March 12, 2026 • 24 mins
After yesterday's Bearcats collapse in Kansas City, what's next for Wes Miller and UC?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Bengals like ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports State.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right there you go. Four minutes after five o'clock, miss
is ESPN fifteen thirty Moeger, thank you so much for listening.
Beangals have signed a defensive tackle, Jonathan Allen, former pro bowler.
By the way, Terren's are Minnesota Vikings guy, so I
need him to tell us what Jonathan Allen did for
the Vikings last season and maybe more specifically, why they
cut him that little bit later on, plus you'll hear
(00:25):
from Brian Cook, You'll hear from Boye Mafe as well,
and we'll chat with our bracketologist Hunter Sansom in just
about thirty minutes. Miami lost today. By the way, Auburn
is winning by ten midway through the second half, taking
on Tennessee today. Kentucky a winner earlier today in the
SEC Tournament. Wildcats in Florida tomorrow one o'clock tip off
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Ohio State beat Iowa. Xavier plays
(00:48):
yukon tonight. The Bearcats are not playing today because of
a meltdown yesterday that I think felt oddly fitting when
you see dug a hole early in the season. They
lost a lot of games that were there for the
taking that they maybe should have won, or at least
could have won. When you're up eight with two minutes
to go, there's no could have about it. They should
(01:09):
have won that game. So they should be playing today.
And I don't know if you've been still paying attention
to what's happening in the Big twelve tournament. Arizona was
off to a very quick start against UCF leads by thirteen.
Who knows what the outcome would have been, But yesterday
was rough, Yesterday was sobering. Yesterday was not good for
(01:30):
west Miller. Chad Brendle is here bearcatjournal dot com. Hey doing, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How many timeouts do I have for this segment? Just checking?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Will you use them? Will you use them if something
sort of goes awry and you, you know, maybe you're
in danger of doing something that you shouldn't, Will you
actually use them?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Time out? Time out? What you call it on time?
If I wait until two seconds left in the segment,
you call it on time. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I watched. I watched as soon as the game ended,
pretty much our show ended, and I watched you and
Keegan on the aftermath after the game, and your takeaway
from the game itself was the same as mine. It
was almost poetic for their bubble hopes, their NCAA tournament hopes,
to go up in flames with a loss that felt
like an extreme version of so many earlier this season.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, when the pressure ratcheted up, they reverted back to form,
and it wasn't the form that had them, you know,
six and two or whatever in their final eight. It
was what we saw. They had five games this year,
mough with a double digit lead that they lost that's
(02:49):
hard to fathom, and up eight with two minutes left,
Like the number of damning stats that came out of
that game where it's hard to even fathom as I
was going through them. They got one shot on the
(03:09):
rim in the last two minutes of that game, and
it was the day Day Thomas three. With eight tenths
of the second left, they didn't get a shot attempt
in the final two minutes of the game, and then
they did it and again in overtime where they got
two shot attempts in the final minute forty five. One
of them was the bad Bobby Miller shot and then
(03:31):
the other was the Myths three from Celestine it's hard
to even comprehend. I mean, Mick Cronin might have like
cried himself to sleep with joy seeing that a team
won shooting thirty three percent from the floor, twelve percent
(03:52):
from three, and fifty five percent from the free throw line.
Like that is the Mick Cronin won seventy percent of
his games with that stat line. I'm making that up.
Time out timeout, I.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Made that up, and use your timeout.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yes, I made that up. I'm sorry, I made that up.
But how do you let a team win that flashes
thirty three twelve fifty five. That's embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They're down, they're up six after a turnover that cuts
it to six, and they get a ten second violation
with experienced guards and no real full court pressure and
timeouts in the coach's back pocket.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
How a sleep at the wheel? I don't know. And
my problem wasn't even that. Okay, the ten second call,
as bad as it may be, you know the funny
part about that, mo Not only was there a ten
second call, but the pass that Gisel James threw to
(05:00):
to try to avoid the ten second call was also intercepted,
So even if they had got it over the top
time air up for a minute and a half left.
You set your defense, you get your team to calm down,
you're not worried about who. You see F subbing God
(05:22):
forbid and you and you get your team on the
sidelines and say, hey, we're up four, we got this,
get a stop, get the rebound, We're gonna win this game.
And he just let him play through it. And what happens.
You see F gets an easy basket and then Dade
Thomas turns it over and still no timeouts called. He
(05:45):
had three. This wasn't a situation where he had one,
and he was trying to strategically like, I don't want
to use my last time out. He had three timeouts.
