Can ‘Cats Contain McDermott?
In Division I college basketball history, there have only been seven players who have scored at least 3000 points. If Creighton’s Doug McDermott returns next year for his senior season, he’s got a legitimate shot to be the eighth.
“He can beat you by himself,” said Bearcats coach Mick Cronin. ”Our guys see a lot of great players, but we have not seen a scorer of his magnitude.”
Maybe not in person, but the Bearcats say they have seen players that McDermott reminds them of in the NBA.
“I think he’s like Dirk Nowitzki,” said Cashmere Wright. ”You don’t find too many 6’8″ guys with the skill level that he has. He’s got a nice game.”
“He’s very crafty — like a Larry Bird type,” said Justin Jackson. ”He’s not that athletic, but he knows the game. He’s the best scorer that I’ve seen in college by far.”
Wait a second. Wasn’t Jackson one-year-old when Larry Legend played his last NBA game?
“I’ve watched him on film when the NBA Classics come on,” said Jackson with a grin.
This year, McDermott has made more field goals than any other player in college basketball, even though he ranks 17th in shots attempted. Of his 273 baskets, 124 have been bank shots (45%) and 24 have been scored with the left hand.
“He’s got an old-school flavor to his game,” said Titus Rubles. ”You can tell that his dad (Creighton coach Greg McDermott) worked with him when he was younger.”
“He’s a coach’s son,” said Wright. ”You have no choice but to learn it — especially if you love the game.”
In addition to a wide variety of low-post moves, McDermott is a great outside shooter, draining 74 of 149 3-point attempts (.497).
“He shoots 50% from the three point line at his height — that’s insane,” said Rubles.
“After two days of film, (our players) have tremendous respect for his game,” said Coach Cronin. ”Whenever you’re able to show video of guys making three point shots that don’t touch the rim or the net — with him, you can pick out shots that are so clean that they literally don’t hit anything.
“Finally one of our guys says, ‘He doesn’t even hit the net.’ That’s when you pause and say, ‘You see what we’re dealing with.’ ”
Rubles and Jackson figure to spend the most minutes trying to defend the two-time First Team All-American.
“The key is to make him earn every basket that he gets and make him defend too,” said Rubles. ”He’s going to score because he’s a great player, but the key is to make him work for every point that he gets.
“We’ve got to be calm, stay on our feet, and make him shoot over us,” said Jackson. ”And we can’t foul him because he ain’t going to miss free throws. Keep him off the line, make him shoot over us, and hopefully he’ll miss.”
I told Rubles and Jackson that they could be the Bearcats MVPs on Friday without scoring a point, if they can hold McDermott to his scoring average or less — a notion that I shared with Cashmere Wright.
“I agree.” said Wright. ”I tell them all the time, ‘We really don’t need you to score too much, but we need you to do everything else.’ “
“This isn’t something that I’m scared of,” said Rubles. ”I’m embracing the challenge. I wish the game were today to be honest.”
Cronin Surprises ‘Cats With Tourney Goal
After grinding through hundreds of practices over the last several years, Cincinnati’s veteran players figured that they had heard every motivational tactic that Mick Cronin had in his bag of tricks. But he surprised them on Monday as they began preparing for Friday’s NCAA opener against Creighton.
“I told our guys that we have two goals for this week: Going 2-0 would be goal number two,” Coach Cronin told me. ”And goal number one, which we can achieve regardless of outcome, is to have more fun that any other team in the tournament. In practice, in our travel, and with each other.
“They need to have fun. They’ve earned it. I want them to enjoy their accomplishments. It’s an accomplishment to make the tournament and I’m structuring things this week so that they can enjoy it.”
“What’s gotten into him?” said Sean Kilpatrick when I asked for his initial reaction to Coach Cronin’s remarks to the team. ”We’ve never heard him say that. It’s good because it makes the players comfortable and reminds us that he’s with us. Not only does he want us to win, but he wants us to have fun.”
“He says a lot of stuff, so we were like, ‘I wonder how he’s going to act tomorrow,’ said Cashmere Wright with a laugh. ”But it seems like he meant what he said and he’s following through on it.”
One way that Coach Cronin showed the players that he meant what he said was by opening Tuesday’s practice to the public. It virtually guaranteed a less stressful environment with no tirades from the head coach.
“We knew when the fans were here that practice wasn’t going to be crazy,” said JaQuon Parker.
“I’ve thought a lot about the whole event and I’m trying to make it the most memorable for our players,” said Cronin. ”There’s no secrets this time of year anyway with the film and the scouting — everybody has everybody’s play calls and there’s nothing that’s going to go on at practice that people don’t already know about our team.
