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By Bill Koch
Go.BEARCATS.com
CINCINNATI - No questions were required from the media when University of Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin sat down to begin his post-game press conference late Tuesday afternoon.
Cronin knew exactly what he wanted to say and he needed no prompting.
"I'd like to apologize to all of our former players that have to watch our guys play with that type of defensive effort," Cronin said. "It's an embarrassment. It's my fault and I mean that."
No. 22 UC had just lost to Temple, 77-70, in its American Athletic Conference opener before 10,029 fans at Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats (10-4 overall, 0-1 in the league) allowed the Owls (6-5, 1-0) to shoot 50 percent from the floor and make 10 of 22 shots from 3-point range. They struggled to keep Temple off the offensive glass and looked nothing like one of the top 25 teams in the country.
"Temple made some shots," Cronin said. "Give them credit. But our defensive effort is porous, lazy. We had 15 deflections. We have a starter that has played two games in a row without a deflection and our problem is that we're just not a good defensive team right now. We lack a lot of toughness. We don't do anything that's hard."
The UC players were in no position to disagree with their coach's unflattering description of them and agreed that they owed an apology to their predecessors who built the program on defense and rebounding.
"We're not playing with the same aggression or energy that they used to," said junior guard Troy Caupain, who led UC with a season-high 19 points and seven assists. "In the nine years that he's been here, the other players that's been here, they thrived off getting the stops and being the more aggressive team, holding down home court. That's something that we've struggled with the first part of the season. So I understand when he says we do owe them an apology because we're not holding up to the expectation of Cincinnati basketball."
The Bearcats have lost three of their last five games and have dropped three games at home before Jan. 1 after going 33-4 at Fifth Third Arena in the last two years combined.
Cronin changed his starting lineup for the first time this year, inserting freshman Jacob Evans in Shaq Thomas' spot and replacing Octavius Ellis with Coreontae DeBerry at the five position because, he said, Thomas and Ellis had not practiced up to his expectations.
"That really worked well," Cronin said. "Some guys don't even care, I guess."
Ellis responded with 12 points and seven rebounds with one steal.
"I know I've been playing too relaxed lately," he said. "It was just a wakeup call for me to come out and play up to my ability to help the team win, and also to play for my personal self too."
UC led, 14-7, with 14:02 left in the first half after Evans' 3-pointer, but Temple went on a 12-4 run to wipe out that lead. By intermission, the Owls, who were led by Quenton DeCosey's 19 points, had outscored the Bearcats, 32-23, over the final 14 minutes to lead by two at halftime after shooting 57.1 percent, by far the highest shooting percentage for a UC opponent in the first half this season.
Temple went up by five early in the second half before UC retaliated, but every time the Bearcats would take a slim lead, Temple would quickly reclaim it.
The score was tied at 65-65 with 2:57 to play after Caupain made two free throws. Just when it appeared another UC game would be decided in the closing seconds, the Owls scored eight straight points to take a 73-65 lead with 1:15 left. The Bearcats cut the deficit to three with 37 seconds remaining, but Temple closed out the victory by making three of four free throws in the final 25 seconds.
"We had too many players on our team thinking everything's OK because we're ranked," Cronin said. "They think everything's good. I'm averaging double figures. My team's ranked. Everything's OK. How OK is it right now?
"It wasn't OK in my book when you lose two home games. I don't care where the team is ranked. You lose two home games, it shouldn't be OK. In my opinion, we embraced that personality. We embraced that thought process and that's why you see what you see today. When you lose games, everybody kept saying, 'Well you're 10-3 and here's who you lost to.' It's a loss! You lost and you scored enough points to win. You should be embarrassed that you can't get stops to win games. But it doesn't bother us so here we sit."
It's unlikely that UC will be ranked again next week, which Ellis said would probably be a good thing.
"Now we can come back and start playing with a chip on our shoulder again," he said.
Cronin promised that he would continue to do everything he can to find a way to instill more toughness in his players and took full responsibility for his team's recent poor play.
"To those people who say I'm throwing my players under the bus, I'm not," he said. "If we lack toughness or Gary Clark can't get a deflection, it's my fault. Everything's my fault, just for the record. So if we lack toughness it's because I didn't recruit enough toughness or I'm not making guys tough enough. I'm just answering a question as to why our defense struggles and why our rebounding struggles. We lack toughness. It's a fact. Watch us play."
Caupain said that he had never seen Cronin so disappointed in his players during his three years at UC and Cronin readily agreed that he had never had this problem in his 10 years running the program.
"Never," Cronin said. "We've lacked talent while we were rebuilding the program. We've lacked height. We've never lacked toughness. But right now they're a disgrace to every guy who's been in there bleeding to build that program, that's played outmanned, undermanned, in battle royals."
Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBearcats.com in January, 2015. He has written a new book, a memoir titled, "I Can't Believe I Got Paid For This." The book is available online only at CreateSpace and Amazon.com