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Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
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ctipton Offline
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Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Dissolution from Big East shouldn't be mourned

Mar 23, 2013

[Image: bilde?NewTbl=1&Site=AB&D...p;amp;q=60]
Cincinnati guard Cashmere Wright (1) goes up for a shot against Creighton center Gregory Echenique (00) in the first half. Cincinnati lost to Creighton University 67-63 in an NCAA tournament basketball game at Wells Fargo Center Friday in Philadelphia. The Enquirer/ Joseph Fuqua II

Written by
Paul Daugherty

As the ashes from the first-round torchings cooled, what used to be the Big East didn’t look so hot. Even before Florida Gulf Coast – a team, not a travel brochure – beat Georgetown and blew apart further the Big East myth, the league was in decline, and not because it was losing schools hourly.

A modest question: What was so big, in recent years, about the Big East?

It’s fashionable today to mourn UC’s departure from the league. Tomorrow, the revisionist take from Bearcat fans might be, “The fresh start was good for us.’’

Of the eight Big East teams invited to the Madness, five were done after Friday night. Three lost by double digits. Three were seeded higher than their opponents. Georgetown lost by 10 Florida Gulf Coast. This suggests the league was overrated, a not unfamiliar notion in recent years.

There is a tendency in the Northeast to think that only the Northeast matters. That provincialism extends from Boston, through New York and Philadelphia, and down to D.C. It shrouds all things sporting. If we are not overdosing on the force-feed of Yankees-Red Sox, we are looking live at Sal Paolantonio, from Jets camp, chronicling Tim Tebow’s every genuflection.

The media is thick in the Northeast. So is the hype.

This sort of inward thinking extended to the Big East. Once, it was a great league. The 1980s of Ewing and Mourning, Mullin and Massimino, were big times for what was then the purest basketball conference in history. Ditto the 90s, and into the turn of the century. The league always got more than its share of great players from the East Coast basketball meccas.

College basketball is about coaches. The Big East had them, too: Thompson and Carnesecca, Pitino and Boeheim and Calhoun. Colorful characters, guiding great players.

Now?

Even before the Big East started unspooling, it wasn’t what it used to be. The league was always known for its physical style. In recent times, that way of playing had evolved into 40-minute alley fights, sanctioned by the referees. Coaches called it “great defense.’’ Some of us called it “unwatchable.’’

[Image: bilde?Site=AB&Date=20130323&...-UC-needs-]
It’s fashionable today to mourn UC’s departure from the league. Tomorrow, the revisionist take from Bearcat fans might be, “The fresh start was good for us.’’ / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

Watching Big East basketball was like taking in two hours of mixed martial arts on Spike TV. Every game had the potential to be ugly. Even Mick Cronin, a staunch worshipper at the Big East altar, called it “football.’’

Basketball wasn’t meant to be football.

On Wednesday in Dayton, I watched La Salle beat Boise State, in a beautiful exhibition of team hoops. Part raw athleticism and part ballet, the Explorers' win was a tribute to what the game can be, when it’s not being played like a tug of war. They repeated the show Friday, against Kansas State.

On Friday in Philly, I watched Creighton beat UC in similar fashion. Good ball movement, smart shot selection, deadly free-throw accuracy. UC worked mightily to find good shots, only to see all its hard work undone by the Bluejays’ ability to create open spaces and make open shots.

For every example of “great defense’’ cited by Cronin this winter, I saw two open shots, missed. Shooting, and offense in general, has not been highly prized in the Big East lately. Elbows and shoulders have.

In their new league, whatever it’s called, maybe the Bearcats get to breathe a little. Cronin finds some shooters. His offense takes off the shoulder pads. Basketball in Clifton becomes fun to watch again.

Was the Big East still a good league in its last gasp this winter? Obviously. Was it superior to, say, the Mountain West? Was it that much better than even the Atlantic 10, which as of Saturday morning had five schools still standing?

In recent years, its reputation had exceeded its performance. Its style of play became tortuous on the eyeballs. Its coaches, save a stray Pitino or two, were no longer glamour guys The face of the league looked more like Jim Boeheim. Scowling and whiny.

The league did well by UC. UC did well by the league. Its dissolution shouldn’t be mourned. It had run its course.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130...RONTPAGE|p
 
03-24-2013 05:53 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
I agree with Doc; he's verbalized what I've been thinking all year. There's no question that the B1G passed the BE by. Perhaps the new conference will prod Mick to expand his recruiting base, and not just rely on a narrow pipeline of east coast streetballers, and ones passes over by higher-profile programs at that.
 