“We have to make sure that we’re fresh on Friday, so you won’t see World War III at practice.”
Of course, there’s a method to his (March) madness. Coach Cronin undoubtedly hopes that a relaxed team will perform well in Philadelphia.
“I think that’s been our problem,” said Parker. ”We’ve been too uptight around here. Now in our last few practices, we’ve been loose and having fun. It feels good.”
“We’re our best when we relax and nobody worries about making mistakes and we’re just out there playing basketball,” said Wright.
But don’t get the mistaken impression that having fun and working hard are mutually exclusive.
“It will not detract from our preparation — I can assure you that,” said Cronin. ”Our guys understand how hard you have to play to win games. We play in a league where if you don’t play hard you don’t even have a chance.”
“He’s telling you to go out there by any means necessary and get it done,” said Parker. ”Just win and have fun doing it. That means a lot to us.”
“It’s my last go-round and I’m just enjoying every day, every practice, and getting ready for the game,” said Wright.
Of course, there are limits in the quest to have the most fun of any team in the field of 68. For example, the players do not expect to have their nightly curfew lifted in Philadelphia.
“We’ve got to have curfew,” said Kilpatrick with a grin. ”That’s mandatory. If you leave some of our guys with no curfew, they might not come back.”
And while the players would undoubtedly be able to have fun if given free rein on the road, there’s nothing more enjoyable in the NCAA Tournament than advancing.
“At the end of the day, if this is going to be our last hurrah, let’s go all-out,” said Kilpatrick. ”Especially for our seniors. This is their last shot and they deserve to have fun, so we’re going to try to make a run in this tournament.”
“Once you’re in you’ve got a chance,” said Cronin. ”Now it’s time to win games.”
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A Big East Dream
The following story is not true. Unfortunately.
September 18, 2011
After initially accepting an offer to leave their current conference for the ACC, Syracuse and Pitt abruptly reversed course on Saturday and reaffirmed their commitment to the Big East.
“The Big East is where we belong,” said Syracuse chancellor Nancy Cantor in a statement released by the university. “We simply could not envision a future that did not include playing Georgetown, much less traveling to Greensboro, North Carolina for our postseason basketball tournament instead of Madison Square Garden.”
“While the offer from the ACC was tempting, we are convinced that the Big East can survive and thrive,” said Pitt chancellor Mark Nordenberg. “Plus, after spending 20 years in this league without an outright championship in football, we have decided to keep trying.”
The news was a relief to Big East commissioner John Marinatto whose job might have been jeopardized if Syracuse and Pitt had bolted for the ACC.
“The Big East remains a premier conference and will soon improve with the addition of TCU as our 17th member,” said Marinatto. “Believe it or not, when the Syracuse/Pitt rumor began circulating, I was briefly worried that TCU might decide to leave us before ever playing a game.”
Other Big East schools admitted that the potential loss of Syracuse and Pitt would have caused them to investigate the possibility of switching leagues.
“We would have been forced to strongly consider a move to the Big 12,” said West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck. “Thank heavens that didn’t happen. Not only will our fans still be able to travel to watch the Mountaineers play, but we think that Geno Smith will be a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate in the Big East in 2012. I’m not sure that’s realistic if we’re facing the likes of Oklahoma and Texas.”
“The Big East helped put UConn on the map and we are excited about its future,” said UConn president Susan Herbst. “But in the last nine months, we won our third national championship in basketball and went to our first BCS bowl game in football, so if the Big East undergoes significant changes, we’ll have no problem finding a new home.”
The key to the league’s long-term stability remains its television contract. After rejecting ESPN’s nine-year, $1.2 billion dollar offer earlier this year, Big East members figure to get a lucrative pay day if they stick together.
“There are strong rumors that Rupert Murdoch and Fox want to start a sports network to compete with ESPN,” said one TV executive who asked not to be named. “I’ve even heard they would be willing to pay $4 million a year to the Catholic schools just for basketball. Imagine the bidding war that’s going to result for a football and basketball package that still includes Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Louisville, UConn, and Cincinnati.”
Of course, the future of the Big East could still be jeopardized if rumors of Big 10 expansion are accurate and Commissioner Jim Delany targets a Big East school.
“Unless Notre Dame decides to give up its independence in football, I can’t see Delany pursuing a Big East school,” said a Big 10 athletic director who did not want his name used. “I mean, we’re certainly not going to go after Rutgers.”
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Grans Looks To Help “The Best Man” Win At Cincinnati
So why would Eddie Gran – one of Florida State’s top assistant coaches and one of the nation’s best recruiters – leave such a storied program to join Tommy Tuberville at Cincinnati?
