Cinicola came into a very tough situation. The school wasn't putting much money into the program, yet he was expected to produce ranked teams on a regular basis. He caught some bad breaks with Hosea Champine flunking out, Mickey Davila's knee injury, and the Maurice Drinks fiasco. His seeming lack of effort to even try to land Sam Clancy infuriated many alums, and the perception that Tim Grgrich was eating his lunch in recruiting local players, played a big role in his being let go after his 4th season.

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

Saw that John Cinicola passed away. My condolences to his family. Hard to believe that he was the coach that last took the Dukes to the NCAA Tournament in 1977.

http://triblive.com/sports/college/duquesne/6623982-74/cinicola-duquesne-coached#axzz3AZJ4JnDY

Here's a far more fitting account of Coach John Cinicola's life than the three sentence account that the Tribune-Review first published: 
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2014/08/17/Obitaury-John-L-Cinicola-Jr-Natural-born-coach-and-motivator-led-Duquesne-basketball-to-NCAA-tournament/stories/201408170160