Remember the Internet video sensation Bum Fights? This week in college basketball was like that, but with Mick Cronin and J.P. Macura.
Still in the non-conference portion of the season, our nation’s most beloved unpaid laborers are continuing to amaze us with incredible feats of athleticism. In return, the cloudy college basketball picture is just starting to become a bit clearer.
It isn’t that we know, at least not for sure, what teams are great. We are, however, starting to understand what individual players are emerging from the depths of OK-ness to reach the heights of awesomeness.
Anyway, let’s not bury the lede. We have to talk about the sport’s version of Bum Fights.
Mick Cronin vs. J.P. Macura
Where in the hell do we begin?
In a story that isn’t really a story, but has become one due to Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin, all the profanity in the world was on display when the Bearcats faced the Xavier Musketeers this past weekend.
Cronin, who is your prude dad who isn’t actually all that prude and is in a constant fit of rage, became furious with Xavier guard J.P. Macura, who jawed at the coach while the Musketeers put it on the Bearcats.
Macura has fully embraced the role of heel. He’s the bad guy much like Scott Hall was the evil-doer during his nWo run in WCW. He’s so evil, yet so cool, that most people are going to like him.
Cronin, on the other hand, is meant to be the adult. The face of how college basketball is about some misguided notion of amateur ideals. Blah. Blah. Blah.
The supposed adult in this situation did this after the game:
Don’t worry, kids. This gets even better.
“I’ve never had a kid tell me to ‘F off’ three times before,” Cronin said in his postgame presser. “During the game and after the game. You know who it was. Same guy it always is every game. Fifteen years I’ve been a head coach. Five years with [Bob Huggins], two with Coach [Rick] Pitino. Never seen anything like it.”
I know whenever my ethical approach to industry standards might come under question, summoning the moral prowess of Rick Pitino is always the best move.
Cronin would also add that if Macura played for him, he wouldn’t be playing at all.
Sounds like an old man yelling at clouds, right? And yet, it appears that Cronin might be an old man yelling at clouds while also being a hypocrite. I guess that makes him more like an old man yelling at clouds as he is secretly a stratocumulus himself.
Something like that. You need not worry about wayward analogies and questionable semantics.
According to Matt Norland of CBS Sports, Cronin was also as profane with Macura as the player was with the coach. Not just after the game, but during it. This report paints Cronin in a less than stellar light.
I want anarchy in college hoops. Give me all the pro wrestling in the sport. Let the coaches and players both be able to showcase their personalities, even if much of it feels unseemly. It is far better than the benign hogwash we usually get from people.
You will hear, read, and see many of the sport’s “caretakers” claim both parties were wrong on Saturday. Whatever. That sort of tomfoolery is all kinds of fun.
If what Cronin and Macura did was wrong, I don’t want us to ever be right.