Sabel's Haus

If UC doesn't make the 64-team NCAA Tournament come March, it can look back at the past two games and see why it was left out.

All I've heard since last night's 52-50 loss against St. John's at Madison Square Garden is how terrible of a coach Mick Cronin is. Newsflash: Mick Cronin wasn't the reason his team missed all 12 of its 3-point shots.

Cronin didn't turn the ball over 21 times that led to 25 points for St. John's.

Cronin didn't tell Deonta Vaughn to go out and shoot 1-7 from the field including 0-4 from beyond the arc.

Cronin didn't tell Lance Stephenson to heave the ball to half-court and have it stolen with five seconds left while UC had the lead. Yes, you read that right. They had the lead and the ball with five seconds left and Stephenson chucked the ball to mid-court on the inbound play.

You see what I'm driving at. But Mick isn't getting out of it that easy.

I don't like the way he coaches. He can't get this team ready to play. A lot of the time these players are playing hard against ranked teams but act deflated anytime they play someone unranked. It's unreal.

You'll never hear Mick give credit where credit is due. If someone does something great, Cronin will never praise them. If they do something wrong, they might as well start walking to the bench because it's a certainty that Mick will pull them from the game.

I feel like Cronin tries to be like Bob Huggins but it doesn't work for him. Huggs' players respected him because he made them respect him and he earned it. Cronin's players don't seem like they even want to listen to him and why should they. All he does is jump their case at the smallest mistakes.

This team goes as Stephenson and Vaughn go. Yancy Gates is good and played well last night (6-9 for 12 points in 22 minutes) but it has been proven he can't carry this team ... not this year at least. Deonta and Lance were a combined 4-16 last night for 11 points between them both. They were a combined 0-6 from long-range too.

If you can't tell, that's not going to get it done. As far as I can tell, this team doesn't have the talent to overcome Mick Cronin.

The Cats are 11-6 now and 2-3 in the Big East. They play Notre Dame at home on Saturday.