It's time to start respecting these Bearcats

[Brad]

It's time to start respecting these Bearcats  

Feb. 24, 2006

By Gregg Doyel

CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer    

 

CINCINNATI -- You can't hate Cincinnati. Not this Cincinnati. Not anymore.

You could have hated Cincinnati before this year without hearing a peep from me. You could have hated Cincinnati irrationally for years and been well within your rights. Cincinnati was bigger than your team, tougher than your team, meaner than your team and -- in most cases -- better than your team. For most of America, hating Cincinnati was OK. It was normal. Have another.

Not this season. You can't hate this Cincinnati. This Cincinnati is something to be admired. To be enjoyed. Respected. Cherished, if you're the mushy kind.

This Cincinnati had no business taking No. 2 Villanova to the last possession before losing 74-72 on Thursday night. Villanova oozes skill and athletic ability.

Cincinnati isn't oozy. Cincinnati is woozy. The Bearcats' best player, center Eric Hicks, is playing on two bad ankles. The Bearcats' leading scorer for much of Thursday's game, Chadd Moore, has a bad back that forced him to quit the sport -- he thought -- midway through last season. The Bearcats' first substitute Thursday, Connor Barwin, is a midseason pickup from the football team. Barwin is a 6-foot-4 center who plays below the rim. That's one heck of a midseason pickup.

But that's Cincinnati this season. Cincinnati lost to Villanova when Dante Cunningham broke free for an easy inbounds basket with 3.2 seconds left -- someone's mental error that could ultimately keep the Bearcats out of the 2006 NCAA Tournament -- but this Cincinnati season has become bigger than the NCAA-or-NIT debate. In one season, Cincinnati has gone from pariah to popular. You can continue to hate Cincinnati, but only if you're not paying attention.

Somewhere in the transition from Bob Huggins to Andy Kennedy, from Kenyon Martin, Kenny Satterfield and DerMarr Johnson to Hicks, Moore and Barwin, Cincinnati stopped being villainous. Somewhere along the way, Cincinnati became valiant.

Cincinnati was villainous before, we'll grant you that. Cincinnati was never as bad as the stereotype -- the looting, hooting, pillaging thugs who beat up opponents and skipped classes and fled police -- but Cincinnati wasn't likeable, either. It's hard to like a program that produces the occasional Ruben Patterson and Donald Little, and while Huggins at his worst wasn't nearly as vile as some would have you believe, he wasn't remotely huggable.

This Cincinnati team? This team is huggable. Even Hicks, whose arms are bigger than your legs and whose legs are bigger than your oven. He plays with a large red mouth guard because he understands teeth are going to be rattled, and he would prefer those teeth not be his. He plays with the ferocious passion and effort that have come to characterize this undermanned, overachieving Cincinnati team.

Go ahead and like these Bearcats. It's OK now. Their tallest player, Ronald Allen, is here only because his real school, Xavier of New Orleans, closed after Hurricane Katrina. Their shortest player, freshman Devan Downey, is a 5-7 ball of charisma.

Their coach, Kennedy, is sitting first chair only because Huggins lost a staredown with UC president Nancy Zimpher. Kennedy has worn the interim tag with more grace, humor and ability than anyone could have imagined, and he has won over nearly everyone to cross his path.

That included one of the game officials Thursday, Tom Lopes, who saved Kennedy from a technical foul in the second half. Kennedy had stomped to half court and began pantomiming the call missed by official Ed Hightower when Lopes spotted him and hurried over. Lopes escorted Kennedy back to the UC bench before Hightower could give him a technical. Huggins would have been escorted to the locker room with two.

Cincinnati fans have fallen for Kennedy to the point that Zimpher and her henchmen are considering hiring Huggins' former top assistant. If the fans had their way, Kennedy would have been hired long ago. At least five different "Hire Andy" signs were being waved in the crowd Thursday, and because that wasn't enough, the crowd of 13,176 chanted that slogan for nearly a minute of the second half.

Huggins was the captain of the baddest pirate ship in the sea. Kennedy is the conductor of the Little Engine That Could. Cincinnati's collection of eight scholarship athletes includes one NAIA player (Allen), two medical emergencies (Moore and Hicks) and two sub-6-foot freshmen (Downey and Domonic Tilford). This isn't an NCAA Tournament team. This is a freak show.

But Kennedy has this team on the brink of an NCAA Tournament bid anyway. Beating Villanova surely would have clinched it, making this the most painful of Cincinnati's 10 losses. The crowd, surly all game, had enough left to thank the father of this feast.

"Hire Andy!" 13,176 chanted when it was over. "Hire Andy!"

No one mentioned the words Nancy or Zimpher. No one had to. For months she has been the antagonist who steals every scene without having to show her face. But maybe it's time to recast her character.

Under Zimpher -- because of Zimpher, even if inadvertently -- Cincinnati has completely remade its image. Cincinnati basketball is no longer something to be feared or loathed. Cincinnati basketball is something to be embraced.

Story