“He was the best man at my wedding,” said Gran with a grin.
“I knew I had a chance to hire him because nobody knows him as well as I do,” said Tuberville.
The two coaches met in 1989 when Tuberville was a defensive coach at the University of Miami and Gran was a graduate assistant at East Carolina under defensive backs coach Chuck Pagano.
“We were at a coaching convention in San Francisco and Coach Tuberville was getting ready to go ski,” Gran told me. “They had just won the national championship at Miami and Coach Pagano introduced me to him. I met him and shook his hand and he said, ‘Be there on March the 10th.’ That was the beginning.”
“I raised Eddie from a pup,” said Tuberville. “I’ve seen him grow up from a young man that wanted to coach to becoming one of the better ones in the country. I’m proud to be his friend.”
When Tuberville got his first head coaching job at Ole Miss, he hired Gran to be his running backs coach. After four years there, it was on to Auburn where they coached together for another 10 seasons.
“He taught me what work ethic was, he taught me that technique and fundamentals are the things that win games, and you have to get kids that are smart and willing to work hard,” said Gran. “If you get that combination and have a great work ethic you have a chance. And he taught me to make sure that you treat people the way you want to be treated. It’s not that hard.”
Now Tuberville is giving his long-time assistant his first opportunity to be an offensive coordinator.
“To be a coordinator has always been a dream of mine,” said Gran.
“I’ve watched him grow and work at it and it’s hard to become a coordinator when you’re the running backs coach,” Tuberville told me. “I’ve always told him that you have to know more than just the running backs. So over the last six or seven years, he’s really made himself learn the quarterback position, the offensive line position, and all he needed was somebody to give him a chance. I know what he can do. He works hard and works well with players.”
Tuberville’s confidence in Gran’s ability to make the step to coordinator was evident in the makeup of Cincinnati’s offensive coaching staff.
“I let him hire his coaches,” said Tuberville. “I interviewed them too, but I said, ‘You know these guys…you know what you want to do. You pick ‘em out and we’ll sit down and interview as many as we can.’ He did a good job and they’re working well together. This is all new for him, but he’s excited.
“I told him that the number one thing that he had to do was hire a good quarterback coach and you’ve got to lean on him. Darin Hinshaw (former QB coach at Tennessee) is a good guy and he works well with Eddie and I think it’s going to be a good relationship.”
“He allowed me to hire a staff that I think is as good as any in the country,” said Gran. “It’s a great unit that works well together and we’re all on the same page.”
In addition to coordinating Cincinnati’s offense, Gran will continue to recruit in South Florida.
“I’m in my 28th season and I have not had another recruiting area – ever – at any school,” said Gran. “There are high school head coaches in South Florida now that I recruited when they were players.
“The coaches here will all have a Cincinnati area – all nine of us will have 10 schools in this area. Ohio is where we are going first. But everybody will also go out into other areas, and for me, that will be South Florida.”
“I made him stay in South Florida all of his life and he’s developed a lot of relationships,” said Tuberville. “That goes a long way in recruiting. Eddie has the personality where he can sell, and recruiting is nothing but selling yourself, your school, and your football team. He’s earned a lot of respect from high school coaches because when he takes a player, he takes care of them. He makes sure they get an education number one, treats them fair, and those coaches in South Florida understand that. It’s made him one of the best recruiters that I’ve ever been around.”
Gran is also a man of faith whose life was changed when the third of his four daughters was born in 1999.
“She had a rare brain disease and was given between two and four weeks to live, and she lived almost six years,” said Gran. “It made me a better father, it made me a better husband, and it made me a better coach. I really understood where my priorities were. She gave me and my family the greatest gift that a man could ever have: We all know where we’re going when this life ends. We’re very blessed for that.”
“I remember getting that call from him three or four days after she was born,” said Tuberville. “He said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s not responding.’ I tell you, he and his wife Rosemary were two tough troopers – It’s awfully tough to lose a child. All of the players there at Auburn rallied around him and I think the kids learned a lot from it.”
Eddie and his wife started a charity called The Sydney Gran Foundation to support children’s hospitals and other families whose children are facing serious illness.
“We would like to raise somewhere between 60 and 80 thousand dollars because that would get us up to $500,000 dollars and then it would be endowed forever,” said Gran. “Sometime here, I think we’ll have another fundraiser to try to help out the foundation.”
But for now, Gran is busy getting to know his players…and happy to be reunited with his old boss.
“I was away from Coach Tuberville for four years, and to get back together with him is just fantastic,” said Gran.
