Saturday, January 15, 2000

UC 73, Ohio 59

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Tate, Mickeal wake up Bearcats in second half

BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Kenny Satterfield (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        If you add up the damage the Cincinnati Bearcats inflicted upon their opponents in the past seven days, you'll discover those three unfortunate basketball teams fell by a combined 46 points. And still, UC must explain itself.

        The No. 1-ranked Bearcats led by only five at halftime of Friday's midnight game against Ohio, and even though they left the Shoemaker Center at roughly 2:30 a.m. with a 73-59 victory, there was no more cause to celebrate than there was time.

        “I think that's just basketball,” said senior forward Jermaine Tate. “You can't win by 30 every night. Everybody's not going to have a good day every day.”

        Tate had his best day in a number of days against Ohio, while matched often against his former Ohio State teammate, Shaun Stonerook. Tate displayed an uncommon confidence on offense and produced 14 points, his first double-figure game of the season and equal to his highest output as a Bearcat.

Pete Mickeal blocks Sanjay Adell from basket. | ZOOM |

        “I had a couple friends over before the game, and they told me to just be more aggressive,” Tate said. “I think that really pushed me to score more.

        “I think I just tried to focus on it more. Instead of just getting the shot up, I tried to concentrate on what I was doing, and just not really think about missing it.”

        Forward Pete Mickeal led the Bearcats (16-1) with 18 points, all but four of them in the second half. He did not miss a shot after halftime.

        When Ohio (9-8) closed a comfortable UC lead to 55-49 with 10:05 left on a 3-pointer by freshman guard Steve Esterkamp, Mickeal scored consecutive baskets and added a free throw to stretch the lead again. The Bobcats did not score for the next 4:48.

        “I didn't play that much in the first half. I played a little more in the second,” Mickeal said. “Kenny got me the ball in some places I could score and I finally hit the outside jumper. I was just playing regular. The first half, I wasn't really aggressive enough and made a few bad decisions.”

Ryan Fletcher (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        Ohio became only the fourth team to avoid plunging into an overwhelming deficit in the first half against UC. Xavier and Tulane both held leads against the Bearcats, and Iowa State trailed by eight in the Big Island Invitational championship game. Everyone else was down by double digits — an average of 17 points — by halftime.

        The Bobcats were only five back at 34-29, but that wasn't really what got UC interested in this game. The change in their approach did not come until Ohio began setting some punishing screens in their halfcourt offense early in the second half.

        One of those freed guard Dustin Ford for a 3-pointer that made it a four-point game, but a series of hard picks that followed convinced the Bearcats to play with more passion.

        “Anytime some teams score on us early, we really pick it up,” Mickeal said. “Sometimes, that's the worst thing you can do.”

        UC scored the next nine points, four by Tate off great passes from Johnson and Kenny Satterfield and five from Mickeal, with his 3-pointer from the left wing giving UC a 45-32 lead.

        “I thought they came out with a lot more intensity in the start of the second half,” said Ohio coach Larry Hunter. “They tried to be a lot more inside-oriented, and they were able to hit some 3s when we packed it in there.”

Kenyon Martin steals from Patrick Flomo. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        Beginning with the Xavier game, the Bearcats had made a habit of flourishing in the first several minutes after tipoff. They built leads that amounted to 59-2 during a seven-game stretch — only Boise State even managed to score before the Bearcats put up at least five points — but against both Tulane and Ohio this week there was not the same immediate success.

        The Bearcats were sloppy enough to turn over the ball on three of their first 10 trips against Ohio, and there were several shots taken in that stretch that were uninspired enough they could have been counted under that heading.

        When the first television timeout came a little more than four minutes into the game, UC's lead was only 5-4.

        “I don't think it was that we didn't play hard in the first half,” Huggins said. “I thought we played poorly, and they had something to do with that. I didn't think it was as much a matter of effort as it was execution.”

