Bob Huggins

[Big D]

Cincy soap opera leaves Huggins out in cold
Dick Vitale
SPECIAL TO ESPN.COM


Aug. 23, 2005
Wow, what a crazy scenario at the University of Cincinnati. Bob Huggins is out as head coach after 16 seasons, including 14 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament.

This is a shocking report, considering that there was a news conference in May saying he would finish the final two years of his contract at Cincinnati. The bottom line is that school president Nancy Zimpher was not happy with the perception of the program ever since she arrived at the school in 2003.

Zimpher would not extend Huggins' contract through a roll-over clause that would have given the coach a four-year arrangement; instead, she limited him to two years left on his contract.

Huggins was unhappy with that situation, and he was trying to get the president to agree to an extension. Huggins also inquired about a three-year extension, which Zimpher decided against.

I honestly believe Zimpher felt that if Huggins coached the next two seasons and had success in the Big East, there would have been tremendous pressure to extend his contract.

The talk shows will be heating up big-time in Cincinnati, you can bet on that.

Now Huggins reportedly has a $3 million offer to walk away, or he can take a $2.7 million deal to work in an administrative role, one that would include benefits, in fundraising for the school.

This whole Huggins controversy has led to turmoil in Cincinnati, especially on the radio talk shows. Huggins is a popular figure with a great résumé -- a .740 win percentage with the Bearcats (399-127), a Final Four appearance in 1992, three trips to the Elite Eight, and five players picked in the first round of the NBA draft.

Huggins has support from the fans. The coach is all about work ethic and discipline, yet he had problems with players struggling off the court, plus his own DUI incident last year. He sat out two months to straighten out his life, and he appeared back on the right track last season.

Recent problems with Bearcats player Roy Bright (admitted to bringing a firearm on campus) and recruit Tyree Evans (accused of statutory rape in Massachusetts) did not help the program's image.

Huggins saw his Bearcats turn the corner academically, as 11 players graduated over the past four seasons.

Also realize that Huggins was loyal to Cincinnati, turning down NBA coaching jobs as well as passing on other Division I openings.

With Cincinnati entering the Big East in two months, the timing is absolutely a disaster.
The Cincinnati program will move on after this stunning development. There are six newcomers scheduled to play this season, including Devan Downey, a guard who was Mr. Basketball in South Carolina last year, and talented swingman DeAndre Coleman.

With Cincinnati entering the Big East in two months, the timing is absolutely a disaster. The Bearcats have a talented returning nucleus with Eric Hicks, James White, Jihad Muhammad and Armein Kirkland back.

Look for athletics director Bob Goin, originally scheduled to retire in 2006, to move that date up. The Bearcats will look for a new athletics director to hire a full-time coach. For the moment, associate head coach Andy Kennedy, a former player at NC State and UAB, is the likely interim head coach.

Huggins has made some mistakes, and we all do. I think that's why he is loved in Cincinnati -- because he represents the blue-collar guy, fighting and scrapping to get ahead. There are bumps in the road, and he hurt nobody but himself with the DUI (thank God nobody was injured). He was remorseful over that situation.

Now it will be interesting to see the reaction around Cincinnati basketball as it heads into the Big East. It could be a tumultuous season ahead.

espn.go.com/dickvitale/vcolumn050823-Huggins.html

[Big D]

Kennedy quick fix at Cincy, but what about long term?By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
Archive

Andy Kennedy has a choice that Mike Davis and Steve Lavin didn't have in similar circumstances.

Neither Davis, at Indiana under Bob Knight, nor Lavin, at UCLA under Jim Harrick, was a close personal friend of his head coach when both were abruptly fired before the season. So, when Davis and Lavin were offered to be the interim coach at their respective schools, there were no personal reasons to turn down the job, regardless of what the head coaches thought about the school or their replacement.

