Brian Cleary was let go by UC after 17 years at the conclusion of the baseball season. UC was 24-32 this season, 6-18 in the Big East. The thing the team was most notable for were their post game interview shenanigans, which were pretty effing awesome. This one was my favorite.

The hot name for his replacement is former Georgia coach David Perno. From the linked article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Perno says the following

“I hope it moves that way. I don’t know anything to this point, but I’m definitely very, very interested. Just doing homework on my end, that’s a great situation and they’re hungry to win.”

Coach Perno was a former Georgia player in the late 80s into the 1990 season. He helped the Bulldogs reach the College World Series. He moved into coaching after his playing career ended. He was on the staff of the 2001 Georgia World Series participant and took over the head coaching/manager spot the next season. Georgia went to Omaha three times under his watchful eye. The Bulldogs played for the National Title in 2008.

Perno is open for the UC job because he was asked to resign at Georgia on Sunday. The team was 21-32, 7-20 in the SEC. I know SEC baseball is much tougher than other leagues because of the clear weather advantages, but that is not a good record. He was nearly 30 games under .500 in SEC play as the manager. He did have a winning record in his time at Georgia.

It seems the new UC strategy is to hire former SEC coaches a few years after their greatest success. Twitter has seemed very happy with this potential hire. I guess because he was a coach at somewhere that is perceived to be good at college baseball. I don't know anything about college baseball and I'm not going to pretend now. It's the off-season. Nothing is happening. Except this coaching search. This is the hottest coaching search in America. Possibly. Why not. Let's pretend that it is and care about it a whole lot.

The season review series kicks into the final four players remaining. Today we are going to cover one of the senior leaders of the team, one of the leading scorers on the team, one of the leading rebounders on the team, JaQuon Parker. To catch up on the previous installments of the Season Review series, simply click on the players name and read away.

Titus Rubles - David Nyarsuk - Jermaine Sanders - Shaq Thomas - Justin Jackson

Ge'Lawn Guyn - Jeremiah Davis, Alex Eppensteiner, Kelvin Gaines

For the first time in his college career, JaQuon Parker played in every Cincinnati game, starting 33 of the 34 contests. Parker played a career high 30 minutes a game. He used a career high 21.1% of the Bearcat possessions. He had a career high 21.3% shot percentage. Parker made a career high 127 of 310 field goals, hitting 41%. He was a career best 40-100 from 3. That's 40% if you can't do simple math. Parker set another career standard with a career worst 54.2% outing from the free throw line, going 78-144. JaQuon posted the second highest free throw rate of his career in that effort. As a result of his improved 3 point shooting, Parker had a best 47.4% effective field goal percentage. As a result of the free throws, he had a downgrade from last year in true shooting percentage at 49%. He had a 102.7 offensive rating. Parker scored 372 points, 10.9 a game.

JaQuon was a little worse on the glass compared to last season. He averaged 4.8 rebounds a game. He pulled in 2.1 offensive boards a game, 7.6% of the available offensive rebounds. That was right on his career trajectory. Parker only pulled in 9.9% of the defensive rebounds, 7% fewer than last year, by far the lowest rate of his career. Park made up for that by passing the ball better. He had 55 assists, 1.6 a game. That was an improvement. He had 54 turnovers though. He turned the ball over on 15.4% of UC possessions, not terrible, but he wasn't as sure handed as he was as a junior. Parker managed a career high in steals with 25. He blocked 1 shot.

JaQuon Parker started his final season as a Bearcat with a solid 8 point, 6 rebound, 2 assist, 1 steal, 1 block game in the opener. He followed up with 13, 4 boards, all offensive, 2 assists and 3 steals. He played just 13 minutes against NCAA Tournament team NC A&T, but had a season high 5 assists. Park followed that with one of his better games of the season. He scored 21 points on 7-10, 5-11 from the foul line, 8 rebounds and 2 assists against Campbell. That solid game was followed by a dud against Iowa State. Parker scored 2 points on 1-7 with 3 turnovers. He responded with 16 on 6-16 in the Vegas Invitational thing win over Oregon.

