Did Mick Cronin Learn The Wrong Thing Sitting Out Last Season?

Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer (maybe you’ve heard of him?) sat down with Mick Cronin yesterday to talk a little hoops and get a read on where his mindset is this offseason. Most of the piece focused on his health, as it naturally would when the writer of this piece has nothing better to do than droll on about a topic that has been rehashed over and over again for the last few months.

But a few nuggets caught my eye.

"He spent last winter spectating. What he learned he found revelatory, mainly because college basketball coaches universally believe they can win games with strategy, adjustments and lots of timeouts. In fact, Cronin’s awakening is obvious to anyone not toiling in the arena:Players win games.“Better players make you a better coach. You can’t save the world by playing hard. The best teams play hard, too,” Cronin said.“Recruiting and player development are in the forefront,” Cronin said. “You’re not going to win leagues if you don’t have all-league players. No matter how hard (you) coach” on game night."

If that’s truly what Mick Cronin learned during his time away from the UC sidelines, boy is it concerning.

The idea of talent masking coaching and system deficiencies is an age old debate. It can reasonable be answered with either a “yes” or a “no”. Talented players certainly help win games and championships. The 2011 and 2014 UConn Huskies certainly proved that. But it takes far, far more than a good point guard or a dominant power forward to guide a team to the promised land (see: Tigers, Memphis).

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The challenge for Cronin during his early years at Cincinnati was not only developing a winning system and slowly but steadily raising the quality of player on his roster. He accomplished the first on defense and as a result has been able to sign more talented recruits during the last two cycles.

Now that the foundation’s been built, Cronin’s new challenge is taking the program to the next level. I had hoped sitting out last season would cause him to open his eyes and see the recipe that takes the elite teams like Duke, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Michigan State to Sweet Sixteens on an annual basis. In essence, that it’s not just the fact they pull in the best players the high school circuit has to offer but their coaches optimize their skills in a system that emphasizes an equally strong offense and defense.

This as opposed to Cincinnati’s system where it’s defense first, defense second, and if there’s time try to score a few points. Even more so, it’s the fact that UC’s coaches purposefully slow down the pace of play in order to not sacrifice the defense. They’d rather Troy Caupain hold up at the point during a fast break so his teammates can get into position instead of him driving to the hoop. The idea there is to ensure that if the shot misses, the players can get back on defense faster.

But that’s an ancient mindset gone the way of the dodo bird.

This year’s version of the Bearcats basketball team is as athletic as ever. Have you seen the 6’7″ Gary Clark boot-scoot it up the floor? I’m confident he could chase down a fast break in no time. Overall, sure a faster paced offense might lead to a couple of turnovers in the mid-court and easy buckets for the opposing team but wouldn’t bumping up scoring by 5-10 points per game be worth the risk? Even getting to just 70 points per game (UC averaged a Mick Cronin era worst 62.1 last year) would do wonders for this team’s ability to win games and go far in the NCAA Tournament.

That’s why Mick’s comments above have me worried. Maybe a light bulb hasn’t gone on. Maybe all he observed from Duke and Wisconsin in the National Championship last season was “Oh, look how many five-star players each of those coaches get to work with”. If that’s the case we might be looking at the same old slow paced, low scoring offense this season that we’ve put up with for the last decade. And it’s discouraging to say the least.