Kennedy, the associate head coach at Cincinnati, is a close friend of Bob Huggins. That could make a tough transition for Kennedy. But, according to one source, Huggins is expected to stay out of any attempt to hire Kennedy on an interim basis in the hope that would be best for the program and his players.

A source close to the situation told ESPN.com that Kennedy hadn't been offered the job as of late Tuesday night. But that would seem appropriate since Huggins hadn't officially been fired or resigned and won't be until 2 p.m. Wednesday. Huggins on Tuesday was in Las Vegas at the Michael Jordan Flight School, a fantasy camp for adults, and was making his way back to Cincinnati to decide his fate at the school.

A source close to the situation told ESPN.com that hiring Kennedy would keep the team intact considering Kennedy recruited the players on the current roster. Certainly the four returning seniors -- James White, Armein Kirkland, Eric Hicks and Jihad Muhammad -- aren't going anywhere since they have only one season of eligibility remaining. Cincinnati's school year starts in late September and is on the quarter system, making transferring to another semester institution (many start this week) extremely difficult.

But there are seven newcomers who could think about other destinations in the next few days. The Bearcats have a strong newcomer class led by junior college forwards Ivan Johnson and Cedric McGowan as well as expected high school impact players point guard Devan Downey, small forward DeAndre Coleman and center Abdul Herrera.

These top eight players should keep Cincinnati competitive in the Big East in its first season with making the NCAA Tournament a legitimate goal and that's one reason ESPN.com pegged Cincinnati at No. 22 in its Summer Sizzling Top 50 last week.

Multiple sources told ESPN.com that hiring Kennedy would also be the safer choice for the administration since athletic director Bob Goin is out in June. Cincinnati officials made it clear at a news conference Tuesday that they would speed up Goin's replacement search. That could mean a new AD by January, but that still leaves a tenuous situation to hire a fulltime coach until then.

One source who knows Cincinnati president Nancy Zimpher well said he wouldn't be surprised to see Zimpher hire the head basketball coach regardless of a new AD. Clearly, she has shown with the Huggins ultimatum Tuesday that she is willing to take matters into her own hands.

There are coaches who aren't tied to a school who are available such as ESPN analyst Rick Majerus, former Virginia coach Pete Gillen and Cincinnati great and Hall of Fame member Oscar Robertson, who came in last July to oversee the program when Huggins was suspended for the summer of 2004 after a DUI.

But the likely scenario is that Kennedy would be tapped for the foreseeable future. And then the search would likely open up to coaches across the country, assuming Kennedy wouldn't be given the chance to remain fulltime. A new AD would likely have to let Kennedy know when he was on board if he had a shot at the job. If he comes in by January then he would have time to evaluate Kennedy.

One name to take off the list of any future candidacies is Bruce Pearl. Pearl would have been a hot name for the job if this were March since he worked for Zimpher at UW-Milwaukee and then took the Panthers to the Sweet 16. But Pearl is now at Tennessee and off limits to Cincinnati.

One prominent coach, thought to be a possible candidate, who requested he not be named, said about the position, "What fool would follow Huggins? I wouldn't go. Hugs is a tough guy to follow. It would be like following Tark [Jerry Tarkanian] at UNLV or John Calipari at UMass. Cincinnati wasn't much before he got there.''

There will be plenty of names thrown out throughout the course of the season, coaches in the Mid-American conference, Big East, top assistants and anyone who might have a connection to Cincinnati.

But, for now, it appears Kennedy would be given the first crack at following Huggins. Kennedy, a candidate for jobs in the Southeast after playing at UAB, would be the bridge from the Huggins era to a reign that is still undetermined and might not be known for some time until the AD search can be completed with a new hire, possibly in early 2006.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=2141576

[Wolf]

Last night Channel 12 news in Cinncinnati speculated that Huggins would end up at WSU. The station speculated that Coach Biancardi will be fired over the OSU investigation. The story had some nice coverage of the new Setzer Pavilion and Nutter Center.