“He has a lot of enthusiasm and works well with kids,” said Tuberville. “He’s going to make a great head coach. He’ll be a head coach in a few years and I think this is the next step. He’s interviewed for a lot of head coaching jobs, but he’s been turned down because he’s never made his own calls. Well, now he gets that chance. Let’s see what he can do.”
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Gruden Has Suit But Wants Ring
Last year when I asked Jay Gruden why he turned down opportunities to interview for NFL head coaching jobs after the 2011 season, the Bengals offensive coordinator joked that his reason was sartorial.
“I didn’t have a good coat and tie,” Jay deadpanned at the time.
Clearly clothes are no longer an issue since Gruden interviewed for head coaching positions in Philadelphia, Arizona, San Diego, and Jacksonville in January. And while Jay didn’t get any of the jobs, at least he has a new suit.
“I wore it four times – the same one every time,” Gruden said with a laugh. “It was exciting and flattering that these teams would even think to interview me. It says a lot about our offense and how far we’ve come and Coach Lewis and what people around the league think about what he’s done with his program. It was a great opportunity.
“I knew that it was probably a long-shot. I think that I had good interviews and felt good about the process and if I am ever fortunate enough to have another opportunity, I’ll feel a lot more prepared.”
Now that he’s back for a third season as Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator, Gruden is currently working on two things: Studying skill-position players for the upcoming NFL draft, and reviewing tape of the Bengals from last season.
“We’re very involved as coaches in the draft process, but you also have to take the time to look back at what you did offensively and figure out ways to get better,” said Gruden. “You have to see if you had any tendencies over the course of the year that you have to correct, but overall, you’re trying to find out what your players are good at and what you had trouble with and get things fixed that you need to fix. We definitely feel that we have not reached our full potential on offense, and it’s my job as a coordinator to get it out of them.”
With three of the top 53 picks in the draft, the Bengals are obviously in position to boost an offense that ranked 22nd in the NFL in total yards. So what is at the top of Gruden’s wish list?
“We need another playmaker and we need someone who can take the ball 80 yards on a swing pass, or a hand-off, or what have you,” Jay told me. “A little bit of speed. But we’re pretty good everywhere – we need to take our pretty-good players and turn them into great players, and our great players need to be extraordinary. We just have to keep pushing the envelope and making sure that everybody gets better.”
One thing that the Bengals are not looking for is a new starting quarterback. Andy Dalton has started every game in his first two NFL seasons, led the Bengals to back-to-back playoff appearances, and has tossed 47 TD passes in 32 regular season games. But Gruden says that his 25-year-old QB has plenty to work on.
“In the offseason you work on your arm strength, your footwork – basically your fundamentals of football – and obviously he needs to get better with his deep ball accuracy and touch,” Gruden said. “There’s not really one part of his game that he can’t improve upon. Scramble ability, foot quickness, accuracy, deep accuracy, short (accuracy), anticipation – he’s got a long way to go. He’s done some great things for a second-year quarterback, won a lot of games and thrown a lot of touchdown passes, but we feel that he has not come close to his potential and it’s our job to get it out of him.”
Dalton finished his second season with a passer rating of 87.4, but it dropped to 67.0 in his last six games, and Andy struggled in the playoff loss in Houston going 14-for-30 for 127 yards with 0 TD and 1 INT. That led to a surge in the number of people questioning whether Dalton will ever be good enough to lead Cincinnati to a deep playoff run. Gruden says that he isn’t bothered by the criticism of his quarterback.
“It’s the nature of the position and that’s what he signed up to be,” said Gruden. “He’s getting paid a pretty good chunk of change to be a quarterback, and anytime you sign up to be a quarterback, you have to take the good with the bad. One of the biggest strengths that you have to have as a quarterback is being mentally tough. When things don’t get well, people are going to be all over you. They’re going to boo you; they’re going to want you out of town and your coaches out of town. He has to take that criticism and use it as fuel to make himself better. Hopefully he’s doing that. He’s a very competitive person – as I am – and we’re going to do the best that we can to make this franchise something to be proud of.”
After all, a new suit is nice – but it pales in comparison to a Super Bowl ring.
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Who Were Those Guys?
When Sean Kilpatrick watched footage of Sunday’s lopsided loss at Notre Dame, he felt like he was watching the wrong guys in the Cincinnati uniforms.
“It didn’t look like us at all,” Sean told me. “It didn’t even feel right. Honestly, it didn’t even feel like I had a Bearcat jersey on – it just felt like I had a shirt on.”
The Bearcats only scored 41 points – their lowest total in Mick Cronin’s seven years as head coach – and JaQuon Parker was the only Cincinnati player to finish in double digits with 12. Kilpatrick scored a season-low 6 points, and Cashmere Wright failed to score for only the second time in his last 113 games.
