First year Murray State men’s basketball head coach, Mick Cronin, has continued the winning tradition he has learned from future hall of fame coaches Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins.

Cronin came to the Racers from the University of Louisville, where he was Rick Pitino’s assistant coach, on April 5, 2003. Before that he was the University of Cincinnati’s recruiting coordinator in which he signed four players who went on to play in the NBA.

In Cronin’s first full year with the Cardinals, he helped attract a recruiting class rated among the nation’s top ten.

This wasn’t a new experience for Cronin. During Cronin’s six years as recruiting coordinator at the Division I level, every one of his recruiting classes has been ranked in the top 10 nationally by one major recruiting service or another.

In his second year with the Cardinals they went 25-7 on the season and were ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation. One of the key contributors was Cronin’s signee, Francisco Garcia, who was honored with the Conference USA freshman of the year award.

This year was a different experience for Cronin.

He was used to recruiting the nation’s top 50 high school basketball players. Needless to say, Murray State does not have as much to offer, basketball wise, as does a Louisville or a Cincinnati.

“We’re obviously not recruiting the same guys,” Cronin said. “The pool of guys is a lot bigger and at the other two schools it’s necessary to get All-Americans.”

Cronin said there is a lot more evaluating to be done at Murray State as opposed to the other two universities.

He said the way to be successful in the OVC is to outsmart opposing programs with his evaluating skills and hard work.

Although Cronin has inherited most of Tevester Anderson’s team, he has already brought in some guys of his own who are making great contributions.

Two of those contributors are Fort Scott Community College (Kansas) transfer, Kelvin Brown and Vincennes University (Indiana) transfer, Adam Chiles.

Brown is second on the Racers in points per game with 14.5 and Chiles is fourth on the team with 10.9 points per game and also leads the team in assists and steals.

More impressive, perhaps, is the fact Cronin was able to integrate Brown and Chiles into a starting five with three seniors.

“We rarely start the same five players,” Cronin said. “We really play nine sometimes ten guys.”

Brown and Chiles aren’t the only players Cronin has brought into Murray State. He has three other players, who will have to wait until next year to play for the Racers.

One of the three is junior college transfer, Pearson Griffith, who one recruiting service ranked the No. 8 junior college center in the country prior to his sophomore season.

The other two players Cronin recruited, Keith Jenifer and Trey Pearson both come to the Racers from more recognizable Division I basketball programs.

Jenifer comes from the University of Virginia, where he played all 29 games. Pearson comes from Ole Miss, where he started 24 games as a true freshman.

Cronin seems to have the Racers moving in the right direction as their record of 17-4 shows.

“The players have to believe in their team goals and their coach,” Cronin said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to put together a group of unselfish individuals to make a team.

“Individuals don’t win games,” Cronin said. “Teams win games.”