The 16 point performance against Oregon kicked off one of four runs of four game double digit scoring stretches. Park had 13 and 6 against Alabama, 11 and 3 steals against UALR and 12-6-4 against UMES. Parker was 7-16 from 3 in that stretch. After an 8 point outing against Marshall stopped that streak, he started the second. JaQuon was 2-10 from the field against Xavier, but he hit 7-10 at the foul line to beat the Muskies in his final Shootout. He had 5 offensive boards against X. JaQuon matched his season high of 21 against Wright State the following game. He went 8-15 from the field and had 5 rebounds. He was the spark in that contest. Park had a rough go against New Mexico with 14 points on 5-14 shooting and 4 turnovers. He closed the streak with 13 points and 5 boards in a win over Pittsburgh.

Cincinnati lost their next two games. Parker didn't play well in either. He was 1-8 for 3 points, but 4 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals, against St John's and 2-2 for 8 points, 3 turnovers, against Notre Dame. Park got back in the groove in a pair of UC wins with 11-8 against Rutgers and 12 points, but 6 turnovers, against DePaul. Parker was one of the guys who helped give us a panic attack as DePaul made a late rally. JaQuon didn't shoot well against Marquette, 3-10, 7 points, but he had 8 rebounds, 5 offensive, and matched his season high with 5 assists. He had 11-6-4 against Syracuse in a losing effort.

JaQuon went into a 2 game shooting slump as Cincinnati pulled out a pair of ugly wins over Rutgers and Seton Hall. He was 1-6 for 7 points, 4-6 at the foul line, against Rutgers. That was followed by 1-5 for 9 points, 6-8 FTs. He had just 5 rebounds in the 2 games. JaQuon snapped out of his funk everywhere but the foul line against Providence. He had his first double double of the season with 12 points on 4-7 shooting and 10 rebounds. He was a miserable 3-9 at the foul line, which really hurt because Cincinnati lost by 4. Park was kind of a non-factor against Pitt with 7 points and 3 rebounds.

He would not be a non-factor in the next 4 games as JaQuon kicked off his 3rd stretch of four double digit scoring games. He put up 19 on 6-10, 3-3 from 3, 4-11 FTs, with 6 boards against Nova. He had 15 and 6 against Georgetown and gave UC their final lead of that game. He also didn't commit a turnover. Park carried UC against UConn with 14 points on 7-12 in the overtime loss. He was the only guy to score, but that's all he did, 1 rebound, with 12 points on 5-12 shooting against Notre Dame. The hot streak ended with an absolutely miserable game against UConn. Parker was 2-9 from the field and 1-9 from the free throw line. He had a bad turnover late in the game when UConn was making a run. He also missed a layup that set up the Huskies with a chance to win.

The final four game stretch of double digit scoring performances started with a miserable game against Louisville. Park got 12, but on 5-16 shooting. He, and every other Bearcat it seemed, turned the ball over 4 times. He played all 40 minutes of that game, the only time he would do so during the season. JaQuon had a fine 14 point, 8 rebound, 6 offensive, 3 assist performance as he went out a victor on senior day. Park hung his second double double of the season in the Big East tournament. He put 15 and 10 on PC on the back of 5-9 shooting. He had 12 points on 3-6, 4-4 FTs, against Georgetown. In the NCAA tournament, Parker got hit in the eye early in the game against Creighton. In 25 minutes, JaQuon didn't score. He had 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal. He didn't play a lot of minutes at crunch time. Parker started the year with 3 field goal attempts and ended the year with 3 field goal attempts.

There were a number of things about JaQuon Parker's season that stand out. The first and biggest negative was his miserable performance in the Creighton game. The CBS analysts said during one of the games that losing your last NCAA tournament game as a senior is a bad feeling that never goes away. Every time you look back on your career, you remember that game. Unfortunately for Park, he played the worst game of the season in that one. It hurts to see a guy you loved watching go out in one of the worst ways possible.

Another thing that jumps out about JaQuon this season were his turnovers. Over 12 games from December 27 - February 12, he turned the ball over 32 times. 59% of his turnovers happened in that small portion of the season. Not good. The final 4 games of the season he turned the ball over twice. When the flood hit, it hit hard.

The third thing that jumps out is his free throw shooting. Parker was never Mark Price at the foul line, but he was never this bad. Even during the season he went 9-49, he was a 58% foul shooter. He was at 68% a year ago. He lost 14%. I think it was clear that the major problem was in his head. Mick said late in the year that he never had a team worry as much as this one did. I think Parker worried about going to the free throw line. Once he missed one, the doubt seeped in. He hit 9-12 over 2 games and 2-12 over 2 games at separate times this year.

