tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7038796146239392494.post8969613011315045124..comments2024-03-27T03:12:36.821-04:00Comments on Ballin' is a Habit: Cincinnati and their mediocre schedulingTroy Machirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566402816544978732noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7038796146239392494.post-75592918620897515232011-06-28T22:07:04.129-04:002011-06-28T22:07:04.129-04:00Hearing "It is difficult to get into preseaso...Hearing "It is difficult to get into preseason tournaments from the Big East..." is a shock to me. Most of the invitationals look for power conference teams, and Cincinnati aside, I have never heard another Big East team cite "availability" as a problem. Given the number of exotic location tournaments and Campus/Neutral Site events listed at the <a href="http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/pages/2011-early-season-events" rel="nofollow">Blogging the Brackets' Early Season Events page</a>, that reason seems even less credible. The Puerto Rico Tip-Off is supposed to be hosted by the Big East Conference, yet this season the conference has no "host" team in the field. Among the teams in the Tip-Off field, Alabama, Maryland and Purdue, along with non-BCS schools Wichita State and Temple -- a very credible field. Instead Cincinnati is hosting an event named "Global Sports Classic" for a field that includes Alabama State, Jacksonville State, Marshall and Northwestern State.greyCathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08205379240405158462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7038796146239392494.post-29827938737517156642011-06-28T20:48:00.486-04:002011-06-28T20:48:00.486-04:00As a UC fan, there are multiple things in play her...As a UC fan, there are multiple things in play here:<br /><br />1.) As you mentioned, it is very difficult to get into preseason tournaments from the Big East. You already laid that out well, but those are one of the best ways to strengthen your NCSOS and unfortunately UC didn't have that opportunity last year and won't again this year. <br /><br />2.) This is probably the most hindering aspect: The way the administration handled the departure of Bob Huggins absolutely destroyed the foundation of the basketball program. Not only did we lose a lot of fans for good, we had no players left and a terrible team for a couple of years. This destroyed our reputation on a national level as well as killing the program's finances. <br /><br />The lack of reputation of the program makes it very difficult to schedule marquee games for national television. Last year UC was originally scheduled to play Duke in the Medowlands but when Lance Stephenson went pro, ESPN opted to change the game to a rematch of the previous year's title game between Butler and Duke. ESPN then gave us Oklahoma instead. Not nearly the same.<br /><br />The lack of finances makes impossible to schedule buy games against decent teams. Instead, we are paying absolutely terrible teams to play us in Cincinnati because that is all we can afford. And we actually have scheduled 2 for 1s against teams like Wright St, Miami and Toledo to save money, which should show just how desperate the athletic department is. <br /><br />Hopefully now that the program is finally back on solid ground, they can increase their revenue which will allow the program to increase its budget and up its national profile. <br /><br />But even with the poor NCSOS, UC's overall SOS was 58 and their KenPom rating was 23. The idea that they could have ever been in danger of missing the tournament is a huge if and quite frankly laughable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com