In Reply to: Cronin = Howland: Offense only as good as the players posted by Dr.Bruin on January 13, 2026 at 12:23:09
The cynic in me has the results comparison for Cronin at Lavin's level, not Howland's. (if Jelani doesn't get injured in the Elite 8, Lav might have won the title that year under Lav - we did sweep the eventual champ that year - Arizona), and we've been at about Lav's level in the tourney outside of the one run past the sweet 16.
yes, CBB has changed a lot since Lav was here, and Lav seemed to get better NBA talent (but did he? Outside of Ariza, Baron and Barnes, Lav's players didn't do a lot in the NBA and those 3 didn't do **that** much better than Bona/JJJ/Clark/Watson).
Anyways, just a counterpoint, especially as I'm having a tough time seeing this team make the tourney, much less pull a Lav and get to the Sweet 16... but fingers crossed. If the Defense and Rebounding turn around, it's possible.
It's funny, I remember watching the first 5 minutes of our first game this year, and my immediate comment in an alumni text thread was that we looked better, but the rebounding and defense needed to improve. Little did I think that would still be the issue mid-january (I really thought that Cronin would have sorted that out by now).