[Wolf]

Huggins would be hard to pass on. He would double WSU attendance and most likely double WSU's donations because of his reputation in the area.

[wsu97]

Huggins to WSU will never happen.

[Big D]

Knight move: More presidential hypocrisy?

I will not defend Bob Huggins. I would rather bathe in the man's septic tank than defend him.

Huggins has cut so many corners at Cincinnati, the Bearcats' practice floor is an oval.
But I guess I can't do back-flips over Huggins' ouster. I find it amusing when a school tolerates — even endorses — a renegade coach, then suddenly gets religion and cans the guy.

New school President Nancy Zimpher finally reached her goal of sacking Huggins. Just like Myles Brand, when he was President at Indiana, finally got to fire Bob Knight.


University of Cincinnati president Nancy Zimpher was fully prepared to show Bob Huggins to the exit. (Al Behrman / Associated Press)

The "last straw" for Knight was one he supposedly grabbed an Indiana student and told him to say "Coach Knight." Knight could have done that every day for his first 20 years at Indiana, and nobody would have cared.

Huggins and Knight hardly belong in the same sentence, but since they're already in this one, let's note the similarities. Both are great coaches. Both won big, so big that their schools overlooked their flaws.

Then a new president showed up, changed the rules and got rid of the coach. And while Zimpher deserves kudos for the knockout punch, let's admit that Cincinnati defended Huggins for a long, long time.

Three years ago, West Virginia came after Huggins. That's his alma mater. He felt a tug.

But Cincy wanted him to stay, and Huggins, for all his flaws, is an extremely loyal guy. (Actually, that is one of his flaws — he stuck by his players too much.)

So Huggins stayed at Cincinnati, and everybody was happy.

Then Zimpher showed up. And Huggins got arrested for driving under the influence. And, well, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, she kept on tellin' him he ain't her kind of man.

I don't blame Zimpher for that. But this isn't the movies — you can't just fire Evil Hugs, give a rousing speech, then roll the credits. You have to keep going.

You need a next act.

And that's where we find out all about Zimpher, her priorities, and her power at the University of Cincinnati.

In the 11 seasons before Huggins showed up, Cincinnati was a combined 33 games below .500. And that was in the old Metro Conference, hardly Conference USA or the new, loaded Big East.

In the '80s, Cincinnati wasn't a basketball program, it was a trivia question: Where did Oscar Robertson go to school? Maybe you knew about the early 1960s, just as maybe you knew that the University of Chicago once competed in the Big Ten. So what?

Then Huggins came in. He coached like crazy, shrugged off the police blotter, and won and won and won.

So here's my question:

Is this new coach going to be held to Huggins' on-court standard? Or will the school say, "Hey, just run a clean program" and accept a slight improvement over the Losing '80s?

I think we all know the answer to that one. I think we all know that Cincinnati is about to dive headfirst into the big lie: that it can simulate Huggins' success while avoiding his mistakes. That's what schools mean when they say they want to "clean up the program."

Clean it up ... and keep winning.

That won't be easy. In recent years, when people mentioned Huggins, they usually talked about his team choking in the NCAA tournament. But the Bearcats were one of the great regular-season overachievers in NCAA history. Even under Huggins, they rarely got top-shelf talent.

The blunt truth is that in college athletics, it pays to cheat. It pays to keep criminals on the roster. It pays to ignore academics. And that paycheck comes in the form of wins, which brings adoring fans, who ignore any signs of cheating, or crimes, or academic fraudulence.

We have seen it many times, most notably from Huggins' buddy, Jerry Tarkanian. Too many bigwigs act shocked, shocked when a winning team gets in trouble.

Meanwhile, coaches knew all along that the winning and the corner-cutting went hand in hand.

That's why presidents, not coaches, are the biggest hypocrites in college sports.

Bob Huggins is out. So go ahead — celebrate like good has conquered evil, academics has one-upped athletics and North Korea has abandoned nukes.

