Tom Groeschen

tgroeschen@enquirer.com

Tommy Tuberville and Mick Cronin are more focused on their teams instead of the Big 12 Conference decision not to expand, but Tuberville also said conference realignment is far from over.

Tuberville (football) and Cronin (men’s basketball) coach UC’s two primary sports teams. With the Big 12 opting Monday not to expand, UC will continue to put its best foot forward in the American Athletic Conference. The AAC is among the conferences outside the so-called Power Five leagues.

“There’s going to be changeover in college football in the next five or six years,” Tuberville said Tuesday, at his weekly media luncheon at UC. “This is not the end of the line. There’s going to be huge turnover. There’s going to be realignment. There’s going to be things happening.”

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Cronin, entering his 11th season as UC basketball head coach, endured the breakup of the former Big East and the move to the AAC in 2013. The Bearcats this season will seek their seventh consecutive NCAA Tournament bid.

“I wish the Big 12 all the best,” Cronin said Tuesday, via text to The Enquirer. “I didn’t spend one second of thought on it, ever. I believe in doing my job, which is running a successful program that represents the University of Cincinnati with class and integrity.”

Tuberville, in his fourth year at UC, said the school can be proud of its presentation to the Big 12.

“Here at the University of Cincinnati, I think everybody really handled it great,” Tuberville said. “You don’t force anything to happen. You do your job at your university, you make everything as strong as you possibly can. You let everybody know what you’ve got, and everything works out. I think we handled that great.”

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Before joining the Bearcats, Tuberville coached in the Big 12 at Texas Tech.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with any teams that they possibly could have taken,” Tuberville said. “Being in that conference before, I think they were just looking to make sure they did the right things with who they had in their league. I’m sure they thought this was the best thing for them at this time.

“We’ll just keep going forward and try to make our conference better. As I said, there’s going to be a lot of movement in the next few years.”

Cronin, whose team began preseason practice earlier this month, learned long ago that league realignments are something out of the coaches’ control.

“We have a great group of young men that are going to give our fans tremendous basketball this year,” Cronin said. “My focus is on them, has been on them, and the recruits that we are hoping to join our family.”

BIG SATURDAY: The UC men’s basketball team and football team both will be in action on the Bearcats’ campus Saturday, part of Homecoming weekend.

The basketball team will play a Red-Black scrimmage at noon, with free admission. Fans are advised to enter Fifth Third Arena on the East concourse (by the Bearcats statue). The West concourse will not be available for use. Doors open at 11:30 a.m.

The football team will play East Carolina at 7 p.m. at Nippert Stadium.

WEST AWARD: UC sophomore basketball player Jacob Evans was named Tuesday among 20 candidates for the 2017 Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year watch list, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced.

Evans averaged 8.4 points per game last season, shooting 37.2 percent (94 of 253) from the field, 33.3 percent (45 of 135) from 3-point range, and 80.4 percent (45 of 56) from the free throw line.