By Bill Koch
When Wes Miller was hired to replace John Brannen as UC’s head basketball coach on April 14, former UC coach Mick Cronin immediately reached out to him only to find that Miller had already been trying to track down his number.
“Since then, we’ve talked multiple times,” Cronin said. “Anything I can do to help him, any questions he has about recruiting advantages, disadvantages, academics, housing, if I can save him a year or two of learning on the job by giving him any information on the things I can help him with, I’m more than happy to do it.”
Cronin, fresh off a run to the Final Four in his second season at UCLA, is loving life in Southern California. But when he looked east to see the turmoil at his alma mater because of the messy firing of Brannen, the man who succeeded him in the spring of 2019, it pained him.
Some of the players he recruited at UC, most notably Tre Scott, Jarron Cumberland, and Keith Williams, stayed behind when Cronin moved to the West Coast, so it was only natural for him to hope that things worked out for them under Brannen.
Besides the affection he felt for his former players, Cronin is a Cincinnati native who grew up as a UC fan, graduated from UC, and started his college coaching career there under Bob Huggins. So even when he was busy working to restore the luster to one of the most storied programs in college basketball history, he was keeping an eye on what was happening in his hometown.
“I grew up a Bearcat, I went to school as a Bearcat, and I was fortunate enough to be the head coach of the Bearcats for 13 years,” Cronin said. “I want nothing but the best for them. I put a large portion of my life into Cincinnati basketball, so I’m Wes’s biggest fan right now.”
As bad as things got at UC after this past season, when six players entered the transfer portal, the situation wasn’t close to what Cronin inherited when he took over in 2006, with only two scholarship players and a fan base still angry over the firing of Huggins. He faced the difficult proposition of rebuilding the program almost from scratch while trying to compete in the Big East Conference, one of the toughest leagues in the country.
By his fifth season, the Bearcats were back in the NCAA Tournament in 2011 after a five-year absence. That was the first of nine straight NCAA appearances that ended n 2020-21 when UC finished 12-11. There was no NCAA Tournament in 2020 due to Covid.
Unable to negotiate a contract extension during Mike Bohn’s final year as UC’s athletic director, Cronin left when UCLA offered him a job he couldn’t afford to turn down. After his departure, he put in a plug for Darren Savino, his top assistant at UC and now at UCLA, to get the job, but Bohn hired Brannen instead.
After Brannen was fired, Cronin tried again to help Savino get the UC job, but current AD John Cunningham decided to go with Miller instead.
“Obviously, I was partial to Darren,” Cronin said, “but I’m a Bearcat and if Darren wasn’t the guy they were interested in, Darren and I both understood. I just want the program to get back on track.”
When Wes Miller was hired to replace John Brannen as UC’s head basketball coach on April 14, former UC coach Mick Cronin immediately reached out to him only to find that Miller had already been trying to track down his number.
“Since then, we’ve talked multiple times,” Cronin said. “Anything I can do to help him, any questions he has about recruiting advantages, disadvantages, academics, housing, if I can save him a year or two of learning on the job by giving him any information on the things I can help him with, I’m more than happy to do it.”
Cronin, fresh off a run to the Final Four in his second season at UCLA, is loving life in Southern California. But when he looked east to see the turmoil at his alma mater because of the messy firing of Brannen, the man who succeeded him in the spring of 2019, it pained him.
Some of the players he recruited at UC, most notably Tre Scott, Jarron Cumberland, and Keith Williams, stayed behind when Cronin moved to the West Coast, so it was only natural for him to hope that things worked out for them under Brannen.
Besides the affection he felt for his former players, Cronin is a Cincinnati native who grew up as a UC fan, graduated from UC, and started his college coaching career there under Bob Huggins. So even when he was busy working to restore the luster to one of the most storied programs in college basketball history, he was keeping an eye on what was happening in his hometown.
“I grew up a Bearcat, I went to school as a Bearcat, and I was fortunate enough to be the head coach of the Bearcats for 13 years,” Cronin said. “I want nothing but the best for them. I put a large portion of my life into Cincinnati basketball, so I’m Wes’s biggest fan right now.”
As bad as things got at UC after this past season, when six players entered the transfer portal, the situation wasn’t close to what Cronin inherited when he took over in 2006, with only two scholarship players and a fan base still angry over the firing of Huggins. He faced the difficult proposition of rebuilding the program almost from scratch while trying to compete in the Big East Conference, one of the toughest leagues in the country.
By his fifth season, the Bearcats were back in the NCAA Tournament in 2011 after a five-year absence. That was the first of nine straight NCAA appearances that ended n 2020-21 when UC finished 12-11. There was no NCAA Tournament in 2020 due to Covid.
Unable to negotiate a contract extension during Mike Bohn’s final year as UC’s athletic director, Cronin left when UCLA offered him a job he couldn’t afford to turn down. After his departure, he put in a plug for Darren Savino, his top assistant at UC and now at UCLA, to get the job, but Bohn hired Brannen instead.
After Brannen was fired, Cronin tried again to help Savino get the UC job, but current AD John Cunningham decided to go with Miller instead.
“Obviously, I was partial to Darren,” Cronin said, “but I’m a Bearcat and if Darren wasn’t the guy they were interested in, Darren and I both understood. I just want the program to get back on track.”
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