2003 mick cronin leaves his home city and his alma matta to coach with rick at da ville.( a moved that really hurt bob and uc fans)
2005 bob huggins was arrested for a dui,later that year agreed to a buy out.
2006. andy kennedy steps in as coach. takes over a team that has a great starting 5, but has a very thin bench do to all but one of the 2005 recruits backing out. that one player was devon downey. andy takes this team to the nit but the whole country knows we got the shaft.
end of bball season 2006. just one day after uc lost there semi final game in the nit, a press confrence is announced and mick is named head coach. with andy going home to old miss. devon downey holds a press confrence to put an end to rumors that he wants to transfer. one week later its announced that downey will transfer home to south carolina.
mick is left with nothing. the 06 bearcats were seniors, the point guard transfer's out, no recruits from the year before. the only returning player is a walk on who is also the starting tight end for the football team.
i really thought we were going to boycott the 07 season, but mick came in and got to work. he put a team together in a matter of 2 months, not the greatest players,but it was a team. cincy would win 2 games in confrence play that year.
micks second year. in micks 2nd year he brings in a very nice class, high lighted by two 4 star recruits biggie mcclane and alvin mitchell with this class and some great perfomances by d. vaughn, mick goes from 2 wins to 8 in one year. instead of looking at all the positives,mick is still bashed because his last nams isen't huggins.
i do have a point to all this. it's that mick is a good coach. 2 wins to 8 is no fluke. the man knows what he is doing,and if you cant see it, then you are crazy. i give mick a b+ after his first 2 years.
also all the key players in this got to go home. andy to old miss, downey to south carolina, huggins to wvu. and mick came back to cincy. welcome home mick.
