The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies have been trouble for Cincy coach
Cincinnati coach has been burned often by UConn
CINCINNATI >> Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin is a nice enough guy who runs a fine program. The Bearcats are one of eight schools to reach the NCAA tournament in each of the past six seasons, and will most certainly make it seven straight this season.
Cincy has also built a nice little rivalry with UConn in recent years. Entering Saturday’s showdown at Fifth Third Arena (4 p.m., ESPN2), the teams have split their last 16 meetings, and they’ve almost always been close. The last 12 times the Huskies and Bearcats have met, the games have been decided by six or fewer points, or in overtime, 11 times. And, you guessed it, they’re each 6-6 over that span.
And yet it’s hard to imagine one coach has been burned by a program more often over the past decade than Cronin has by UConn.
It started with Jim Calhoun swiping Kemba Walker out from under Cronin’s nose 10 years ago. Since then, the Huskies have knocked the Bearcats out of their conference tournament three times and out of the NCAA tournament once. Cronin has been a victim of unfair needling by Calhoun, incredible comebacks, perceived snubs, even a 75-foot miracle shot, among numerous other indignities.
It’s uncanny, really. And even though UConn (10-11, 5-4 AAC) is in the midst of its worst season in years and Cincinnati (20-2, 9-0) is ranked 14th in the nation, you get the feeling that somehow, someway, the Huskies will mess things up for the Bearcats before it’s all said and done. Just like they’ve done so many times over the past decade. A timeline: • June, 2007: Kemba Walker commits to UConn. When Cronin took over the reins at Cincinnati in March, 2006, he went in strong after Walker, and the two built up a
strong relationship.
“He did a great job recruiting me,” Walker said a few years later. “He had a great relationship with my parents.”
Alas, after Brandon Jennings elected not to go to UConn, Calhoun decided to go full bore on Walker, who still harbored UConn as his “dream school.” Two Final Fours, one national championship and a pair of broken Gary McGhee ankles later, the Huskies made out just fine.
• Jan. 23, 2008: UConn trailed Cincinnati by 12 with just 5:52 left to play. Calhoun had incurred a costly technical, and it appeared the Huskies were headed towards a 3-4 start in Big East play.
However, buoyed by some big shots from Jerome Dyson (who would be suspended from the team two days later), UConn made a furious comeback and left Fifth Third Arena with an improbable, 84-83 victory.
• March 11, 2011: Walker makes the all-Big East First Team, but isn’t a unanimous selection. Only Notre Dame’s Ben Hansbrough is unanimously picked by the Big East coaches, and he wins player of the year honors.
Calhoun thinks he knows the one coach who didn’t vote for Kemba. You guessed it: Cronin.
Seems Cronin had mentioned to the Cincinnati Enquirer a couple of weeks earlier how he nearly had Walker until Calhoun swooped in. Calhoun took that to mean Cronin was insanely jealous and still bitter at either Calhoun, Walker, or both, and didn’t vote for him.
“My advice is, ‘Get over it,’” Calhoun said, without ever naming Cronin. “And don’t penalize the kid for the season he had. In the final analysis, in Kemba’s life ... he’ll probably have a longer career than that coach who didn’t vote for him.”
Of course, Calhoun was purely speculating, and Cronin was peeved at Calhoun’s insinuation.
“It’s not me (who didn’t vote for him), I can tell you that,” Cronin insisted. “If (Calhoun) wants to know who I voted for, he needs to ask me.”
• March 18, 2011: Calhoun calls Cronin up and apologizes for his not-sosubtle jabs.
The next day, UConn goes out and ends the Bearcats’ season, 69-58, in an NCAA tournament second-round game in Washington, D.C.
The Huskies go on to win their third national championship.
• March 1, 2014: Referee Ted Valentine gets up in Cronin’s grill after Cronin protested an out-of-bounds call at the XL Center. Valentine was out of line, as he’d later admit, and after the game, Cronin complained that he gets disrespected, and that refs wouldn’t get in Jim Boeheim’s or Coach K’s face.
UConn wins the game, 51-45.
• March 12, 2014: More conference player of the year controversy. Shabazz Napier earns the AAC award over Cincy’s Sean Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick’s not pleased, and neither is Cronin. After accepting the league coach of the year award, Cronin calls Kilpatrick “my player of the year” and never even mentions Napier. Upon leaving the ceremony, Cronin is overheard by reporters saying “Heroes are made in March, boys. This is all (expletive).”
• March 14, 2014: Cronin, Kilpatrick and the Bearcats get their chance to avenge the player of the year “snub,” facing UConn in the league’s tournament semifinals. As always, it comes down to the final seconds. With 12 seconds left, Napier hits a free throw to put the Huskies up two, but uncharacteristically missed his second. Cincy came down and, of course, got the ball to Kilpatrick. He drove the lane, went up for the layup with a few ticks left on the clock and ... the ball rimmed in and out, fell to the floor, and UConn had the 58-56 victory.
The Huskies would go on to win their fourth national championship.
• March 13, 2015: Unlike Kemba and Shabazz, Ryan Boatright had never had that defining, buzzer-beating clutch shot on his resume. Until this AAC tournament second-round bout with the Bearcats.
Boatright’s 3-pointer from the right wing rattled around the rim and sank through the net with 0.2 seconds remaining, giving the Huskies a 57-54 victory. (It should be pointed out: Cronin was not on the sidelines for this game. He missed most of the season while recovering from a medical scare that surely wasn’t helped if he watched the game on TV.)
• March 11, 2016: Kevin Johnson buries a 3-pointer with 0.8 seconds left in the third overtime, and Cincy appears to have a victory in an AAC tourney quarterfinal bout that could send UConn to the NIT.
But Jalen Adams collects the ensuing inbounds pass, takes a step and launches a 75-foot prayer. Somehow, it banks in, and the game heads to a fourth OT.
There, UConn pulls away for a 104-97 victory. Cronin afterwards: “I felt we won the game and the game was taken away from us. In 0.8 seconds, you can’t catch the ball, take two steps and then shoot it … The clock didn’t start nearly on time.”
The win jump-starts UConn to its first AAC tourney title.
• Oct. 24, 2016: At AAC Media Day in Philadelphia, Cronin is in good humor, showing no signs of bitterness, but still a bit befuddled by the 75-footer.
“The only thing that sticks with me is — my daughter’s in fourth grade now, so ... I do a lot of math homework — I still can’t understand how some people can’t count to 0.8,” he said. “It takes some people 2½ seconds to count to 0.8.”
Still, he promised he was over Adams’ shot.
“The NCAA tournament’s much harder, because that ends your season. You coach long enough, things happen. And they tend to even out, too, if you can stay around long enough in this business.”
Except it never seems to even out with Cronin and the Huskies.