University of Cincinnati Basketball
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Posted By: Bryon Hollman on August 24, 2005 As a big time college basketball fan I find myself both pleased and disturbed by what has happened recently at the school. For those of you that don’t know, the president of the school Nancy Zimpher recently told long time coach Bob Huggins that he had 24-hours to resign or be fired. Huggins is the coach that came in and brought the program back from the dead, took them to one final four and to 14-straight NCAA appearances. He’s put people in the NBA and filled the stands of the Fifth Third arena. To put it short Huggins is a virtual God in Cincinnati, much the way that John Thompson is at Duke, Dean Smith is at Carolina, and Coach K is at Duke. The problem is that since Huggins has been the coach his teams have been notorious with its behavior. The players have gotten into trouble off the court more times than you can count. The graduation rate at one time was zero. (the NCAA counts the rate dependant upon how many people finish school within a six year period). It had gotten so bad that the school told the coach that he could no longer recruit junior college players (since they seemed to be the majority of people getting in trouble with everything from rape and assault, gun possession and public drunkenness.) Zimpher is one of those academic chicks, one of those Ivy Leaguer’s that believe that Cincinnati should be known as a upper tier institution as opposed to the city school down the block. Since she took over she’s trying to raise the academic standard of the school. The only problem is that the most visible part of the school is its basketball team. She doesn’t want the program, which is led by a coach that just last year was convicted of DUI and whose assistant coach lost his job for the same thing, continuing on this current path. She first tried to get Huggins to leave by not offering him a contract extension making him a lame duck coach. It makes it almost impossible to recruit when your coach isn’t guaranteed to stay. Huggins called her bluff and said that he was going to stay anyway. Now Zimpher has just told him to get out. I am torn about this. I’ve always liked Cincinnati basketball from way back in the days of Nick Van Excel and Corey Blunt. I’ve never really been a big fan of Bob Huggins though. I admire the president for taking a stand and not being bullied by the high profile coach that everyone in the city adores. Then again it this right? They brought him there to win basketball game and he has done just that. Only a hand full of teams can say that they’ve been to 14-straight NCAA tournaments. Duke can’t say that. Neither can UNC. If not for the basketball team most people wouldn’t even know that the University of Cincinnati even exists. He won 21 games last year and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. He’s won almost 400 games at the school and now they are pushing him out with the greatest of ease. He isn’t losing, he playing in front of empty stadiums. He’s brought in the players that met the schools academic entrance requirements. He can’t help it if they don’t choose to do the world. If the school is so worried about the people that he is bringing in maybe they should do more checking on them. I don’t know how I really feel about this one. If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Bryon Hollman
From Stone Mountain, GA Hampton University class of 1996 Member Since January 2001 |
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