Eric Hicks: Another Bob Huggins Success Story

Eric Hicks is the man! What an incredible game last night! UC had a shot to beat the #2 team in the country as time expired. And all this with only 8 scholarship players, their leading scorer having fouled with 4:30 to go, and Eric Hicks playing on one sprained ankle and one wrecked ankle. I'm sure you know all that.

And to steal from my man, P-Doc, Eric Hicks is the toughest kid to play at UC since Erik Martin. Check out the column in the Enquirer. I truly believe that Eric Hicks is the reincarnation of Erik Martin. They are absolutely my favorite Bearcats of all time (next to the legend, Melvin Levett, of course). Hicks is carrying more on his back right now than most people would even want to pick up.

Let me get to my point...
Bob Huggins took a chance on this kid, like he did with Erik Martin (who he found playing pick-up games in a park) and most of the players he brought into our world. Some say that Huggs took too many risks. Too many of his players got into trouble with the team, with the school, and with the law. But that can happen anywhere. Look at Dedrick Finn at XU. But some people at UC didn't like the way he took so many risks. So they fired him.

But look at what he did for Eric Hicks, Erik Martin, and Kenyon Martin. XU probably wouldn't have taken a chance on guys like that. Most colleges wouldn't. They're thugs. Instead, XU recruits guys like Romain Sato, Johnny Wolf, and Josh Duncan. They all came from good backgrounds. They all would have graduated from college regardless of how well they played basketball. Huggs takes a chance and reaches out to kids in less fortunate situations. He doesn't do this out of charity. And obviously, he just wanted to win basketball games. But you can't tell me that he doesn't care about those kids and that he didn't fight his hardest to see each one graduate.

Because of Bob Huggins, we have been lucky enough to watch one success story after another. Somehow, this got him fired. Hire Andy Kennedy.