The APR

I've received several e-mails about today's story about UC's APR numbers and the gist of them some of them is who cares about the APR numbers? Bring back Huggins so the Bearcats can start winning again. That kind of thinking misses the point.

With the advent of the APR, it's no longer possible to field a team without concern for academics. One of the most interesting things that compliance director Maggie McKinley said in that story is that Mick Cronin faces a rebuilding job on two fronts - academic and athletic. Obviously, the academic rebuilding had to be the top priority because if it wasn't, the program would have been penalized even further and on-court success would have postponed even further.

As I've said before, I'm not here to defend Cronin. I don't know if he's the man to get the program back to where it was. We'll know in the next few years. In fact, I don't know if it will ever get back to where it was. Cronin did not create this mess. In my opinion, it was created by Bob Huggins, Andy Kennedy and to a lesser extent Nancy Zimpher because of the way she handled Huggins' dismissal. Look at some of the players that were signed in the last few years of Huggins-Kennedy: Souleymane, Muhammad, Whaley, Bright, etc.

Regardless of what you think of Cronin as a coach, he was hired to clean up a very bad situation. I doubt if anyone with any interest in staying at UC for the long haul could turned this program into a 20-game winner within two years while competing in the Big East.