The pressure is off for UC
03/11/13 at 3:21pm by Bill Koch

Mick Cronin is not the type to spend a lot of time publicly analyzing his team’s NCAA Tournament chances. He leaves that to others.

But on Monday the UC coach said he was confident the Bearcats had done enough to earn their third straight NCAA Tournament at-large berth regardless of what happens this week at the Big East tournament.

“We’re an NCAA tournament team,” Cronin said. “We’ve earned that with the resume we’ve built during the regular season. We’re looking at this as a fresh start. The pressure is off. There was a lot of pressure mounting on this team since Cash (Wright) got injured to win enough games to get to March. It really affected their play. I’m very excited to have these guys not play as stressed out as they have been.”

UC still hasn’t solved its offensive woes, but Cronin is hoping that with the pressure seemingly off, the Bearcats can begin to play without so much tension on every possession.

“The combination of things that put pressure on these kids created an atmosphere of stress around our team that is now gone,” Cronin said.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/uc/2013/03/1...ff-for-uc/