Is there a closet his contract where you get a
bonus for every time out you eat at the end
of the season.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I don't know. We're going to talk about Wes's contract
here in just a second. I think the one other
thing from the game that a lot of people have
gone back to talk about is Keishan Tillery was really
good in the first half and didn't play nearly as
much in the second half and wasn't on the floor
during the meltdown. How fair is that? Bit of second guessing.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Fair. I said it in the middle of the game.
I said it the second half. Keishan Tillery was your
second best player today behind Mustafa Cham He was playing excellent.
I get it. You want was there they did? They
put something in the rules that you couldn't play with
three guards, but you only were allowed to have two
(06:45):
point guards out there. You didn't have a third one
just in case, you know, was he afraid of subbing again?
Was there another issue with being afraid of using substitutions?
I just I'm perplexed at the way the entire thing
went down, and none of it made any sense. None
(07:07):
of it made any sense.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Before the season started, you joined me in studio and
we talked about expectations for this team, and look, it
was tournament or bust, right, make the tournament, Wes is cool.
Missed the tournament, Wes is out. And your retort to
that was I didn't say that, No, that was me.
And your retort to that was, I need to see
(07:30):
how it looks. I need to see how it looks,
which I think is fair because context does matter. So
they've they've played an entire season. How did it look.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I don't know. How you sell it to the fan
base that he's coming back. I understand the money aspect
of it. We've talked about the money aspect of it.
I've talked about it a million times on Bearcat Journal,
on the Bearcat Journal podcast network. Like, I get it.
But you got a fan base. Those are your customers.
I don't know how you're going to win them back.
(08:08):
If the answer is Wes is coming back after five
years without making the nc DOUBLEA Tournament and being on
the cusp of making the NCUBA Tournament and no showing
at TCU and then allowing what happened to happen yesterday,
I don't know how you. I don't know how you
sell that. Everybody went, yeah, guess what the end of
(08:30):
the season, Like, we want to talk about that. They
went two and three in their last five, they got
drilled the Texas Sack, they lost the TCU, and they
lost on a neutral court yesterday. That's that also counts,
right like that, we we look at it in totality. Look,
(08:51):
here's the reality, MO. If they would have won yesterday,
if they hold on to win and let's just say
they lost today the Air Arizona, there's hope going into
the instant selection Sunday. But let's say the committee comes
back and says Cincinnati was the second team out. I
(09:12):
think there's a path to go to your and people
will still been mad, but I think there's a path
to go to your fan base and say, look, we
think the program turned the corner. We think West turned
the corner in the Big twelve over these last six weeks,
five weeks, whatever, and we think he has earned another
year at the Helm. Now. I don't know how you
(09:36):
say that with any belief that your fan base is
going to buy in, and what does that look like. Look,
I don't think the lower Bowl is gonna all of
a sudden have season ticket mass departures, because guess what
those lower bowls seeds. That's an investment, Like, that's a
(09:57):
long term investment. I don't see a mass exodus in
the lower Bowl. But at the two hundred level, the
upper deck, if those people give up their their season
tickets this year, you know what they're going to be
able to do next year. Now, they're going to be
able to get season tickets again if they like, if
(10:18):
they wait, if they take a year off, you're gonna
be able to get season tickets again in the two
hundred level. It might not be your exact seats, but like,
that's I remember, and I know you remember the last
time that this fan base was fractured and lost. I
remember what five thousand fans and butts in the seats,
(10:40):
five thousand announced butts.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
In the announced Yeah, look like for those.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
First couple of Mike cronin years. I remember what that
looked like. I think they're in danger of going back there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
So I guess you talk about like the impossibility of
selling years of Wes Miller, how much will that matter?
How much? How much is that a factor versus the buyout?
What maybe some people who are on West's side that
have deep pockets may believe, like where where is that
in the pecking order? Where is season ticket retention and
(11:16):
people upstairs deciding to not come back? Where is that
in relation to the things that matter most when it
comes to making this decision.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's a great question. I don't have that answer. That's
a that's ultimately the thing that John Cunningham has to weigh,
because I think they know, they have to know. How
do they not know? How do they not have a
pulse on the fan base on where things are at
right now. And look, maybe money wins out. Maybe the
(11:47):
people with the deep pockets say, I'm I'm comfortable donating
this much to the program. I'm not comfortable going anything
over that. Going over that means we fire West and
then you know, you have to pay four million dollars
to buy out the new coach. That's gonna be more
than we can afford. We're not gonna have enough money
to play the nil game. Like, I understand all that,
(12:11):
but as an athletic director, that's part of what your
job is is to manage the big donors, is to
manage you know, Hey, look, I know you're gonna be
upset if Less isn't our coach next year. But guess what, well,
you'll be involved in the process of hiring a new coach.
