THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Just posted on the front page of my web site www.kenbroo.com the latest Broo View Podcast. I have an indepth interview with Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Our topic, the continuing off-season saga of the Cincinnati Reds. If you're in a hurry, you can download it here.

By the way, vote on my latest poll question, just to the right on what you think the Reds may do next.

Rocco Baldelli signed with the Red Sox today. The Reds were interested. So why did Boston get the former Rays' outfielder? Two reasons: Baldelli has a better shot at being a part of a championship team there, than here and the Sox can take a risk on Baldelli's health a lot easier than the Reds could have.

I still see the Reds making a move. They must get a legitimate left fielder if they want to contend this summer. A trade with the Yankees for Xavier Nady makes sense. It'll probably cost the Reds one of their pitching prospects, most probably Darryl Thompson who threw seven terrific innings against the Yanks in New York last summer. But you have to do a deal, or why would you make a trade for a catcher (Hernandez) and sign an outfielder (Tavares) in the off season. If you weren't bent on contending (and building strictly threw the farm system) you would simply go with your kids.

Steelers, Ravens, Giants and Panthers this weekend....but it's still early. If that plays out, conference championship weekend will be one of the all-timers.

After watching the University of Cincinnati play Providence last night, one thing that struck me was the amount of empty seats. They announced the crowd at over 6,612. But honestly, it appeared to be somewhere around 4,500. The lack of student support, considering that school resumed this week, was particularly troubling.

The fallout from the dismissal of Bob Huggins and Andy Kennedy continues to have a direct consequence for this current UC team and coaching staff. The nine months that the program was in limbo, back in the 2005-2006 season, was devastating. For all intents and purposes, recruting stopped. Considering that players are now being recruited as early as high school sophomores and tracked as early as 8th grade, it's not a stretch to say that period has affected four years of recruiting.

Worse, within days of taking over the UC program, Mick Cronin lost his best returning player when guard Devan Downey transferred. And his other two top returning players basically flunked out of school, James White, who opted out for the NBA and guard Jihad Muhammad.

So it's no mystery why this UC basketball team has fallen into hard times and off the radar screen. But you wonder when it will become the 'thing to do again' in Cincinnati. The real magic of the Huggins regime wasn't that he galvanized the UC base. The real magic was his ability to bring casual fans into the UC loop. Anyone who coaches or operates a team will tell you, there is no harder thing to accomplish.

UC is a long way away from those days.