03-24-2013 07:44 AM
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Murph29 Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Sorry buy he's now resorting to saying the BE wasn't any good because of this yrs tourney performance by several teams and citing Lasalle as what UC should strive for. Wasnt he lauding XU a week ago for getting in the BE with these current BE catholic schools. Now it was always an overrated conf and we should all aspire to be more creighton and Lasalle. Wonder what happens to all that creighton love if they get drilled by duke today. We should aspire to be one and out I guess. This column reeks of having to get something written in a hurry and someone who watches a game here or there in the tourney and makes big conclusions.
 
03-24-2013 08:07 AM
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bearcat54 Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 07:44 AM)Former Lurker Wrote:  I agree with Doc; he's verbalized what I've been thinking all year. There's no question that the B1G passed the BE by. Perhaps the new conference will prod Mick to expand his recruiting base, and not just rely on a narrow pipeline of east coast streetballers, and ones passes over by higher-profile programs at that.

AMEN to that one.
 
03-24-2013 08:19 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
I agree with Murph.

Butt this up to the sunshine Doc was blowing last week and this article reads like he wrote it with his tongue firmly planted inside his cheek.
 
03-24-2013 08:25 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
I'll take any optimism I can get at this point.
 
03-24-2013 08:59 AM
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cmhcat Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
His comments about the football style and being unwatchable were on point. This year the Big Ten is clearly the best league but the Big East was as good as the rest of the other leagues out there. I think his main point here was that Mick has to change his approach...pure athletic ability, which can be transformed into solid defensive skills, is clearly not enough to be successful. Players have to have basic offensive skills and they need to be engaged to what the coaches are instructing. Our players lack these basic offensive skills and either weren't capable of grasping or didn't care what the coaches were saying. I believe it was Bilas or one of the other commentators who made a similar point after watching one of our practices.

Interestingly I read this morning that a kid on the Division III state championship team who scored 36 points with nine threes in the title game is attending UC to pursue engineering--not sure if he'll play any sports or not. I'd think about getting him on the team.
 
03-24-2013 09:42 AM
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cincy11 Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 09:42 AM)cmhcat Wrote:  His comments about the football style and being unwatchable were on point. This year the Big Ten is clearly the best league but the Big East was as good as the rest of the other leagues out there. I think his main point here was that Mick has to change his approach...pure athletic ability, which can be transformed into solid defensive skills, is clearly not enough to be successful. Players have to have basic offensive skills and they need to be engaged to what the coaches are instructing. Our players lack these basic offensive skills and either weren't capable of grasping or didn't care what the coaches were saying. I believe it was Bilas or one of the other commentators who made a similar point after watching one of our practices.

I'm not sure why people think Mick is recruiting "pure athletic ability"? I look up & down that roster & only Thomas & Gaines jump out at me as "pure athletes". No way you can put Kilpatrick, Sanders, Cash, Parker or chiek in there. This was more of a Huggs thing to me.
 
03-24-2013 10:00 AM
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cmhcat Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 10:00 AM)cincy11 Wrote:  
(03-24-2013 09:42 AM)cmhcat Wrote:  His comments about the football style and being unwatchable were on point. This year the Big Ten is clearly the best league but the Big East was as good as the rest of the other leagues out there. I think his main point here was that Mick has to change his approach...pure athletic ability, which can be transformed into solid defensive skills, is clearly not enough to be successful. Players have to have basic offensive skills and they need to be engaged to what the coaches are instructing. Our players lack these basic offensive skills and either weren't capable of grasping or didn't care what the coaches were saying. I believe it was Bilas or one of the other commentators who made a similar point after watching one of our practices.

I'm not sure why people think Mick is recruiting "pure athletic ability"? I look up & down that roster & only Thomas & Gaines jump out at me as "pure athletes". No way you can put Kilpatrick, Sanders, Cash, Parker or chiek in there. This was more of a Huggs thing to me.

I see your point but what I'm saying is that there must have been a couple of players out there who could dribble and shoot and run offense that he didn't recruit so he could get our current roster. Perhaps they were smaller or slower or couldn't jump as well. Our players are strikingly incompetent on offense. We have no good shooters, no one really handles the ball well, passes are haphazard and often off target. Our players seem to have a difficult time just holding onto the ball. I'm watching some the NCAA games and it is demonstrates to me how lacking we are in this regard compared to teams that are successful in the tourney.
 