        The hour seemed to be a factor for everyone involved, although Huggins wasn't interested in that excuse. The Bobcats turned over the ball 14 times in the first half. The Bearcats were punished on the boards, 20-14.

        “To come in here at midnight, a rough environment like this -- we played well, but you look at the stat sheet, what killed us was 22 turnovers,” said Ohio guard Dustin Ford. “You're not going to beat a high school team with 22 turnovers.”

        Seniors Mickeal and Kenyon Martin were well off their daytime games, shooting a combined 4-of-11 from the field before the break. Martin finished with nine points, his fourth single-figure game this season. Point guard Steve Logan scored eight of UC's first 10 points, including two 3-pointers, but there was no consistent source of offense.

        There was a single burst of clarity from UC in the first half, from the 16:44 mark until 12:18 remained, during which it outscored Ohio 13-5 and built a nine-point lead. The last basket in that surge was scored by Tate, who rebounded a missed free throw by Mickeal and tossed up a quick hook shot that made it 18-9.

        The Bobcats changed defenses frequently, but UC was getting shots it most often makes and still hit only 11-of-30 in the first half. From 3-point range, the Bearcats missed 10 of their 12 attempts.

        “We had great shots and didn't make them,” Huggins said. “That's kind of happened the last couple weeks. We've not shot the ball very well. We've worked on shooting the ball, but we just haven't made them when the games come.

        “We're going to have to start making some shots.”

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OHIO (59)
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Esterkamp       25   5-7   0-0   0-1  0  2   13
Adell           32  4-10   3-6   2-5  2  4   12
Stonerook       38   4-8   0-0  5-14  5  3    9
Flomo           18   1-4   0-0   0-1  0  3    2
Ford            34   3-9   2-2   0-1  3  3   10
Howell           1   0-1   0-0   0-0  0  0    0
Reed            17   0-1   0-0   0-3  3  1    0
Crawford         4   1-2   0-0   0-1  0  0    2
Jewett           1   0-0   0-0   0-0  0  0    0
Hunter          29   5-9   1-3   1-8  0  4   11
Mcvicker         1   0-0   0-0   0-1  0  1    0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 23-51  6-11  8-35 13 21   59
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Percentages: FG-.451, FT-.545. 3-Point Goals:
7-16, .438 (Esterkamp 3-3, Adell 1-4, Stonerook
1-4, Ford 2-5). Team rebounds: 4. Blocked shots:
3 (Flomo 2, Adell). Turnovers: 20 (Hunter 6,
Stonerook 6, Adell 4, Flomo 2, Ford, Reed).
Steals: 3 (Flomo, Hunter, Stonerook).

CINCINNATI (73)
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Tate            35  6-10   2-7   4-7  2  0   14
Mickeal         28  8-12   1-3   5-8  0  4   18
Martin          35   3-9   3-4   1-8  1  3    9
Johnson         29  4-11   3-5   3-3  3  3   12
Logan           28   3-6   0-0   0-1  4  1    8
Satterfield     27   1-8   7-8   1-1  6  2   10
Stokes           5   0-2   0-0   1-1  0  1    0
Fletcher        11   1-3   0-0   0-2  0  0    2
Little           2   0-1   0-0   0-0  0  0    0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 26-62 16-27 15-31 16 14   73
_______________________________________________

Percentages: FG-.419, FT-.593. 3-Point Goals:
5-18, .278 (Mickeal 1-2, Johnson 1-6, Logan 2-4,
Satterfield 1-4, Stokes 0-2). Team rebounds: 3.
Blocked shots: 7 (Martin 4, Johnson, Fletcher,
Stokes). Turnovers: 8 (Johnson 2, Mickeal 2,
Fletcher, Logan, Stokes, Tate). Steals: 7 (Martin
4, Fletcher, Johnson, Stokes).
__________________________________
Ohio               29   30  -   59
Cincinnati         34   39  -   73
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None.  A: 13,176. Officials:
Steve Welmer, Larry Ware, Jackie Sanders.

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