“We’ve really played one bad game this year,” said Coach Cronin. “Our three best players average 41 points a game and they got 18. When that happens, you’re going to be in trouble.
“We need to get our main guys healthy and playing well because they’re the answer. I get a lot of questions about production from Cheikh Mbodj, or David Nyarsuk, or this guy or that guy – we have to make sure that we’re getting Cash, JaQuon, and SK open and getting the ball where they can make plays for us. That’s the answer. For every team in basketball – high school, college, or pro – your best players have to play well or you’re not going to win. So that’s my focus. I have to do everything that I can to help them play well.”
Kilpatrick’s scoring ability is especially vital to Cincinnati’s success. Sean is averaging 19.4 points in the Bearcats’ wins this year, but only 13.6 in their losses. The junior guard is fourth in the Big East in scoring at 17.6 per game, despite being the focal point of every opponent’s defensive scouting report.
“It can be frustrating but then again, I like it,” said Kilpatrick. “It’s making me a better player and it means that people respect me for what I do on the court. But it’s tough. It’s one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to overcome because this is the highest level of basketball that I’ve ever played and to have two or three guys guarding you is really difficult.”
Despite the constant defensive harassment, Kilpatrick has managed to deliver. This week, Sean was named one of 30 candidates for the 2013 Naismith College Player of the Year award and ESPN’s Jay Bilas selected Kilpatrick among his six “most clutch players” in college basketball.
(You can watch the Bilas clip here: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:8989382)
“That’s a strong statement coming from someone like him,” Sean told me. “I thank my team for that because they put me in those types of situations where I have the ball at the end of games. I just try to make the right plays and whatever is open is open.”
After dropping five of their last six games, the Bearcats are desperately in need of a win on Saturday vs. UConn to solidify their hold on a NCAA Tournament berth. But Kilpatrick says he is not the least bit concerned with “bubble” talk.
“All we can control is what happens in the next game and that’s what we’re focusing on,” said Kilpatrick. “We’re not worrying about the tournament or anything like that.
“We know exactly what we’re capable of. When things aren’t going right, a lot of people aren’t going to be behind us, but we have each other and that’s the best thing about this team.”
Hopefully, we’ll all recognize the guys in the Cincinnati uniforms on Saturday.
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Night And Day Difference For Frazier
I have urgent breaking news about Reds third baseman Todd Frazier.
Fans at Great American Ball Park will not be hearing the same two Frank Sinatra songs (“Fly Me To The Moon” and “Come Fly With Me”) when he steps to the plate in 2013.
“I’m still going to have ‘Fly Me To The Moon,’ but I’m also going to have another song,” Frazier told me on 700 WLW. “I can’t really tell you what it’s going to be right now, because I’m in the midst of choosing from a couple.”
Are we talking about another Sinatra tune or might Frazier be considering a different legend from his home state of New Jersey like Bruce Springsteen?
“I like him too, but I don’t get as relaxed and as fired up as I do when I listen to Frank,” said Frazier.
You’ve got to love a 27-year-old major league baseball player who gets fired up listening to Francis Albert Sinatra.
The most appropriate Sinatra classic for Frazier to add as a walk-up tune might be ‘Night and Day’ because Todd’s role with the Reds going into this season is as different as night and day from where it was a year ago.
Last season, Frazier led the Reds during spring training in HR (5) and RBI (15) only to get sent to Triple-A Louisville one day before the season opener when the team claimed pitcher Alfredo Simon off of waivers.
“It was tough and I’d be lying to you if I said that it wasn’t,” said Frazier. “Not many people get to experience something like that. I’m just lucky to have family and friends behind me that helped me understand that it was not the end of the world. They said, ‘You’re going to get called up and you’ve got to believe that.’ I certainly did.”
The call-up came in 13 days and Frazier spent the rest of the season in Cincinnati, batting .273 (.331 OBP/.498 SLG) with 19 HR and 67 RBI to finish third in the National League Rookie of the Year vote.
“I was certainly disappointed that we didn’t make it farther in the playoffs, but for me personally, I was happy with my season,” said Frazier. “I thought that I could have done better, but at the same time, for my first season I thought that I did pretty well.”
So well, that he’s not fighting for a job this spring. Even before Scott Rolen retired, the Reds made it clear that Frazier would be their primary third baseman this season.
“I went into spring training last year and put a little pressure on myself because you want to be ‘that guy’ and get up to the big leagues,” Frazier told me. “But for me this year, everything is good. I’m happy and I’m more comfortable understanding that I do have that job. It feels good to even hear that come out of people’s voices. I can’t wait – it’s going to be fun.”