Me, I feel sorry for the Cincinnati basketball coach.

No, not Huggins.

The next guy.

msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/4805162

[Big D]

Assistant Kennedy becomes interim Cincy coachAssociated Press


CINCINNATI -- Andy Kennedy was hired as interim head coach at Cincinnati on Friday, two days after Bob Huggins was forced out as the Bearcats' basketball coach.

Kennedy had been Huggins' top assistant and served as recruiting coordinator the past four years. Before that, he spent five years as an assistant at UAB, where he is the school's No. 2 career scorer.

The 37-year-old Kennedy said he is grateful for the opportunity, and he has Huggins' blessing.

"This has been a very difficult time for men's basketball at the University of Cincinnati," Kennedy said. "I have been given the charge to move this program forward, to put the focus back on our student-athletes."

Outgoing athletic director Bob Goin will step down on Jan. 1 so his successor can evaluate the program before searching for a permanent replacement for Huggins, spokesman Tom Hathaway said. Goin, who alluded Tuesday that he would leave his position early, was expected to retire as athletic director on June 30.

He will take another job with the university for the final six months of his contract, Hathaway said.

Huggins quit Wednesday, a day after the school said he would be fired if he didn't resign. He agreed to a $3 million buyout for the rest of his contract.

Richard Katz, Huggins' lawyer, said Thursday he and the university's lawyer probably won't complete details of the buyout until next week.

The sides are discussing when Huggins will leave and how much he will get. The school is willing to let him stay as an adviser for three months, easing the transition to an interim coach.

Huggins led Cincinnati to No. 1 rankings, a Final Four and 14 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances during his 16 seasons at Cincinnati. The Bearcats also had numerous player arrests and violations during his stay, drawing NCAA probation.

Kennedy said he had mixed emotions about taking over for Huggins.

"We're all dealing with this as best we can," Kennedy said. "We're not going to lie down, I assure you, tomorrow. We are not going to forfeit this season. We're going to do what we came here to do, and that's push forward."

Kennedy said he knew when he accepted the job that he could have a brief tenure.

"I'm the interim head coach," he said. "That means today, and I guess the rest is up to debate."

sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2143604

[wsu97]

WSU will never hire a coach with as much baggage as Huggins. Even if we did want Huggins we could never afford him.

[Big D]

Monday, September 12, 2005
UC recruit backs out of letter of intent

By Bill Koch
Enquirer staff writer

The termination of men's basketball coach Bob Huggins has cost the University of Cincinnati one of the key members of its incoming recruiting class.

Ivan Johnson, a 6-foot-8 power forward from Southwest Community College in Los Angeles, has asked for and received a release from the national letter of intent he signed in May.

UC was counting on Johnson, who's from San Antonio, Texas, to bolster its front line to help compensate for the loss of Jason Maxiell, the first-round draft pick of the Detroit Pistons.

Johnson averaged 22.3 points and 12.2 rebounds a game last season. He shot 56 percent from the field, 77 percent from the free-throw line and 36 percent from 3-point range.

Mack Cleveland, who was an assistant coach at Southwest last season and serves as Johnson's adviser, said Johnson's decision not to go to UC was not a reflection on UC interim head coach Andy Kennedy.

"The kid was really up and excited about playing for Bob Huggins," Cleveland said. "Who wants to go to Cincinnati without Huggins? That's like going to Syracuse without Jim Boeheim. Without Bob Huggins, there is no Cincinnati."

Without Johnson, UC's roster currently consists of nine scholarship players plus Erick Murray and Ryan Patzwald, walk-ons who were on the team last season, and Brandon Miller, a 6-3 guard from Indian Hill High School, who's expected to walk on this fall.


news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050912/SPT0101/309120007

[Wolf]

I wouldn't mind adding a late addition to the roster. You can always use a 6'8" center that averages 22 points and 12 rebounds.