We're gonna do everything we can to make sure you
(12:33):
and the new coach get off on a good foot.
Like You've got to be able to manage all of
the parts in the athletic department that make up putting
a product on the floor that your fans want to
come see. And I just being around the fan base,
listening to the fan base, owning a message board, the
(12:55):
most active message community in Cincinnati, Like I get a
sense for how they feel, and how they feel is
if we're not heard, then we're gonna be heard. And
you know that's that's up to John Cunningham to mitigate everything.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You just talked about there. Should that work have actually started.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
A year ago, probably, I mean there were people that
were not happy a year ago. The fan base wasn't
happy a year ago, you knew, Like, I think there
was much more of an understanding last year that last
year the buyout wasn't tenable. That and and there was
a lot of really good jobs open last year. It's
(13:38):
the other part of this we haven't talked about. You
would have been pretty far down the pecking order of
trying to hire a new coach in last year's hiring cycle.
Who's going to be above them this year in this
hiring cycle? Syracuse, I think that's about even with Cincinnati.
I think Cincinnati's better job than pro Evidence. I think
(14:01):
Cincinnati's better job at Boston College. Like, I think Cincinnati's
right probably similar to k State case. State's got a
lot of money, so maybe that one, you know, is
right on the same par But you've got a chance
to be one of the three or four or five
best jobs in the hiring cycle, and there's some good
(14:21):
names out there. So you know, I think that if
you if you've got if you made it through last
year with the understanding of this guy needs to make
the tournament and then the year started like it did,
you would think you're pretty far down the road even
before the turnaround, that if you decide you want to
(14:42):
make something happen, that you're going to have the ability
to make something happen. But you know, look, I've talked
to probably twenty people today, people connected. Do you see,
people in the national media, people in coaching circles. Nobody
has a clue, And that's kind of terrifying, man, that
(15:05):
we're at this point and there's really nobody that has
a good feel for how this is gonna play out, how.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Much how much of a fear is out there, if
at all, that you could move on from a coach
who's not popular. But starting from scratch is hard, right,
I mean, starting with likely an empty roster, and starting
is hard. And so you know, yeah, you can say
five straight years not making the tournament, seven straight years.
(15:36):
You know, from a program perspective, if you go back
to the COVID year of not being in the tournament.
You know that that's that's fine, that that should have
people antsy an upset, but it's it's really hard to
get things turned around quickly enough that Okay, next year,
no matter who you're higher, you're you're back in the dance.
And I say this, and I do not mean this
(15:56):
as a knock at what Richard Patino has done at Xavier,
but I'm much much of it is a fear that
you're going to have a team that in November, you know,
has no chance of making the big dance. How much
of that fear drives this either way?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Well, I think that's really where the money comes in though,
because if you have an understanding that we're gonna really
be pressed to cover lest leaving. And I know people
look at like, okay, they can, they can pay it
out over a length of time and you know it's
(16:31):
monthly installments, But if you're an athletic director, you still
have to have that money in the budget, Like, yes,
does it make it a little easier, yes, but you
still have to look at that situation. You ever managed
anything before, if you've ever ran a budget before, you
don't just get to say, oh, well, we'll worry about
that later. Some people do, but that's how they end
up out of business. So if you worry about that
(16:54):
and then to buy out, if you're going to hire
a sitting head coach and you look at it and say, okay,
I think we can afford all this, but it's going
to be at the expense of the roster, well then
you're screwing over whoever is coming in to be the coach,
because look, this is not a shot at Xavior. I
(17:15):
know people think I like to take shots a Davier.
I might like to take shots at Davit eamples one.
Winning in the Big twelve is a much different animal
than trying to get your footing in the Big East
right now, Yeah, sure, And if you're trying to do
it with you know, a five six million dollar roster
(17:37):
and everybody else in the league is at eight to
twelve or whatever, man it is John Wooden available, Oh
he's dead, Like what right? So no, no, he's not.