The final thing that stands out about JaQuon Parker is how much of a joy it was watching him play. Everyone plays hard. JaQuon Parker played harder. He wasn't the most talented guy to put on a Bearcat uniform, but there were few players who would bust their ass like he did. Park would fit in on any Cincinnati team throughout history. He was tough not just on the court, but his mental makeup off of it was excellent. I honestly don't know how many players could go through the hell that Parker went through his sophomore season and end up being a huge key to a Sweet 16 team and a leader his senior season. That type of maturation is part of the reason I love college basketball. You don't get to see someone like JaQuon Parker grow as a person and a player like we did in other sports. He was out to sea and fought back. He earned his minutes. He earned everything he accomplished. When we look back in a few years on JaQuon Parker, we are going to remember him ripping the rebound from Kyle Kuric in the Big East tournament in 2010, the magnificent game against Marquette on senior day last year and the fact that he busted his ass every game. JaQuon Parker is the type of player that makes me proud to be a Cincinnati fan. 

On Tuesday I wrote a season review about Titus Rubles. In that post, I noted what everyone already know, that Rubles made just 4 three pointers this season. There could easily be a post about the 43 or 44 three point attempts that Titus attempted, but this post is about the 4 that he made. How did such a bad 3 point shooter only make four? Or you could say how could such a decent shooter, around 41% on 2 pointers, be such a terrible 3 point shooter? A lot of that is because of his shooting form. Some of that is because of his range. There is something similar that I noticed about all 4 of these makes that you can't say about all of Rubles' attempts. We'll get to that after the picture show.

All the images in this post are from WatchESPN.

November 13, 2012

Make #1

Rubles has the ball up top. He waves off JaQuon Parker, but he will move towards where Parker had the screen/post up.

Titus had some space on his man, who was expecting a drive, pulled up and drilled it.

January 5, 2013

Make #2

UC was in transition. Rubles immediately ran to the corner for the highest percentage shot. He was unguarded.

The shot went up and he was still unguarded. Easy bucket. Well, easy shot attempt.

Make #3

Rubles got the ball in the corner after an inbound play. The man was late coming out on him, leaving Rubles with another easy look from 3. This one wasn't quite the corner, but it was higher percentage than most of his attempts.

Make #4

This is a high leverage situation for Cincinnati. You can see Cashmere Wright's left hand. He pointed Rubles to the left. This was a smart move.

The St John's big man didn't pretend to close out. Rubles hit his last 3 of the season to put UC down by 1. Rubles would later attempt the game winning shot for Cincinnati. You probably know what happened there.

The thing that all 4 of these shots had in common was that Rubles put the ball up right away. When I think back to some of Titus' 3 point attempts later in the season, the second thing I think of after him missing is hesitation. He never seemed fully confident on pulling the trigger. He would pull the trigger on long 2s. He would definitely shoot a lot. The 3 point shot was clearly in his head. That's a hurdle he's going to have to overcome next season. He doesn't need to take high leverage shots like in the St John's game. He just needs to be confident putting the ball up. That being said, he should rarely put the ball up from 3 unless he is wide open. He will be wide open in November and December by design. Teams are going to give him looks. He's got to do what he rarely did last year, make them pay.

Jake Golic is the son of Mike Golic. Like his father, Jake played at Notre Dame. Unlike his father, Jake is not going to play at Notre Dame his whole college career. His father announced it on his radio show today, but Jake also tweeted the news that he is transferring to Cincinnati.

That screen cap is from the linked ESPN piece.

Jake is able to play at Cincinnati right away, as he has already graduated. Golic participated in 5 games at ND, 3 of them in 2010 and 2 of them last year. He had no stats as a member of the Fighting Irish.

Jake Golic is listed as a tight end. Will he be a tight end at Cincinnati? Will he contribute stats? Will he play more than 5 games? We don't know any of these things. Jake probably came to Cincinnati in hopes that he will be able to do all of those things and do them very well. I hope that he does because UC has a hole at tight end with Travis Kelce being on an NFL roster and all.

Best of luck to Jake Golic.

Photo via

The season review series is rounding towards the end. Only a handful of players are left to review. The next 4 days will have 4 player reviews. After taking a day off for Memorial day, there will be the final player review and a review of Mick Cronin. That will be the end of the reviews. A new series will start in June. Hooray new series. Hooray current series. I can feel the excitement in the air. Before we cover Titus Rubles, let's run through the players previously reviewed if you are new to the site.

