College
Can NIT lead to NCAA?
By Paul Dehner Jr., CNATI.com Posted March 15, 2010 7:10 PM ET
The NIT is not the tournament Deonta Vaughn hoped to be playing in this week. Tipping it up on Wednesday against Weber Sate is not the where anybody associated with University of Cincinnati basketball program hoped to be.
Far from the bright lights of Milwaukee, Providence, Buffalo and New Orleans, UC will compete against a team most of its players had never heard of before Sunday in a game most of America will forget after Thursday.
Aware of that fact, nobody in Fifth Third Arena pretended to hide disappointment on Monday.
"We lost a tough one, that kind of hurt us deep down inside, for everybody," Vaughn said. "The NIT...it ain't the tournament I wanted, but what can we say?"
For the future of the program, the Bearcats can say plenty over the course of the next three weeks. They can make a statement about the talent on this team. They can make a statement about an ability to win games in March. Most importantly, they can make a statement about why they won't be on the outside looking in 365 days from now.
"I think this group right here, I think the NIT will help us build for where we want to be next year," Ibrahima Thomas said. "This is when our next season is going to start."
Losing only Deonta Vaughn and Steve Toyloy this season, the hope exists a tournament run back to Madison Square Garden could serve as the initial signs that this program is turning the corner back to national relevance.
It's been done before. And quite often.
Last season, Baylor advanced to the NIT finals with a team only losing one of its top five scorers, Curtis Jerrells, to graduation.
The Bears will play Sam Houston State on Thursday as the No. 3 in this year's NCAA tournament.
In 2008, Ohio State played its way to an NIT championship and began the development of some sophomore kid named Evan Turner.
The next season, OSU made the Big Dance, but lost to Siena in the first round.
In 2007, West Virginia won the NIT title. The next season, the young Mountaineers returned all but one starter, including De'Sean Butler. The following March, WVU played its way to the Sweet 16 of the tournament before losing a tight game against Xavier.
In that same NIT final, Clemson fell to WVU and moved on to make its first NCAA tournament appearance under Oliver Purnell the next year with a team that returned four of its five top scorers.
While 99.9 percent of America could care less who wins the NIT, 100 percent of the coaching staff inside the Bearcats locker room knows the result can be critical to this program's progress.
"We haven't done a lot of playing in March," Cronin said. "It was good for us to stay in New York last week as long as we could. It's great for us to stay in this tournament as long as we can."
Perhaps a run could allow the Bearcats to follow the path blazed by the Mountaineers a few short years ago.
A young, physical program which saw limited success since joining the Big East wins the NIT, makes an NCAA tournament run the next season and develops a series of stars like Joe Alexander and Butler. Despite a team limited offensively, it finds a way to win its first Big East tournament in program history behind clutch play from a confident, New York-area leader and winning games by attrition rather than shooting percentage.
The concept doesn't seem far off for Cincinnati. Actually, it feels about a bank shot away.
"We look forward to next year thinking we could be a team that could impose our will on you," Cronin said, in reference to WVU winning so many games in that fashion this season. "Have to look at certain things where you can improve like West Virginia did from last year to this year.
"As teams get older they become more consistent. That is the key. That has been our struggle this year, consistency. At times we have been as good at defensive rebounding as there has been in the nation. Just being able to do it with consistency, get older, more physical, tougher. That's the goal to get us to that point. We got to that point in New York, we need to develop and grow from that in the NIT...We need to set tone for next year with way we play in NIT."
Categories: College, Featured Stories, Men's Basketball, News, University of Cincinnati Bearcats
Tags: Bearcats, Deonta Vaughn, Ibrahima Thomas, Mick Cronin
Comments (3)
"The lone exception to the rule is last year's champion Penn State. The Nittany Lions returned four of its five top scorers this year but spiraled to an 11-20 record. "
Actually, Penn State returned two of its five top scorers.
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Smokey, you are exactly right. Thanks for pointing it out, I misread the stats. It has been corrected.
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I feel like even if they go and lose on Wednesday, and I pray they don't, a lot of this story will still hold true. The consistency and continuity of a program are important. I do think winning the NIT would be awesome could speed up the process, but won't be the deciding factor on whether or not this team does well next year. Development of talent will have a much bigger say, and that falls on Cronin. I'm a big supporter of Cronin and glad they kept him, but he has to get this squad ready to go for next year and I hope this does it.
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