You do you better be damn sure that the guy
that you're bringing in can take his and be yours
(18:01):
and take yours and beat his, because it's it's it
wouldn't be. You know, everybody says, I'll give the new
coach time. I'll give you know, I'm understanding. Until your
favorite team is three and fifteen in the league and
there's four thousand people in the seats that fit third
Arena and the people on the message board are already
(18:24):
chirping think we hired the wrong guy. I think we
hired the wrong guy. Like that's where the money comes
really really into play for me.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
If there were to be a change, and you just
spoke of the uncertainty in a community of people who
are close to the program, if there were to be
a change, what would that timeline most likely look like.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I know there's a lot of talk about April first
being the date that his buyout drops from ten million
to four point six million. That is also another thing
that's on your athletic director that if you decide, if
John Cunningham sits down with his people and they decide
we're moving on from West Miller, you have to be
(19:11):
able to go to the agent, go to West and say, look,
we can either wait until April first. I don't want
to do that. You would like to get another job.
I would assume you don't want to do that, So
let's negotiate, find something in between those two numbers, and
then we can make a clean break. You're free to
(19:32):
do your thing, We're free to do our thing, and
everybody goes their separate ways. It's an amicable divorce, if
there ever really was such a thing. And then you know,
I mean, I guess, like I know, the team got stranded,
kind of not stranded, but they had delays in Kansas City.
(19:53):
I still don't think they're back from Kansas City yet.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's got to be something.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
The last I heard, the plane was supposed to leave
at four o'clock when the original time was like ten
o'clock this morning. But I never I haven't heard if
wheels actually got up. Is it fair to say, you
know what, we wait until selection Sunday. They're on the bubble.
I think we all know they're not gonna make it,
(20:21):
but we wait until selection Sunday. We make a decision
after we officially see Cincinnati's not in the tournament, if
it's not April first, which I might lose my mind
if they wait until April first and miss the hiring cycle.
We're three weeks yeah, from April first, right, there's a
lot that's going to go down between now and April
(20:43):
first on the coaching carousel. That would probably if you
wait for the tournament to you know, officially know, that
would maybe be more like Monday with them not getting back.
I had a hard time seeing tomorrow, which probably means
through the weekend. Although you know, I wouldn't rule out
(21:03):
really any I've kind of been told not to rule.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Out anything and to have my phone ready, okay, whether
it's announced coming back or announced going whatever, Like I
haven't been given a real timeline on This is when.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
A decision should be mad or could be made, which
is frustrating, but such as life.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I guess if I made you wager an amount of
money that mattered to you on one outcome either way,
where are you putting your money?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I would say probably right now sixty forty that they
let him go, so like a level a six out
of ten confidence level, that they hire a new coach.
I can't say with any more certainty because you don't
know exactly you know what the money is going to dictate.
(21:53):
So I think if all things were equal, the easy
decision is you move on, and you know somebody's somebody's
very angry, though, I think you move on and see
what the next chapter of UC basketball looks like. But
in today's college athletics, things are a little bit more
(22:13):
complicated than that.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We've gone along. They're not going to have their name
called on selection Sunday. Have they played their last game
this season?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I mean that also probably depends on their decision on
Wes Miller, Right, Like, if you decide you're gonna keep
Wes Miller, are you are you gonna pay the seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine not to pay in
the play in the Crown, You're probably gonna play in
the Crown. Right If you move on, I think you
(22:49):
have to just say, hey, like, you know, we've got
bigger fish to fry right now. So I think it
wholly depends because the reality is we they finished ninth
in the Big Twelve. We talked about this a bunch
last year. The first two teams that don't make the
NCAA Tournament are obligated contractually to play in the Crown.
(23:15):
I'm pretty confident right now that there's going to be
eight Big twelve teams in the tournament, if not seven,
So Cincinnati's going to be contractually obligated to play in
the Crown. It's going to cost them three quarters of
a million dollars for a place that we just spent
twenty seven minutes talking about. Do they have money? Right?
(23:37):
All right?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Man, awesome stuff as always. I'm sure we'll be talking
next week.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Thank you very much, Thank you, sir. Evy Good with.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Chad Brendel Bearcat Journal dot com. We are way late,
Hunter sandsum Nky Brackett guy coming up ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
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(24:18):
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Speaker 3 (24:27):
This report is sponsored
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Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right there you go. Four minutes after five o'clock, miss
is ESPN fifteen thirty Moeger, thank you so much for listening.