David Nyarsuk  - Jermaine Sanders - Shaquille Thomas - Justin Jackson

Ge'Lawn Guyn - Jeremiah Davis, Alex Eppensteiner, Kelvin Gaines

Titus Rubles came to Cincinnati from a junior college in Texas. Rubles played in all 34 games, starting 12. His starts came towards the end of the season as 9 of his starts came during conference play. Rubles averaged 22 minutes a game. He used 21.8% of Cincinnati possessions, meaning those possessions ended in a Rubles shot, assist or turnover. The possessions that ended in shots were not really successful because lord did Titus Rubles struggle from the field his first season in Cincy. Rubles was 66-195, 33.8%. That number was bad in the non-conference and was even worse in conference play where he shot 30%. A very large part of his trouble was 3 point shooting. Rubles attempted 43 bombs. He only made 4. Yes, a 9% three point shooter. Titus was better in conference play where he went 3-19, a solid 15.8%. Rubles wasn't great from the foul line either, 64-97, 66%. Overall shooting wise, Rubles had a 34.8% effective shooting percentage and a 41.4% true shooting percentage. His offensive rating was a woeful 87.1. Rubles scored 200 points, 5.9 a game.

Titus made up for his up and down scoring by being one of the best rebounders on the Bearcats squad this season. He pulled in 199 rebounds, 5.9 a game. He wasn't a killer on the offensive glass as he pulled in 8.5% of those rebounds. Rubles was dominant of the defensive glass however. He pulled in 21.3% of the defensive rebounds, which was 3rd in the Big East. Rubles was a solid passer with 67 assists, 2 a game. He was also a bit turnover prone with 64. He turned the ball over on 24.4% of possessions, which is very high. But Titus ripped the ball back with 38 steals, 1.1 a game. He had a solid 3.1 steal percentage. Rubles blocked 9 shots on the season. He was foul prone. Titus averaged 2.3 fouls a game and fouled out of one contest.

Titus Rubles got his Cincinnati career off with a very solid start. In the season opener, he scored 8 points on 3-6 shooting, 2-4 free throws, with 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 turnovers. He followed that with 8 more points on 3-6 with 7 more rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks. That was 1 of 3 games this season Rubles did not have a turnover. This game was the only non-conference game where Rubles made a 3 pointer. He missed 18 in a row after this. Titus filled up the box score against NCAA tournament team NC A&T to the tune of 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 steals. That was followed with a 5, 6, 3 assist performance.

Cincinnati stepped up to better competition with the Vegas tournament and Rubles stepped up his shooting performances. After attempting 20 shots in the first 4 games, Rubles attempted 23 in the next 3. He reached double digits in all 3 games. He had just 4 double digits the rest of the season after this. Titus scored 10 on 4-10, 2-3 FTs, 5 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 block against Iowa State, 13 points on 5-9, 3-3 FTs, 4 rebounds, 1 assist but 4 turnovers against Oregon in the title game. Against Alabama, Rubles had 10 points on 4-14 shooting with 5 rebounds and 3 steals. Titus pulled back as UC played weaker teams again. He lost his shooting touch starting with Bama. He was 2-7 for 6 points, 2 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals against UALR. He was 2-6 for 7 points against UMES, but that featured Rubles' first 10 rebound game. He also had 4 assists. Rubles was 0-5 for 2 points against Marshall, 8 boards, 2 assists, 3 steals, and 1-7 for 2 points against Xavier. He had 9 boards against X. His only bucket was the picture after the next two sentences. The 14-16 streak from the foul line starting with Iowa St through Marshall was his best sustained streak free throw wise. He would have a solid stretch a couple paragraphs from now.

Titus Rubles had 1 double double this season but he came close a couple other times, including a solid 11 point, 9 rebound game against Wright State. He was 5-10 from the field, briefly breaking out of his shooting funk. He had 3 assists, 2 steals and 4 turnovers. He was not good against New Mexico with 2 points on 1-6, 2 rebounds and 3 turnovers. That was followed by 5 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 turnovers against Pitt.

The career high scoring performance for Titus Rubles is his biggest anomaly of the season. He scored 14 points on 4-8 shooting. 3 of those baskets were 3 pointers. He was 3-6 from deep and 3-6 from the foul line. That last one hurt because St John's beat Cincinnati by 1. Rubles missed 18 3 pointers in a row before this game. He missed his final 16 of the season after this. St John's had to be wondering what the hell was happening that Titus Rubles of all people was bombing 3s on them. On the plus side for us, we saw that Rubles was possibly capable of finding the range from deep. The fact he didn't before this game and didn't after this game shows he didn't actually have the range. This paragraph was not very nice to Titus Rubles best scoring performance of the season.