Frazier’s expanded role with the team goes beyond the field as he’s been named the captain of the Reds Heads Kids Club featuring autograph sessions and other members-only experiences for fans that are 14-and-younger.
“I remember when I was young, I sent letters to famous people and tried to get as many autographs as I could and I know how it feels,” said Frazier. “I might have sent out about 15 to 20 letters. I had this book that had everybody’s name and address in it. It was pretty silly to think about it now. I only got one back. I can’t remember all of the people that I sent letters to, but I remember Cal Ripken sending something back.
“I think that giving back to little ballplayers like that is pretty cool. I can’t wait to see them happy and excited and to be the face of the ‘Kid’s Club’ this year is pretty exciting.”
Perhaps he can even get the Reds youngest fans to start listening to Sinatra.
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Getting Cash Back
Before hurting his right knee against DePaul on January 15th, Cashmere Wright was playing as well as any guard in the Big East.
The senior from Savannah, Georgia had scored 20-or-more points in three of his previous four games and for the season was averaging 15.1 points on 47% shooting – including 44% from 3-point range.
Since returning from the injury, Wright has been mired in the worst shooting slump of his career, going 23-for-95 overall (24%) and 12-for-60 (20%) from 3-point range, while averaging 8.0 points in nine games.
In Sunday’s loss at Notre Dame, Wright did not attempt a shot in the first half and finished the game 0-for-2 in 23 minutes.
“He’s lost his confidence,” said Mick Cronin on his weekly radio show on Monday. “If you go five, six, seven games and shoot 20%, you would lose your confidence too.
“It’s a mental thing and I have to do a good job of making sure that his mind is in the right place. Internal pressure that players put on themselves and external pressure that players feel from family, friends, and fans – some let it affect them more than others. He’s a sensitive kid and there’s no doubt that he lost his confidence.”
So how does Cronin plan to help Wright get it back? By reminding Cashmere that he doesn’t have to make every shot to help the Bearcats win.
“I have to do a better job of making sure that his mind is on defense and leadership,” said Cronin. “He’s got to lose himself in the game and give us everything that he can with his steals. He’s not the all-time leading scorer at Cincinnati. Or the all-time assists leader. But he is the all-time steals leader and he can give us that. That’s what he has to focus us because if he doesn’t give us that we’re in trouble.
“My goal is to get him to realize that he did have a great game (after the injury). He was 3-for-14 from the field in that game, but he had a great game. It was the Villanova game. He had 14 deflections and his energy and defense inspired his team to get 46 deflections and beat a NCAA Tournament team by 18 points.”
Over the next month, Wright is almost certain to set Cincinnati’s all-time record for games played. After watching his senior point guard play through knee and shoulder pain for much of his career, Cronin wants to see Cashmere relax and finish strong.
“He’s a conscientious kid who wants to play well,” said Cronin. “He’s unlike me, because I am oblivious to other people’s opinion. If I have one gift, it’s that I have tunnel vision on doing my job. Whether your opinion of me is great or whether your opinion of me is poor, it doesn’t really affect me. Unfortunately, kids can be affected a lot more than you think this day and age. He is a very conscientious kid who is putting a lot of pressure on himself.
“He’s trying as hard as he can to help his team and I just have to make sure that he does two things: Worry about defense and stay aggressive. You can’t worry about making mistakes. I have to get him in an aggressive mindset on both ends of the floor, and whatever mistakes he may make we have to live with. But he has to be on the attack and he has to be aggressive or we’re not going to be a very good team.
“I’d like to get us to where we’re playing well, and helping Cash get his confidence back is probably the number one thing that I have get done as a coach.”
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The Never-Ending Search For The Next Tim Duncan
You probably know the basic details of the Tim Duncan story.
Grows up a competitive swimmer in the Virgin Islands…eventually takes up basketball as a teenager…gets discovered by Wake Forest…becomes one of the greatest players in history.
But here’s a nugget that you might not know: The coach at Wake Forest that found Duncan was current UC assistant Larry Davis.
“We had a kid abruptly leave that was starting at center for us as a freshman,” Davis recalled. “He walked in one day and said that he was homesick and we couldn’t talk him out of it. Going into the spring, we had no guy on our roster that was bigger than 6’8”. So (head coach) Dave Odom called all of the assistants in and told us to turn over every rock because we had to find a center. So I started making calls. I had met a guy by the name of Holman Harley who was working for an agent at that time, and I called him and said, ‘Do you know of any big guys anywhere?’ And he said, ‘Yea, there’s a 6’10” kid in the Virgin Islands.’ He gave me Tim’s name so I tracked him down, got him on the phone, and asked who he was being recruited by and he said, ‘I got some letters from Delaware State and one letter from Providence.’