Beangals have signed a defensive tackle, Jonathan Allen, former pro bowler.
By the way, Terren's are Minnesota Vikings guy, so I
need him to tell us what Jonathan Allen did for
the Vikings last season and maybe more specifically, why they
cut him that little bit later on, plus you'll hear
(00:25):
from Brian Cook, You'll hear from Boye Mafe as well,
and we'll chat with our bracketologist Hunter Sansom in just
about thirty minutes. Miami lost today. By the way, Auburn
is winning by ten midway through the second half, taking
on Tennessee today. Kentucky a winner earlier today in the
SEC Tournament. Wildcats in Florida tomorrow one o'clock tip off
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Ohio State beat Iowa. Xavier plays
(00:48):
yukon tonight. The Bearcats are not playing today because of
a meltdown yesterday that I think felt oddly fitting when
you see dug a hole early in the season. They
lost a lot of games that were there for the
taking that they maybe should have won, or at least
could have won. When you're up eight with two minutes
to go, there's no could have about it. They should
(01:09):
have won that game. So they should be playing today.
And I don't know if you've been still paying attention
to what's happening in the Big twelve tournament. Arizona was
off to a very quick start against UCF leads by thirteen.
Who knows what the outcome would have been, But yesterday
was rough, Yesterday was sobering. Yesterday was not good for
(01:30):
west Miller. Chad Brendle is here bearcatjournal dot com. Hey doing, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How many timeouts do I have for this segment? Just checking?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Will you use them? Will you use them if something
sort of goes awry and you, you know, maybe you're
in danger of doing something that you shouldn't, Will you
actually use them?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Time out? Time out? What you call it on time?
If I wait until two seconds left in the segment,
you call it on time. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I watched. I watched as soon as the game ended,
pretty much our show ended, and I watched you and
Keegan on the aftermath after the game, and your takeaway
from the game itself was the same as mine. It
was almost poetic for their bubble hopes, their NCAA tournament hopes,
to go up in flames with a loss that felt
like an extreme version of so many earlier this season.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, when the pressure ratcheted up, they reverted back to form,
and it wasn't the form that had them, you know,
six and two or whatever in their final eight. It
was what we saw. They had five games this year,
mough with a double digit lead that they lost that's
(02:49):
hard to fathom, and up eight with two minutes left,
Like the number of damning stats that came out of
that game where it's hard to even fathom as I
was going through them. They got one shot on the
(03:09):
rim in the last two minutes of that game, and
it was the day Day Thomas three. With eight tenths
of the second left, they didn't get a shot attempt
in the final two minutes of the game, and then
they did it and again in overtime where they got
two shot attempts in the final minute forty five. One
of them was the bad Bobby Miller shot and then
(03:31):
the other was the Myths three from Celestine it's hard
to even comprehend. I mean, Mick Cronin might have like
cried himself to sleep with joy seeing that a team
won shooting thirty three percent from the floor, twelve percent
(03:52):
from three, and fifty five percent from the free throw line.
Like that is the Mick Cronin won seventy percent of
his games with that stat line. I'm making that up.
Time out timeout, I.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Made that up, and use your timeout.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yes, I made that up. I'm sorry, I made that up.
But how do you let a team win that flashes
thirty three twelve fifty five. That's embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They're down, they're up six after a turnover that cuts
it to six, and they get a ten second violation
with experienced guards and no real full court pressure and
timeouts in the coach's back pocket.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
How a sleep at the wheel? I don't know. And
my problem wasn't even that. Okay, the ten second call,
as bad as it may be, you know the funny
part about that, mo Not only was there a ten
second call, but the pass that Gisel James threw to
(05:00):
to try to avoid the ten second call was also intercepted,
So even if they had got it over the top
time air up for a minute and a half left.
You set your defense, you get your team to calm down,
you're not worried about who. You see F subbing God
(05:22):
forbid and you and you get your team on the
sidelines and say, hey, we're up four, we got this,
get a stop, get the rebound, We're gonna win this game.
And he just let him play through it. And what happens.
You see F gets an easy basket and then Dade
Thomas turns it over and still no timeouts called. He
(05:45):
had three. This wasn't a situation where he had one,
and he was trying to strategically like, I don't want
to use my last time out. He had three timeouts.
