Another step on the road back

There was a time, of course, when making the conference tournament was no big deal for UC. The question for the Bearcats was whether they would get the No. 1 seed. But given the condition this program was in last year when Mick Cronin took over, having clinched one of the 12 spots in the tournament with three regular-season games to go is a noteworthy achievement. Winning a game or two in the tournament would be even more of an accomplishment.

"Making the Big East Tournament was definitely a goal of ours this year," Cronin said. "It wasn’t something that I was concerned with until Mike Williams got hurt. When Mike got hurt obviously it became a concern because he was going to be our most experienced player. I thought he was going to change our team, giving us a veteran go-to guy, a guy you could count on on both ends of the floor."

Next year, of course, all 16 Big East teams will qualify for the tournament. And Cronin thinks that's a good idea.

"As coaches we'd like to have all 16 get in," Cronin said. "It's unfair to the players of the four teams that don’t make it. It's not like they haven’t tried all year. It takes that experience away from 52 kids and that’s’ really what it's all about. Even at the highest level, the majority of these kids don’t go on to play professional ball so you'd like to make sure that those kids have that experience."