03-24-2013 10:09 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
As my brackets most years recently attest, I do think I and others have overrated the Big East. But I tire of reading the revisionist history of Doc and several posters. If an in-and-out 3 stays in and a free throw or two go the other way, the story line is the Big East bruisers of UC wore down the finesse shooters of Creighton. They did good and bad things; we did good and bad things. I'll throw out any officiating/injury issues and say they did a little more good than we did in that particular game Friday. Congrats to them.

I accept that to the victors go the spoils, but that doesn't mean we have to redefine and recharacterize how the game was actually played. It wasn't proof that one brand of basketball is definitively "better" than another.
 
(This post was last modified: 03-24-2013 11:25 AM by Bearhawkeye.)
03-24-2013 11:09 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 08:25 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  I agree with Murph.

Butt this up to the sunshine Doc was blowing last week and this article reads like he wrote it with his tongue firmly planted inside his cheek.

His tongue seems to be planted in XU's cheeks, but that is another subject.
 
03-24-2013 11:15 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Personally i find it really hard to take Doc serious. I know that's not much of a ground breaking statement and seems to dovetail in with what a lot of posters here believe, but I just had to put it out there. He writes with cliches and platitudes on top of cliches and more platitudes. I found the whole "corn-fed" shooter thing to just be foolish. Just code for go find some white kid that can shoot threes. The over simplification of our team being constituted of "athletes" is again simply code for a bunch of black dudes with low Bball IQ. Yes, we have a low Bball IQ, i agree and have thought that abt UC basketball since Huggs, however as a previous poster noted it's not like the entire team is loaded with guys like that. Just a lazy oversimplification.




mc
 
03-24-2013 11:37 AM
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beck Offline
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Well said, he is a typical Enquirer columnist. At any rate that'll be the last he writes about UC for some time.
 
03-24-2013 11:43 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 11:37 AM)marcuscan Wrote:  Personally i find it really hard to take Doc serious. I know that's not much of a ground breaking statement and seems to dovetail in with what a lot of posters here believe, but I just had to put it out there. He writes with cliches and platitudes on top of cliches and more platitudes. I found the whole "corn-fed" shooter thing to just be foolish. Just code for go find some white kid that can shoot threes. The over simplification of our team being constituted of "athletes" is again simply code for a bunch of black dudes with low Bball IQ. Yes, we have a low Bball IQ, i agree and have thought that abt UC basketball since Huggs, however as a previous poster noted it's not like the entire team is loaded with guys like that. Just a lazy oversimplification.




mc

I have no idea what the term "basketball IQ" even means.
 
03-24-2013 11:51 AM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Why not simply admit that the Big East was a great b-ball conference that finished with a down year in talent and good teams? That's all it is.

All this chest thumping by writers, analysts, and fans of other conferences is annoying and opportunist. I'm sure if Georgetown played Florida Gulf Coast 10 times, they'd win 7 or 8 of them. The Big East is just the popular whipping boy this year. Usually it's the Big Ten and it's failures in the tournament.
 
03-24-2013 12:07 PM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
This article is simply stupid. The only part I agree with is the fresh start concept. The BE has been dominant every year. Including this one. Even with the mid-major slanted RPI, the BE ended on top. Every year the BE gets multiple teams in the E8, and at least one in the FF. Even during their worst year since the CUSA infusion (2 yrs ago), UConn won the title.

What a moron.
 
03-24-2013 12:15 PM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
Big East currently has more teams in the Sweet Sixteen than any other league.

Big Ten might have more before the day is done, and the ACC may have as many, but the Big East trumps the rest.
 
03-24-2013 12:24 PM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
(03-24-2013 12:15 PM)payday Wrote:  This article is simply stupid. The only part I agree with is the fresh start concept. The BE has been dominant every year. Including this one. Even with the mid-major slanted RPI, the BE ended on top. Every year the BE gets multiple teams in the E8, and at least one in the FF. Even during their worst year since the CUSA infusion (2 yrs ago), UConn won the title.

What a moron.

Exactly this. And this idea that all we need is some shoeless kid shooting threes in his Kansas driveway is as dumb as oscar's opinion a few years ago that if UC wanted a good big man it wasn't that hard and we could even find one using an ad in the paper.
 
03-24-2013 12:24 PM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
I remember 2 yrs ago when the BE got 9 bids and most of them dropped the 1st weekend, I listened to Barkley rail about the Big Least during each postgame. I laughed mao when UConn won it. It shut his big trap up.

I just got done watching him do the same to the B10.
 
03-24-2013 12:28 PM
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RE: Doc: Fresh start just what UC needs?
'Ville is probably the best team this year, but anyone who thinks that the BE was as strong as the B1G this year wasn't paying attention.
 
03-24-2013 12:54 PM
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