By Bill Koch
I’ve covered UC in the NIT four times, twice under Bob Huggins during his first two years at UC, once under interim head coach Andy Kennedy, and once under Mick Cronin.
Of those four games, it’s the 2006 game against South Carolina that stands out. The Bearcats were 19-12, were ranked No. 40 in the RPI, had four wins over Top 50 RPI teams and had gone 8-8 in the Big East. But that wasn’t good enough for the NCAA selection committee. Their streak of 14 straight NCAA Tournament appearances came to an end.
UC beat Charlotte in the first roundof the NIT, then knocked off Minnesota. That set up a March 23 quarterfinal match at Fifth Third Arena against South Carolina, with the winner advancing to New York's Madison Square Garden for the semifinals.
On the day of the game, Kennedy learned that starters James White and Jihad Muhammad had been declared academically ineligible. Rumors were also flying that Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone was in town to interview Kennedy for the Rebels’ head coaching job.
The Bearcats lost to the Gamecocks, 65-62, setting off a dizzying sequence of events that ended with Kennedy as the head coach at Ole Miss and Cronin as UC’s new head coach.
As I walked into the media room for the post-game interviews, Mike Waddell, UC’s associate AD, handed me a 796-word press release announcing the hiring of Cronin, whom, I was told, would not be available until the next day. I later learned that Kennedy had interviewed with Boone earlier that day, and although Kennedy told me he had not officially been hired, he was pretty sure before he walked onto the floor for the South Carolina game that he would be.
When it became apparent late in the game that UC was going to lose, and that Kennedy would not be the UC coach moving forward, fans began to chant, “Thank you, Andy!"
There was no official word about Kennedy and Ole Miss during his post-game comments. After it did become official, I called him on the phone. He told me that it had all worked out for the best.
“I just feel it’s in everybody’s interest to close the chapter and move forward,” Kennedy said, “because I’m a direct link to Coach Huggins and that’s not going to change. I have never distanced myself from Coach Huggins. I think the true testaments of a man are loyalty and honest. I’ve tried to do both.”
While I was in the media room conducting interviews and trying to write three stories on deadline, I was unaware that UC officials, at Thomas’ direction, had pulled the plug on Kennedy’s last post-game radio show. The prevailing theory was that UC officials were afraid Kennedy would say something critical about UC in general or Thomas in particular, but the real reason was that Thomas was worried Kennedy would announce his new job before UC had a chance to make the Cronin announcement. Then it might have appeared that Ole Miss had swooped in and stolen Kennedy away from UC when in fact Thomas had already made the decision to hire Cronin.
The situation couldn’t have been handled more poorly. It made what was already going to be a rough transition for Cronin even more difficult.
I’ve covered UC in the NIT four times, twice under Bob Huggins during his first two years at UC, once under interim head coach Andy Kennedy, and once under Mick Cronin.
Of those four games, it’s the 2006 game against South Carolina that stands out. The Bearcats were 19-12, were ranked No. 40 in the RPI, had four wins over Top 50 RPI teams and had gone 8-8 in the Big East. But that wasn’t good enough for the NCAA selection committee. Their streak of 14 straight NCAA Tournament appearances came to an end.
UC beat Charlotte in the first roundof the NIT, then knocked off Minnesota. That set up a March 23 quarterfinal match at Fifth Third Arena against South Carolina, with the winner advancing to New York's Madison Square Garden for the semifinals.
On the day of the game, Kennedy learned that starters James White and Jihad Muhammad had been declared academically ineligible. Rumors were also flying that Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone was in town to interview Kennedy for the Rebels’ head coaching job.
The Bearcats lost to the Gamecocks, 65-62, setting off a dizzying sequence of events that ended with Kennedy as the head coach at Ole Miss and Cronin as UC’s new head coach.
As I walked into the media room for the post-game interviews, Mike Waddell, UC’s associate AD, handed me a 796-word press release announcing the hiring of Cronin, whom, I was told, would not be available until the next day. I later learned that Kennedy had interviewed with Boone earlier that day, and although Kennedy told me he had not officially been hired, he was pretty sure before he walked onto the floor for the South Carolina game that he would be.
When it became apparent late in the game that UC was going to lose, and that Kennedy would not be the UC coach moving forward, fans began to chant, “Thank you, Andy!"
There was no official word about Kennedy and Ole Miss during his post-game comments. After it did become official, I called him on the phone. He told me that it had all worked out for the best.
“I just feel it’s in everybody’s interest to close the chapter and move forward,” Kennedy said, “because I’m a direct link to Coach Huggins and that’s not going to change. I have never distanced myself from Coach Huggins. I think the true testaments of a man are loyalty and honest. I’ve tried to do both.”
While I was in the media room conducting interviews and trying to write three stories on deadline, I was unaware that UC officials, at Thomas’ direction, had pulled the plug on Kennedy’s last post-game radio show. The prevailing theory was that UC officials were afraid Kennedy would say something critical about UC in general or Thomas in particular, but the real reason was that Thomas was worried Kennedy would announce his new job before UC had a chance to make the Cronin announcement. Then it might have appeared that Ole Miss had swooped in and stolen Kennedy away from UC when in fact Thomas had already made the decision to hire Cronin.
The situation couldn’t have been handled more poorly. It made what was already going to be a rough transition for Cronin even more difficult.
Comments
Post a Comment