school (or fanbase for that matter) in Power 5 athletics has more of a disconnect between their own perception and that of the outside world's.
Quite frankly, they got what they paid for. A solid college basketball coach. Maybe Cronin with more resources (in theory anyway) can get the program to around the Howland era. The floor is probably what he's been doing at Cincinnati, perennial tournament team floating around that 6-9 seeding that loses on the first weekend.
I had NKU season tickets a few years ago - Brannen is fine there but I don't think he's next level. If I am UC, I wouldn't hire him. Besides, he's Bobby Brannen's cousin. Good rule of thumb: don't hire any cousin's of guys with barbed-wire tattoos.
NKU has had a good deal of success of late - but I think that was inevitable. That program should have gone D1 a long-time before they did. They have a lot of built-in structural advantages that help them be good in conferences like the Horizon or OVC.
I would kick the tires on Thad Matta first. Probably not, but should try. After that, Wes Miller from UNC-Greensboro intrigues me. Young guy at 36. Both Huggins and Cronin came from mid-majors, of course (Akron and Murray State).
The Mick
26 months ago, Cronin was a very popular name to replace (game-has-passed-him-by/can't recruit) John Beilein by many on this Board and UMHoops---and, presumably other Mich-centric sites.
Cronin is the next Alford up.
Cronin could coach circles around D+ Alford. Just like Hopkins brought an tougher style of play to UWash and has recruited like mad, I think Cronin could do the same at UCLA. Not a glamorous hire, but better than Rick Barnes, and perhaps exactly what UCLA needs.
Dueling Mick Cronin posts. But there can be only one.
Wasn't he in REO Speedwagon?
I think Cronin will do fine. He gets players to play very hard for him. If he can land some decent recruits to play alongside Shareef O'Neal they could have a pleasant year. It's not like the Pac-12 is good at basketball.
Poole is not leaving. Y’all gotta chill with that. Just support him and he will be very good for Us next year.
Are Poole and Mick Cronin the same person?
Kinda like Humpty Hump and Shock G? You never see both at the same time?
Cronin is a very good defense/effort/tryhard coach and an atrocious offensive coach, or at least his players can't play offense.
If he gets the same level of athlete (quite good) but better ball players at UCLA he could be very successful. Or, if he hires the offensive equivalent of Yaklich.
You'd leave Cincinnati for LA too.
Am I the only one who thinks Mick Cronin sounds like he should be a 70’s-era British guitar player? “The _____ are going to tour this summer, but it won’t be the same unless Mick Cronin is there.”