Mick Cronin’s decision made easy by 9-year-old daughter

In the end, Mick Cronin chose 5-way Skyline Chili over 1-way 99-cent shrimp cocktail.

Can’t say I blame him.

So UNLV didn’t get its man (again). It should have seen it coming. It probably had little to do with the palate-pleasing spaghetti at world-renowned Skyline Chili, which has five Cincinnati locations, and four more across the Ohio River in Kentucky.

It probably had a lot to do with a sentence I read in one of the myriad stories and Twitter posts about the relentless and apparently solitary pursuit of the Cincinnati basketball coach.

It said Mick Cronin had joint custody of a 9-year-old daughter named Sammi.

You had to know right then there was no way he was leaving his hometown for Las Vegas, unless he was a total cad whose parenting skills rivaled those of the father in “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

To paraphrase the songwriter Harry Chapin, when UNLV hung up the phone it should have occurred to president Len Jessup, athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy and any well-heeled boosters who may have gotten involved/in the way that it was going to take more than a $3 million silver spoon to lure this cat away from his comfy Midwestern cradle.

One of the first reports out of Cincinnati said little Sammi weighed heavily in Cronin’s decision to stay.

Of course she did, and you would think UNLV would have realized this before putting all eggs in Mick Cronin’s basket.

Plus, $3 million seems far too many millions for a school with a lousy football past to pay for a man of Mick Cronin’s respectable but far-from-spectacular credentials. You wouldn’t pay $3 million for Kevin Cronin, and he was lead singer of REO Speedwagon.

But at least UNLV went after a proven Division I head coach, which was a lot more than it had. Mick Cronin’s lunch pail defensive style isn’t a perfect fit with the city’s run-and-gun mindset — or Run as One — but you saw how far a catchy slogan and an unfulfilled promise of pushing the ball up the court got former coach Dave Rice.

It got him fired.

Running as One doesn’t mean squat when you Loaf as Five on defense.

It would have been intriguing to see a Mick Cronin team square off against Steve Fisher’s San Diego State team because their styles are so similar: Get a hand in one’s faceand an elbow in one’s ribs, first team to 50 wins, last one out of the gymnasium hangs the peach basket back on the wall.

Cronin’s teams at Cincinnati and Fisher’s at San Diego State are practically mirror images, right down to the school colors.

UNLV’s biggest mistake, other than not considering Cronin’s family ties, may have been reaching too high and offering too much. Because the Mountain West has slipped so far so quickly, the American Athletic Conference, in which Cincinnati plays, is by far the better league — at least the AAC has Connecticut, Houston and Memphis, all of which have been to the Final Four during most of our lifetimes.

And sometimes when people see AAC, they see ACC instead, and the ACC was like 38-1 in this year’s March Madness until Oregon beat Duke.

People around Las Vegas holding a realistic view of the basketball program in its current state believe UNLV would have been better off to seek a winning coach from a smaller midmajor conference. This guy at Stephen F. Austin would have been ideal, but Oklahoma State beat the Rebels to him.

No way would I have offered Brad Underwood $3 million annually, though, even if the kid with the beard had another year of eligibility.

As one Mountain West coach said upon learning how much UNLV was prepared to pay Mick Cronin, if I’m Steve Fisher, I’m in my athletic director’s office today, renegotiating my contract.

Fisher makes just over $1 million at San Diego State. This is what I would offer Marvin Menzies, who has turned chicken feathers into chicken salad at the distant and forlorn outpost known as New Mexico State. (Or whoever turns out to be UNLV’s Plan B.)

I would tell him we haven’t beaten this guy, Fisher, since Dr. Naismith nailed the peach basket to the wall. And that if he’s the guy who finally does it, we’ll throw in a free SUV from Findlay Toyota, maybe one of those 4Runners or a Highlander, and all-you-can-eat chicken fingers from Raising Cane’s. That way we won’t be held hostage by the threat of taking any five-star recruits who can’t play both ends of the court with him to South Florida.

Take it or leave it, buddy.

But before all that, I would check the media guide bio to see if he has full custody of his kids.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski