To get to the point where Cincinnati Bearcats are right now it takes hard work and dedication (Floyd Mayweather’s motto). The Bearcats have made the NCAA Tournament nine times in a row, one of six programs who have done so (Gonzaga, UNC, Duke, Kansas and Michigan State are the others). You would think all is well in #BearcatNation with that feat, but without sustained tournament success it raised the question can Mick Cronin get the Bearcats over the hump? To get to the present you have to revisit the past.
Rewind back to August 25, 2005 the great Bob Huggins had to step down (fired) as head coach. Nancy Zimpher was the president of the school and she forced the icon out of the school. Zimpher got what she wanted and the fans were pissed, I remember walking down Jefferson Street to see Zimpher stuck in five o’clock traffic to tunes of beeping horns and people cussing out the president. That day I thought what is the program going to do to keep its prestige? Andy Kennedy got an interim year in the 2005-06, during Kennedy’s year the Bearcats went 18-13 (first year in the Big East) with a team that had a promising freshman guard named Devan Downey. They didn’t keep Kennedy because it didn’t fully remove the Huggins era and Downey transferred to South Carolina and was a monster down there. He is probably most known for single-handedly beating a Kentucky team that had John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson and Eric Bledsoe.