“About the fourth time that I called Tim on the phone I asked him if he had ever been to the United States. He said, ‘Yes, I have a brother-in-law in Ohio and I went to Ohio State’s basketball camp last summer.’ I said, ‘Is Ohio State recruiting you?’ Tim said, ‘No.’ I got off the phone and immediately called Holman Harley and said, ‘Are you sure this kid can play? He’s 6’10”, he was at Ohio State’s basketball camp and they’re not recruiting him. How can that be?’ Holman said, ‘Larry, I’m telling you – the kid can play.’
“I went in to Coach Odom and told him that I might have found a kid and he said, ‘Where is he at?’ I said, ‘The Virgin Islands.’ It wasn’t hard to talk him into making the trip. So Dave went down to see him and I’ll never forget – he calls me on the phone and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this guy. He’s 6’10”, he can run like a deer, he’s got great hands, and we’re bringing him in.’ Tim ended up visiting Providence and Wake Forest. It was 45 degrees when he visited Providence and 80 degrees when he visited us. That’s when I knew that we were getting him.”
And that’s how Larry Davis helped sign perhaps the greatest under-the-radar recruit in college basketball history.
While the former head coach at Oak Hill Academy (1983-85) and Furman University (1997-2006) hasn’t landed the next Tim Duncan at Cincinnati – at least not yet – his relentless recruiting efforts have been instrumental in helping Mick Cronin rebuild the program.
“I’ve never been around a guy that loves recruiting, evaluating, and working like he does,” said Cronin. “Most guys his age become the resident veteran coach on the bench, but he loves recruiting like a 25-year-old. He can’t get enough of it. He loves it.”
“A lot of colleagues knock recruiting, but I like it,” the 56-year-old Davis told me. “I like meeting people, I like travel, and it’s a challenge. It’s competition and I like competition – what can I say.
“It can drive you nuts because kids make decisions based on some of the craziest things that you could ever imagine, and there are always hidden land mines out there. You have to figure out who is on your side and who is not on your side and sometimes, somebody that you don’t even know is in the background either helping you or killing you. So when you get a kid to commit and sign, it’s a great feeling.”
Cronin became aware of his colleague’s zest for recruiting nearly 20 years ago when Davis was an assistant coach at Ball State.
“We met when I was a high school coach at Woodward and he was trying to outwork people for Eric Johnson,” said Cronin. “He ended up at Louisville, but Eric would tell you to this day that the best job that was done in the recruiting process was by Larry Davis. He loved Larry Davis, but it was hard to turn down Louisville for Ball State.”
Observing Coach Davis’s recruiting persistence made a strong impression on his future boss.
“My dad taught me to be smart enough to listen to older guys and Larry helped to guide me in the business,” said Cronin. “I’ve tried to pattern myself after his effort in recruiting.”
The key word in the last sentence is effort.
“Young assistant coaches in our business need to spend a week with him in July,” said Cronin with a laugh. “When you’re out there in July, he’s watching games from 8 am until midnight. He’s not a guy that will watch a few games, get a workout in, and go out to dinner. He’s in the gym when the first game starts and the last game ends. He’ll tell me who I need to see and I’ll say, ‘Where are you going?’ And he’ll say, ‘Well, I’m going to see a half of this game and a half of that game and then I’m going to go check on this kid.’ If he lays eyes on 10 kids he might find that guy that wasn’t highly-rated – whether it’s a Sean Kilpatrick or a JaQuon Parker.”
While Davis has inked his share of big-name recruits over the years such as 11-year NBA veteran Bobby Jackson when Larry was an assistant at Minnesota, his ability to find lesser-known recruits has been invaluable at Cincinnati.
“What I’ve learned is to be able to rate his tone of voice,” said Cronin. “He call and say, ‘I think I’ve found one,’ and I can tell by the way he says it how good that he thinks the guy is. I can tell by his excitement level that we had better hurry before too many people see the kid.”
“Scouting services and ratings are great, but I’ve always been taught from the first day that I got into this that you should judge with your own eyes,” said Davis. “You try to see what a guy’s potential is down the road. Some of it, quite honestly, is a little bit of luck, but you have to have an eye for it too and know some of the characteristics that you’re looking for. I take pride in trying to do that and I work for a boss who could care less about the ratings. Mick wants to know if the guy can play or not – that’s the most important thing to him.”
“What Larry understands is that good players don’t have to be highly-rated,” said Cronin. “He believes in out-working the opponent. He doesn’t just go to a city and see one practice. He’ll talk somebody into working out at six in the morning, so that he can see another kid practice at three, and another kid play at seven. It’s sheer numbers. In sales, the more people that you get in front of, the more sales that you’re going to have. In recruiting, the more guys that you see means that you’re eventually going to see somebody that can play. That’s how you find Hasheem Thabeet in a back gym when nobody else was recruiting him at the time.”
