The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Let's be honest. We all long for the Bob Huggins years of glory. That said, none of these comparisons and metrics would matter much if Cincinnati would've made more than one Final Four since 1992. That's what has really been disappointing. The basketball program, for whatever reason[s], just hasn't translated success in the NCAAT. Shoot, we last made an E8 in 1996. Last made a S16 in 2012. We've had our share of talented teams but lack deep runs to show for it. Many have lamented that you'd think we could just fall into a S16 or two by the luck of the draw or how the ball bounces over time. Nope. We've been snakebit...please, no one needs to cite specific instances LOL.

I'm just excited for a stretch of real games. I checked out of half of this OOC schedule.

(01-02-2024 05:53 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 04:33 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 02:55 PM)levydl Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 01:28 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 09:38 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Uc is sitting at 40th in kenpom adjusted offense. We've had one UC team finish inside the top 40 in adjusted offense since Huggins was fired (2017 team finished 34th). Even our best team in 2018 was 49th in adjusted offense. And this is with a team integrating 6 major contributors that weren't on last years roster (including both PGs)...having dealt with two not being eligible, and lingering injuries for a couple of others. And one other key guy didn't play last year due to injury.

There-in lies UC's problem for the past 35 years. We've never had a great offensive mind running the UC program. Our kenpom rating is only top 40 right now because of our incredibly weak schedule. And we can talk about integrating new players but my eyes see the same only "stand-around and wait for someone to do something" offense we've had in the past. Other than a high ball screen there's very little movement. Terry Nelson mentions it during his broadcast every single game. I think Wes is on a good upward trajectory thus far but I was hoping for much more from him offensively when UC hired him. Coming from UNC I had expectations we'd see a team that had fluid constant movement on offense.

OK, the idea that Huggins isn't a great offensive mind is laughable.

You can't be serious. Huggins entire downfall as a coach was his inability to put together teams that were offensively strong enough to compete come tournament time. His teams were big, physical and could play defense.

In 14 NCAA tournament years UC averaged a mere 68 points in their final game. They never beat a higher seed.

UC lost as the better seed in 10 of those 14 years and in those 10 games we averaged 67 points a game and only broke the 72 point barrier in one game.

Huggins teams consistently ranged from very good to elite offensively while at UC. Here were their adjusted offensive rankings in the kenpom era (I use adjusted offense because you need to adjust for strength of schedule but UC also played really good schedules, I'll include their SOS ranks too in parenthesis, but again the numbers already adjust for it):

1999 26th (SOS 52nd)
2000 3rd (SOS 21st)
2001 15th (SOS 47th)
2002 7th (SOS 57th)
2003 116th (SOS 51st) - This is definitely the outlier season
2004 13th (SOS 66th)
2005 33rd (SOS 71st)

I know there is the weird perception that Huggs teams weren't good on offense, but it just isn't true. What happened in the tournament? Honestly, probably just some bad luck. Huggs was great in the tournament his first 5 times he was there. His best team lost Kenyon in the conference tournament. His second best team drew a UCLA team loaded with NBA talent that played to it's max potential that day. He lost another on a tipped bank 3. Jay Wright had a similar run at Villanova before he finally broke through and won titles.

I think it was PG play (many years he had a newPG) and possibly not playing a hard enough schedule during the regular season to prepare for the tournament.

In addition possibly having players that overall were not as skilled. Maybe during the regular season they could take advantage of teams and score well. In the NCAA tournament O or skill level was a notch below others. Plus maybe beat at X&O’s in tough games against elite coaches.

Was tough playing against taller more skilled players.

(01-02-2024 05:53 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 04:33 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 02:55 PM)levydl Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 01:28 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 09:38 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Uc is sitting at 40th in kenpom adjusted offense. We've had one UC team finish inside the top 40 in adjusted offense since Huggins was fired (2017 team finished 34th). Even our best team in 2018 was 49th in adjusted offense. And this is with a team integrating 6 major contributors that weren't on last years roster (including both PGs)...having dealt with two not being eligible, and lingering injuries for a couple of others. And one other key guy didn't play last year due to injury.

There-in lies UC's problem for the past 35 years. We've never had a great offensive mind running the UC program. Our kenpom rating is only top 40 right now because of our incredibly weak schedule. And we can talk about integrating new players but my eyes see the same only "stand-around and wait for someone to do something" offense we've had in the past. Other than a high ball screen there's very little movement. Terry Nelson mentions it during his broadcast every single game. I think Wes is on a good upward trajectory thus far but I was hoping for much more from him offensively when UC hired him. Coming from UNC I had expectations we'd see a team that had fluid constant movement on offense.

OK, the idea that Huggins isn't a great offensive mind is laughable.

You can't be serious. Huggins entire downfall as a coach was his inability to put together teams that were offensively strong enough to compete come tournament time. His teams were big, physical and could play defense.

In 14 NCAA tournament years UC averaged a mere 68 points in their final game. They never beat a higher seed.

UC lost as the better seed in 10 of those 14 years and in those 10 games we averaged 67 points a game and only broke the 72 point barrier in one game.

Huggins teams consistently ranged from very good to elite offensively while at UC. Here were their adjusted offensive rankings in the kenpom era (I use adjusted offense because you need to adjust for strength of schedule but UC also played really good schedules, I'll include their SOS ranks too in parenthesis, but again the numbers already adjust for it):

1999 26th (SOS 52nd)
2000 3rd (SOS 21st)
2001 15th (SOS 47th)
2002 7th (SOS 57th)
2003 116th (SOS 51st) - This is definitely the outlier season
2004 13th (SOS 66th)
2005 33rd (SOS 71st)

I know there is the weird perception that Huggs teams weren't good on offense, but it just isn't true. What happened in the tournament? Honestly, probably just some bad luck. Huggs was great in the tournament his first 5 times he was there. His best team lost Kenyon in the conference tournament. His second best team drew a UCLA team loaded with NBA talent that played to it's max potential that day. He lost another on a tipped bank 3. Jay Wright had a similar run at Villanova before he finally broke through and won titles.

