In Reply to: Hope you’re right and I’m wrong posted by Cachorro on July 03, 2026 at 10:57:52
Cronin is walking a fine line here. He's cobbling whatever success he's attaining by getting his players to play above expectations. That's good coaching IMO and that should never go away, but it is fragile when one is depending on players that are not top flight guys. This is how I see it - hypothetically he can have a team that let's say goes 23-14. They could perhaps have gone 28-11 with some bounces going their way and no key injuries at precisely the wrong time allowing for a deeper tournament run. Or they could easily have gone 21-15 and lost early in the tourney. Or they could have gone 17-14 and missed the tourney altogether. Sometimes that happened, but most times it did not.
It's fragile right now. Until he can consistently bring in better players he's going to have these kinds of seasons. This new upcoming team is full of guys with more than one year left of eligibility - everyone. I believe he realizes he needs more than one year to bring a guy around to playing at the level he demands. That's a positive step. But right now, on paper, I see this team with all the hypothetical scenarios I mentioned above. They could be very good or they could be mediocre, or somewhere in between. If they all come back maybe they are really good. They will probably, at least, be better than whatever they will be this season.