The 7’3” Thabeet was a late signee in Coach Cronin’s first year at Cincinnati who chose UConn over UC and ultimately became the 2nd overall pick in the NBA draft – unfortunately in recruiting, you don’t always get the guy. But Davis has won his share of battles and landed Troy Caupain and Jamaree Strickland in this year’s early signing period. According to Rivals.com, Caupain is a 3-star recruit while the 6’10” Strickland received 3 stars from 247sports.com.
But before you put too much stock into the scouting services, you should consider the Wake Forest class of 1993.
“When the recruiting rankings came out that year,” said Davis, “we had signed three or four other guys so it listed their names and how many stars they received and ended with, ‘and Tim Duncan.’ No comment, no rating, just ‘and Tim Duncan.’ In the end, he was the number one guy in the country.”
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Searching For A Few More Buckets
It’s become blatantly obvious to me that the Bearcats really miss one of the seniors from last year’s team.
No, not Yancy Gates.
I’m talking about Dion Dixon.
You haven’t thought about him in a while have you?
Oh sure, they miss Yancy too, but Cincinnati’s recent offensive woes have made me appreciate how difficult it has been to replace Dixon’s production.
Dion was UC’s second-leading scorer last year at 13.0 points per game and got to the free throw line a team-high 166 times (Gates ranked 2nd with 106 FTA). Furthermore, Dion was a key barometer in Cincinnati’s wins and losses as Dixon averaged 14.7 points in UC’s 26 victories and only 9.0 points in the ‘Cats 11 losses.
When the Bearcats thrived in a 4-guard “spread” offense last year, it was because all four guards could score. UC does not have a consistent fourth perimeter threat this year.
So what’s the fix?
Obviously, an end to Cashmere Wright’s shooting slump would be a godsend, but Mick Cronin knows his personnel better than anyone and that’s why he keeps talking about defense when his team is struggling on offense.
“Obviously I’m concerned about putting the ball in the basket, but when you play great defense and have high deflection totals, you’re going to create easy baskets in transition and you’re going to score points off of turnovers,” said Cronin.
Let’s face it: Cheikh Mbodj and David Nyarsuk are not suddenly going to morph into dominant low-post scorers and Titus Rubles and Justin Jackson are not magically going to start burying three pointers. But they can block shots and help create turnovers.
Here is a look at Cincinnati’s top five wins (by RPI rating) and how many points the Bearcats scored off of turnovers:
Marquette (#15 RPI) – 19 points
at Pitt (#32 RPI) – 8 points
Oregon (#38 RPI) – 24 points
Iowa St (#51) – 26 points
Villanova (#57) – 21 points
In those five quality wins, the ‘Cats averaged 19.6 points off turnovers. In their seven losses this season, that number drops to 9.1.
“Our steals have to go up and our turnovers have to go down,” said Cronin. “That was something that we were really good at last year – we were one of the best teams in America at getting more shots than our opponent. We have to get back to that.”
That doesn’t mean that Cronin is ignoring the Bearcats struggles on offense. He’s trying to find a way to get a guard-oriented attack as many easy shots as possible.
“You want to get layups, free throws, and wide-open three point shots,” said Cronin. “You don’t want to take contested shots. I would also say that you have to get more shots. We need to get more steals and generate more offense from our defense. That’s the number one thing that we’re capable of and need to do a better job of.”
Cronin also believes that focusing on aggressive defense will lead to stress-free shooting.
“When you have great hustle and intensity for loose balls, rebounds, and steals, it translates into offense,” Mick told me. “You have to get lost in the game with your hustle. I tell the guys that they have to play so hard that they don’t think about missing shots. Basketball is a marathon and you go through hot streaks and cold streaks. Your constants have to be togetherness, hustle, rebounding, and defense. Those are the things that will carry you through a season.
“We can’t try any harder to make shots. When you try too hard – that’s the problem. You have to be aggressive as an offensive player and you can’t worry about missing. No good offensive player in the history of the game would argue that point.”
All seven of Cincinnati’s losses are to teams that are in the RPI Top 100 and four of the losses were by four-or-fewer points. All the Bearcats need are a few more baskets a game…who says they need to come from their half-court offense?
“Here’s our defensive philosophy.” said Cronin. “When they have the ball, we’re trying to get it. Don’t just try to be solid and make them shoot over us – get the ball. If a guy drives anywhere near you, take it from him.”
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Dan Hoard