Is there a closet his contract where you get a
bonus for every time out you eat at the end
of the season.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I don't know. We're going to talk about Wes's contract
here in just a second. I think the one other
thing from the game that a lot of people have
gone back to talk about is Keishan Tillery was really
good in the first half and didn't play nearly as
much in the second half and wasn't on the floor
during the meltdown. How fair is that? Bit of second guessing.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Fair. I said it in the middle of the game.
I said it the second half. Keishan Tillery was your
second best player today behind Mustafa Cham He was playing excellent.
I get it. You want was there they did? They
put something in the rules that you couldn't play with
three guards, but you only were allowed to have two
(06:45):
point guards out there. You didn't have a third one
just in case, you know, was he afraid of subbing again?
Was there another issue with being afraid of using substitutions?
I just I'm perplexed at the way the entire thing
went down, and none of it made any sense. None
(07:07):
of it made any sense.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Before the season started, you joined me in studio and
we talked about expectations for this team, and look, it
was tournament or bust, right, make the tournament, Wes is cool.
Missed the tournament, Wes is out. And your retort to
that was I didn't say that, No, that was me.
And your retort to that was, I need to see
(07:30):
how it looks. I need to see how it looks,
which I think is fair because context does matter. So
they've they've played an entire season. How did it look.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I don't know. How you sell it to the fan
base that he's coming back. I understand the money aspect
of it. We've talked about the money aspect of it.
I've talked about it a million times on Bearcat Journal,
on the Bearcat Journal podcast network. Like, I get it.
But you got a fan base. Those are your customers.
I don't know how you're going to win them back.
(08:08):
If the answer is Wes is coming back after five
years without making the nc DOUBLEA Tournament and being on
the cusp of making the NCUBA Tournament and no showing
at TCU and then allowing what happened to happen yesterday,
I don't know how you. I don't know how you
sell that. Everybody went, yeah, guess what the end of
(08:30):
the season, Like, we want to talk about that. They
went two and three in their last five, they got
drilled the Texas Sack, they lost the TCU, and they
lost on a neutral court yesterday. That's that also counts,
right like that, we we look at it in totality. Look,
(08:51):
here's the reality, MO. If they would have won yesterday,
if they hold on to win and let's just say
they lost today the Air Arizona, there's hope going into
the instant selection Sunday. But let's say the committee comes
back and says Cincinnati was the second team out. I
(09:12):
think there's a path to go to your and people
will still been mad, but I think there's a path
to go to your fan base and say, look, we
think the program turned the corner. We think West turned
the corner in the Big twelve over these last six weeks,
five weeks, whatever, and we think he has earned another
year at the Helm. Now. I don't know how you
(09:36):
say that with any belief that your fan base is
going to buy in, and what does that look like. Look,
I don't think the lower Bowl is gonna all of
a sudden have season ticket mass departures, because guess what
those lower bowls seeds. That's an investment, Like, that's a
(09:57):
long term investment. I don't see a mass exodus in
the lower Bowl. But at the two hundred level, the
upper deck, if those people give up their their season
tickets this year, you know what they're going to be
able to do next year. Now, they're going to be
able to get season tickets again if they like, if
(10:18):
they wait, if they take a year off, you're gonna
be able to get season tickets again in the two
hundred level. It might not be your exact seats, but like,
that's I remember, and I know you remember the last
time that this fan base was fractured and lost. I
remember what five thousand fans and butts in the seats,
(10:40):
five thousand announced butts.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
In the announced Yeah, look like for those.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
First couple of Mike cronin years. I remember what that
looked like. I think they're in danger of going back there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
So I guess you talk about like the impossibility of
selling years of Wes Miller, how much will that matter?
How much? How much is that a factor versus the buyout?
What maybe some people who are on West's side that
have deep pockets may believe, like where where is that
in the pecking order? Where is season ticket retention and
(11:16):
people upstairs deciding to not come back? Where is that
in relation to the things that matter most when it
comes to making this decision.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's a great question. I don't have that answer. That's
a that's ultimately the thing that John Cunningham has to weigh,
because I think they know, they have to know. How
do they not know? How do they not have a
pulse on the fan base on where things are at
right now. And look, maybe money wins out. Maybe the
(11:47):
people with the deep pockets say, I'm I'm comfortable donating
this much to the program. I'm not comfortable going anything
over that. Going over that means we fire West and
then you know, you have to pay four million dollars
to buy out the new coach. That's gonna be more
than we can afford. We're not gonna have enough money
to play the nil game. Like, I understand all that,
(12:11):
but as an athletic director, that's part of what your
job is is to manage the big donors, is to
manage you know, Hey, look, I know you're gonna be
upset if Less isn't our coach next year. But guess what, well,
you'll be involved in the process of hiring a new coach.