[Wolf]

Updated: Oct. 20, 2005
Cincinnati hires Akron athletic director Thomas
Associated Press


CINCINNATI -- Bob Huggins' successor will be picked by an athletic director who shares a grades-come-first philosophy with the University of Cincinnati's president.

Mike Thomas will take over as athletic director Dec. 1, when Bob Goin retires after eight years of running a program most closely identified with Huggins' successful basketball teams.

University president Nancy Zimpher forced Huggins to step down in August, citing the basketball team's image during his 16 seasons. The team had one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation during Huggins' early years, and players repeatedly were charged with crimes.

By bringing in the 45-year-old Thomas from the University of Akron, Zimpher ensured that the next coach will be the antithesis of Huggins, who lost a power struggle over a contract extension and recruiting.

"I think we have a pretty clear mutual understanding of our expectations of the campus," Zimpher said after handing Thomas a black-and-red Bearcats baseball cap during his introduction Thursday.

Huggins' ouster has taken the luster off Cincinnati's inaugural season in the Big East. Assistant coach Andy Kennedy agreed to stay as the interim head coach for one season, before a full-time coach is picked.

Unsure who will be the next coach, Cincinnati has been forced to skip recruiting in the fall, a setback that could hinder the program for years. One recruit pulled out of his commitment after Huggins took a $3 million buyout in August.

Huggins took the Bearcats to a Final Four and 14 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. He also recruited some players with a history of problems and defended them when they got into trouble on Cincinnati's campus.

His arrest and conviction for drunken driving in June 2004 set the stage for his ouster. Thomas was introduced Thursday at the same on-campus conference center where Huggins held a tearful news conference after his DUI arrest.

Zimpher, hired in 2003, wants to recruit players who have better grades and stay out of trouble, bringing sports in line with her overall push to toughen the school's academic standards and raise its national profile.

The admission standards include class rank in high school, grades, scores on college entrance exams and other accomplishments.

"We think that array of issues in each student's admission will give us the kind of latitude we need to recruit a world-class tuba player, a world-class designer, a world-class athlete to our program," Zimpher said.

Thomas spent seven years as associate athletic director at Virginia and the last five as athletic director at Akron.

sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2198773

[Wolf]

Blue-chip recruits will follow Huggins, wherever he ends up
Nov. 14, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

A college basketball program will hire Bob Huggins this spring. That school is out there somewhere, and whoever it is, that school will be getting a lot more than Bob Huggins.

It will be getting a ready-to-go recruiting class, too. Maybe even two recruiting classes. Maybe, dare we say it, even future NBA All-Star O.J. Mayo.

Huggins is a free agent, and recruits know it. A handful of elite prospects, including 7-foot-2 Jason Bennett of Jacksonville, Fla., are letting this week's early signing period pass without making a decision. They are waiting, in many cases, for Huggins.

Huggins could end up almost anywhere next season, but his ties are strongest to Ohio. He was raised there, attended Ohio University before graduating from West Virginia, and has spent all 24 years as a head coach in Ohio.

It doesn't take much imagination to picture Huggins next season at, say, Kent State or Ohio University. The current coaches there, Jim Christian and Tim O'Shea, could jump to bigger schools if their teams win another 20 games in 2005-06.

It might not be Kent State or Ohio, but it will be somewhere. Whether you like Huggins or not is irrelevant. He wins. Wherever he goes next season, Huggins will bring baggage, yes -- but he'll also bring a 567-199 record, 14 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and a 20-for-24 success rate of 20-win seasons.

And he'll bring players.

Here (potentially) are some of them, with CBS SportsLine.com projecting their odds of following Huggins:

Jason Bennett: Bennett is a consensus top-100 recruit who says he would've committed to Cincinnati in August had Huggins received a contract extension instead of a pink slip. Bennett could have signed this week with Georgia, Clemson or Miami -- among others -- but a source close to Bennett says he is waiting to see where Huggins lands. Odds of following Huggins: 80 percent.