Rubles went right back into a funk after his career high with a 1-9 game against Notre Dame that saw him miss 3 three pointers. He had 7 boards and 5 assists in that contest, one of his better all around games. Titus had 7 points and 11 rebounds against Rutgers but just 2 and 3 against DePaul. Cashmere Wright missed the Marquette game, putting a scoring burden on the team. Rubles picked up some of the slack and then some. He had his only double double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. He was 1-8 from the field, but he was 10-12 from the free throw line. He also had 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Titus followed that double double with a 5-6-5 assist game,  a 6-4-2 assist-1 steal game and a 2 point, 6 rebound game. He was 7-9 from the foul line in those two games. Added with the 10-12, the 17-21 was his best free throw shooting stretch of the season.

Titus Rubles had 6 games where he didn't make a field goal. Three of them were already mentioned. The third was the 2 point, 6 rebound game. The 4th came in the only game this season where Rubles didn't score, the Cincinnati loss to Providence. He bounced back with 8 points on 2-9, 4-5 free throws, and 8 rebounds in the loss to Pittsburgh. Titus filled out the box score with 4 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3 turnovers and 2 fouls against Villanova in a win, but did so to a lesser extent in the first loss to Georgetown with 4 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 turnovers and 3 fouls. Rubles put up 7 in each of the next 2 games, 7-5 and 7-7. The following game had him with 7 rebounds to go with 4 points, 2 assists and 2 steals. The first 7 point game was the loss to UConn. That game is significant because it's the only game he fouled out of this season.

The final kick of the season saw Titus Rubles do one thing very well, rebound. You noticed back to back 7 rebound games. He had back to back 9 rebound games against Louisville and South Florida. The rest of his game was lacking. In the Louisville game, Rubles was 0-2 for 2 points with 4 assists and 8 turnovers. He had 4 assists total the last 4 games. He put up 2 against USF. Rubles had a miserable Big East tournament. He had 2-2 in both games. He bounced back with a solid NCAA tournament performance against Creighton. Titus was 5-12 for 11 points, 0-3 from 3, with 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals, and 1 block.

It's easy to look at Titus Rubles' numbers from this past season and think that he should get better next year. He can't possibly shoot that poorly over a full period again. It would seriously take a lot of talent to have back to back years of shooting 33%. Rubles is going to shoot a lot next season. He took the 4th most shots on this team. With Cash and Parker gone, there are going to be shots up for grabs. I say this with a lot of love, but Titus Rubles should be banned from shooting 3 pointers next season. At least on probation. 22% of his field goal attempts were 3s. That's awful because he was awful at shooting them. If you take out the 3 pointers, Rubles shot 40.8% from the field. That's pretty solid. You can build with that. Rubles did make a season out of hitting the long 2 with the foot on the line. Maybe that's a sign that he can hit from 3. Either way, I think for our sanity it would be better if he took another step inside the line. Cut the 3s and cut the turnovers and he's a big time player on next year's squad.

That being said, cutting the 3s and cutting the turnovers isn't easy. Some players can never do it. Titus Rubles can do something that no other Bearcat can do, fill out the box score consistently. Sean Kilpatrick can get you points and rebounds, but he's not going to have big assist or steal games. Justin Jackson can do the defensive parts, but not the offensive. Jermaine Lawrence could be special, but we don't know what he'll bring to the table in college. I think Rubles needed some time to adjust to the college game. As a senior this season, he's going to be looked at as a leader. We don't have any idea how he will lead the team in practice or in the locker room. But we can tell how he leads the team on the court. Rubles could be a great leader on the floor by learning from his flaws last year. He could set the example by not taking bad shots, by not being out of position on defense, by stopping his feet when he picks up his dribble, by not turning the ball over so much. On the positive side, his passing his contagious. If you have ever played with someone that is a great passer, or at least unselfish, that rubs off on everyone. Rubles can be focused defensively. He was a spark plug this season and he can be one next year. It's easy to think he can turn a B-/C+ year into something better next year. The tools are there. I've said that about other guys, but for Rubles, we know they are there. We know what he needs to tighten up in his game. He knows it as well. He's just gotta do it.