We're gonna do everything we can to make sure you
(12:33):
and the new coach get off on a good foot.
Like You've got to be able to manage all of
the parts in the athletic department that make up putting
a product on the floor that your fans want to
come see. And I just being around the fan base,
listening to the fan base, owning a message board, the
(12:55):
most active message community in Cincinnati, Like I get a
sense for how they feel, and how they feel is
if we're not heard, then we're gonna be heard. And
you know that's that's up to John Cunningham to mitigate everything.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
You just talked about there. Should that work have actually started.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
A year ago, probably, I mean there were people that
were not happy a year ago. The fan base wasn't
happy a year ago, you knew, Like, I think there
was much more of an understanding last year that last
year the buyout wasn't tenable. That and and there was
a lot of really good jobs open last year. It's
(13:38):
the other part of this we haven't talked about. You
would have been pretty far down the pecking order of
trying to hire a new coach in last year's hiring cycle.
Who's going to be above them this year in this
hiring cycle? Syracuse, I think that's about even with Cincinnati.
I think Cincinnati's better job than pro Evidence. I think
(14:01):
Cincinnati's better job at Boston College. Like, I think Cincinnati's
right probably similar to k State case. State's got a
lot of money, so maybe that one, you know, is
right on the same par But you've got a chance
to be one of the three or four or five
best jobs in the hiring cycle, and there's some good
(14:21):
names out there. So you know, I think that if
you if you've got if you made it through last
year with the understanding of this guy needs to make
the tournament and then the year started like it did,
you would think you're pretty far down the road even
before the turnaround, that if you decide you want to
(14:42):
make something happen, that you're going to have the ability
to make something happen. But you know, look, I've talked
to probably twenty people today, people connected. Do you see,
people in the national media, people in coaching circles. Nobody
has a clue, And that's kind of terrifying, man, that
(15:05):
we're at this point and there's really nobody that has
a good feel for how this is gonna play out, how.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Much how much of a fear is out there, if
at all, that you could move on from a coach
who's not popular. But starting from scratch is hard, right,
I mean, starting with likely an empty roster, and starting
is hard. And so you know, yeah, you can say
five straight years not making the tournament, seven straight years.
(15:36):
You know, from a program perspective, if you go back
to the COVID year of not being in the tournament.
You know that that's that's fine, that that should have
people antsy an upset, but it's it's really hard to
get things turned around quickly enough that Okay, next year,
no matter who you're higher, you're you're back in the dance.
And I say this, and I do not mean this
(15:56):
as a knock at what Richard Patino has done at Xavier,
but I'm much much of it is a fear that
you're going to have a team that in November, you know,
has no chance of making the big dance. How much
of that fear drives this either way?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Well, I think that's really where the money comes in though,
because if you have an understanding that we're gonna really
be pressed to cover lest leaving. And I know people
look at like, okay, they can, they can pay it
out over a length of time and you know it's
(16:31):
monthly installments, But if you're an athletic director, you still
have to have that money in the budget, Like, yes,
does it make it a little easier, yes, but you
still have to look at that situation. You ever managed
anything before, if you've ever ran a budget before, you
don't just get to say, oh, well, we'll worry about
that later. Some people do, but that's how they end
up out of business. So if you worry about that
(16:54):
and then to buy out, if you're going to hire
a sitting head coach and you look at it and say, okay,
I think we can afford all this, but it's going
to be at the expense of the roster, well then
you're screwing over whoever is coming in to be the coach,
because look, this is not a shot at Xavior. I
(17:15):
know people think I like to take shots a Davier.
I might like to take shots at Davit eamples one.
Winning in the Big twelve is a much different animal
than trying to get your footing in the Big East
right now, Yeah, sure, And if you're trying to do
it with you know, a five six million dollar roster
(17:37):
and everybody else in the league is at eight to
twelve or whatever, man it is John Wooden available, Oh
he's dead, Like what right? So no, no, he's not.