Ramar Smith: Smith, a 6-2 shooting guard generally ranked among the top 40 seniors, had been committed to Connecticut until he jeopardized his freshman eligibility by withdrawing from prep school this fall. The Huskies rescinded the scholarship offer, and Smith is back in Detroit, unsigned and uncommitted. At this time last year, Cincinnati was his top choice. Odds of following Huggins: 50 percent.

Ryan Pettinella: Pettinella, a 6-9 forward, transferred from Penn to Cincinnati this summer but was released from his scholarship after Huggins was let go. Pettinella, who averaged 4.8 points and three rebounds as a Penn sophomore, is attending Monroe (N.Y.) Community College but not playing. Like Bennett and Smith, he is letting the early signing period slip past. He'll have two years of Division I eligibility beginning in 2006-07, and his father says he wants to play for Huggins. Odds of following Huggins: 90 percent.

Herb Pope: Pope, a 6-9 forward from the class of 2007, is a top-10 recruit and a likely McDonald's All-American. When Huggins was at Cincinnati, Pope had the Bearcats among his favorite schools before committing in March to Pittsburgh. Five months later Pope backed off that commitment, and a source close to Pope says he is monitoring Huggins' future. The connection is Pope's AAU coach, J.O. Stright, founder of the Pittsburgh J.O.T.S. and one of Huggins' closest friends. How close? When Huggins suffered a massive heart attack in September 2002, he called Stright. Stright called the paramedics. Odds of following Huggins: 75 percent.

O.J. Mayo and Bill Walker: These are two more top-10 recruits from the Class of 2007, maybe even the two best recruits from that class. Mayo, 6-5, is one of the top backcourt prospects since Kobe Bryant. Walker, 6-6, is less refined but a Vince Carter-like athlete. Both play for North College Hill (Ohio) High near Cincinnati, and both became close to Huggins after regular unofficial visits to campus. Until Huggins was fired, Cincinnati was considered the front-runner to land Mayo, Walker and 6-11 teammate Keenan Ellis. Odds of following Huggins: 60 percent.

Huggins -- unemployed, yet on the prowl for recruits. It's a fascinating concept. Until a school hires him, Huggins is beyond NCAA jurisdiction limiting coaches to a set number of phone calls or visits with recruiting targets. He can't give recruits extra benefits, but he can operate outside NCAA boundaries in other, non-punishable ways. Literally, if he moved in with O.J. Mayo tomorrow, what could the NCAA do about it?

For now, Huggins won't talk about it. He told CBS SportsLine.com that, until his contract with Cincinnati expires at November's end, he's not comfortable discussing his future.

In that vacuum of volume, hear this: A team featuring O.J. Mayo and Ramar Smith at guard ... Bill Walker and Herb Pope at forward ... and Jason Bennett at center ... and coached by Bob Huggins ... might just win the 2007 national championship.

Recruits are clamoring for Huggins. Pretty soon, it'll be athletics directors.

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9042400

[Brain]

Actually the timing for Huggs to come to WSU would be just perfect. ;D

[BasketBallJones]

If Huggins has the likes of Mayo, Walker, etc ready to sign with him once he has a place to land, it surely won't be Wright State. I think he will end up at a BCS conference school, possibility Indiana, Penn State, or say Missouri. With the possibility of having a National Championship team dropped right into their lap, there will be plenty of schools and AD's willing to overlook Huggin's baggage.

[keithfromxenia]

i hope pb is our coach for a long while. but if this ncaa thing causes us to lose him, huggins would be one of the few coaches we could hire who would maintain any sense of respect with the program. only part of that that would not be a perfect fit is that we only have 1-2 scholarships to give for next year and he has 4-5 guys wanting to follow him. very interesting thing to think about, but i hope pb is our guy for the future. GO RAIDERS!!!!!!!!!