You can cite "adjusted" rankings and "bad luck" all you want but when you can't score 70 points in the most crucial game of the year against a team that is supposed to be worse, then you simply aren't getting it done offensively.

Tipped bank threes shouldn't decide the outcome of a game when you're a top 10 team with a 2 seed playing against the 10 seed.

That UCLA team loaded with NBA players lost 12 games that year including the very next game to the #12 seed.

10 years of losses to worse seeds isn't bad luck. Its bad play. The rest is just excuses. Huggins was great for UC and he's a hall of fame coach for his longevity of success. But no one will ever put him in the discussion when talking about the best college basketball coaches of all time. His West Virgina teams suffered the same fate of UC. Good regular season success but limited NCAAT success because they couldn't score.

(01-03-2024 08:31 AM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 05:53 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 04:33 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 02:55 PM)levydl Wrote:  

(01-02-2024 01:28 PM)nachoman91 Wrote:  There-in lies UC's problem for the past 35 years. We've never had a great offensive mind running the UC program. Our kenpom rating is only top 40 right now because of our incredibly weak schedule. And we can talk about integrating new players but my eyes see the same only "stand-around and wait for someone to do something" offense we've had in the past. Other than a high ball screen there's very little movement. Terry Nelson mentions it during his broadcast every single game. I think Wes is on a good upward trajectory thus far but I was hoping for much more from him offensively when UC hired him. Coming from UNC I had expectations we'd see a team that had fluid constant movement on offense.

OK, the idea that Huggins isn't a great offensive mind is laughable.

You can't be serious. Huggins entire downfall as a coach was his inability to put together teams that were offensively strong enough to compete come tournament time. His teams were big, physical and could play defense.

In 14 NCAA tournament years UC averaged a mere 68 points in their final game. They never beat a higher seed.

UC lost as the better seed in 10 of those 14 years and in those 10 games we averaged 67 points a game and only broke the 72 point barrier in one game.

Huggins teams consistently ranged from very good to elite offensively while at UC. Here were their adjusted offensive rankings in the kenpom era (I use adjusted offense because you need to adjust for strength of schedule but UC also played really good schedules, I'll include their SOS ranks too in parenthesis, but again the numbers already adjust for it):

1999 26th (SOS 52nd)
2000 3rd (SOS 21st)
2001 15th (SOS 47th)
2002 7th (SOS 57th)
2003 116th (SOS 51st) - This is definitely the outlier season
2004 13th (SOS 66th)
2005 33rd (SOS 71st)

I know there is the weird perception that Huggs teams weren't good on offense, but it just isn't true. What happened in the tournament? Honestly, probably just some bad luck. Huggs was great in the tournament his first 5 times he was there. His best team lost Kenyon in the conference tournament. His second best team drew a UCLA team loaded with NBA talent that played to it's max potential that day. He lost another on a tipped bank 3. Jay Wright had a similar run at Villanova before he finally broke through and won titles.

You can cite "adjusted" rankings and "bad luck" all you want but when you can't score 70 points in the most crucial game of the year against a team that is supposed to be worse, then you simply aren't getting it done offensively.

Tipped bank threes shouldn't decide the outcome of a game when you're a top 10 team with a 2 seed playing against the 10 seed.

That UCLA team loaded with NBA players lost 12 games that year including the very next game to the #12 seed.

10 years of losses to worse seeds isn't bad luck. Its bad play. The rest is just excuses. Huggins was great for UC and he's a hall of fame coach for his longevity of success. But no one will ever put him in the discussion when talking about the best college basketball coaches of all time. His West Virgina teams suffered the same fate of UC. Good regular season success but limited NCAAT success because they couldn't score.

Huggs had a final four and two more elite 8s in his first 5 tournaments. He didn't suddenly become a bad tournament coach.

I'd argue a couple of those teams just overachieved during the year (1998 and 1999 specifically). 1997 was probably the worst of the losses from my perspective as that team never lived up to its potential...I think the downgrade from Legree to Charles Williams was more than people thought.

2000 Kenyon got injured.
2002 that UCLA team was a high variance team with elite talent and bad coaching. Sometimes the talent won out. Over the course of the season, they beat 7 top 22 teams including two one seeds, a 2 seed, a 3 seed, a 4 seed, a 6 seed, and an 8 seed. That UCLA team had the kind of wins you usually see with teams on the 1-3 seed line. (They just had Lavin and combined it with a lot of WTF games) I thought UC played really well that game. UCLA just also played well and had a couple things go their way.

BTW go look at Jay Wright before his two titles. He goes on a nearly identical run of second round losses. This **** can be random sometimes.

Huggins was a good coach. Sometimes his teams were just not lucky, and that's the thing. It's great to have great players. Huggins had a lot of great players. But you have to be lucky sometimes. Huggins was not lucky.

Bad luck as an excuse only goes so far.
At a certain point “great” coaches make their own luck, or they are “good” coaches, not “great”.

(01-04-2024 06:15 PM)namrag Wrote:  Bad luck as an excuse only goes so far.
At a certain point “great” coaches make their own luck, or they are “good” coaches, not “great”.

Agreed. If Huggins were truly great, Kenyon would not have broken his leg.