You do you better be damn sure that the guy
that you're bringing in can take his and be yours
(18:01):
and take yours and beat his, because it's it's it
wouldn't be. You know, everybody says, I'll give the new
coach time. I'll give you know, I'm understanding. Until your
favorite team is three and fifteen in the league and
there's four thousand people in the seats that fit third
Arena and the people on the message board are already
(18:24):
chirping think we hired the wrong guy. I think we
hired the wrong guy. Like that's where the money comes
really really into play for me.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
If there were to be a change, and you just
spoke of the uncertainty in a community of people who
are close to the program, if there were to be
a change, what would that timeline most likely look like.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I know there's a lot of talk about April first
being the date that his buyout drops from ten million
to four point six million. That is also another thing
that's on your athletic director that if you decide, if
John Cunningham sits down with his people and they decide
we're moving on from West Miller, you have to be
(19:11):
able to go to the agent, go to West and say, look,
we can either wait until April first. I don't want
to do that. You would like to get another job.
I would assume you don't want to do that, So
let's negotiate, find something in between those two numbers, and
then we can make a clean break. You're free to
(19:32):
do your thing, We're free to do our thing, and
everybody goes their separate ways. It's an amicable divorce, if
there ever really was such a thing. And then you know,
I mean, I guess, like I know, the team got stranded,
kind of not stranded, but they had delays in Kansas City.
(19:53):
I still don't think they're back from Kansas City yet.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's got to be something.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
The last I heard, the plane was supposed to leave
at four o'clock when the original time was like ten
o'clock this morning. But I never I haven't heard if
wheels actually got up. Is it fair to say, you
know what, we wait until selection Sunday. They're on the bubble.
I think we all know they're not gonna make it,
(20:21):
but we wait until selection Sunday. We make a decision
after we officially see Cincinnati's not in the tournament, if
it's not April first, which I might lose my mind
if they wait until April first and miss the hiring cycle.
We're three weeks yeah, from April first, right, there's a
lot that's going to go down between now and April
(20:43):
first on the coaching carousel. That would probably if you
wait for the tournament to you know, officially know, that
would maybe be more like Monday with them not getting back.
I had a hard time seeing tomorrow, which probably means
through the weekend. Although you know, I wouldn't rule out
(21:03):
really any I've kind of been told not to rule.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Out anything and to have my phone ready, okay, whether
it's announced coming back or announced going whatever, Like I
haven't been given a real timeline on This is when.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
A decision should be mad or could be made, which
is frustrating, but such as life.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I guess if I made you wager an amount of
money that mattered to you on one outcome either way,
where are you putting your money?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I would say probably right now sixty forty that they
let him go, so like a level a six out
of ten confidence level, that they hire a new coach.
I can't say with any more certainty because you don't
know exactly you know what the money is going to dictate.
(21:53):
So I think if all things were equal, the easy
decision is you move on, and you know somebody's somebody's
very angry, though, I think you move on and see
what the next chapter of UC basketball looks like. But
in today's college athletics, things are a little bit more
(22:13):
complicated than that.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We've gone along. They're not going to have their name
called on selection Sunday. Have they played their last game
this season?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I mean that also probably depends on their decision on
Wes Miller, Right, Like, if you decide you're gonna keep
Wes Miller, are you are you gonna pay the seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine not to pay in
the play in the Crown, You're probably gonna play in
the Crown. Right If you move on, I think you
(22:49):
have to just say, hey, like, you know, we've got
bigger fish to fry right now. So I think it
wholly depends because the reality is we they finished ninth
in the Big Twelve. We talked about this a bunch
last year. The first two teams that don't make the
NCAA Tournament are obligated contractually to play in the Crown.
(23:15):
I'm pretty confident right now that there's going to be
eight Big twelve teams in the tournament, if not seven,
So Cincinnati's going to be contractually obligated to play in
the Crown. It's going to cost them three quarters of
a million dollars for a place that we just spent
twenty seven minutes talking about. Do they have money? Right?
(23:37):
All right?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Man, awesome stuff as always. I'm sure we'll be talking
next week.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Thank you very much, Thank you, sir. Evy Good with.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Chad Brendel Bearcat Journal dot com. We are way late,
Hunter sandsum Nky Brackett guy coming up ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. The new uc
Sure Wellness Suite is a home for transformative whole person
well being backed by Science. Register for classes now visit
UCHealth dot com. There is an accident southbound on two
seventy five. That's after State Route thirty two in Eastgate.
Still a disabled semi on the entrance ramp southbound seventy
(24:18):
one seventy five that's the ramp from Buttermilk Pike and
westbound Ronald Reagan Highway. Disabled vehicle at Galbreath. I'm at
exelic with traffic.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
This report is sponsored
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