Wednesday, January 19, 2000
Mickeal, UC feel the heat
No. 1 team is also No. 1 target
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Pete Mickeal shot back to his feet before the referee could begin the count to 10. He was in no danger of being knocked out. He would be able to continue.
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MEMPHIS at UC
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• When: 8 tonight
• Where: Shoemaker Center (13,176)
• Records: UC 16-1 (4-0 Conference USA); Memphis 8-8 (1-2)
• TV: Ch. 19
• Radio: WLW-AM (700)
BY THE NUMBERS
• 18: Points Kenyon Martin needs to become UC's 38th 1,000-point scorer
• 17: Days since UC forward Ryan Fletcher made a 3-point shot in a game
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Mickeal insists he was ready to resume playing basketball, although his demeanor after absorbing a hard foul and landing on his head during the Cincinnati Bearcats' game against Ohio University last Friday suggested he was aching to fight the nearest Bobcat. Several teammates stepped in front of Mickeal, though he claims it wasn't necessary.
“I wasn't going to hit him,” Mickeal said. “If I get thrown down to the ground, I'm not going to stay on the ground. I'm just trying to show him that, "What you did was stupid. It doesn't prove anything.'
“The guy, when he fouled me, he knew what he was doing. He threw all basketball out the window. It was personal with him. That's not basketball ... but I'm not going to retaliate. It's too important.”
Mickeal's emphatic reaction to that foul followed the technical called against him in UC's game against Tulane and a minor dust-up involving power forward Jermaine Tate and a Green Wave player.
This sequence of events raised the issue of whether such exchanges involving the No.1-ranked Bearcats (16-1, 4-0) could affect their pursuit of the NCAA Final Four, which continues with tonight's 8p.m. Conference USA game against Memphis (8-8, 1-2) at the Shoemaker Center.
ESPN analyst Len Elmore, who worked the Ohio game, said the Bearcats were too good to involve themselves in such behavior.
“I don't think it's a problem indigenous to us,” UC coach Bob Huggins said. “I think everybody's so jacked up to play us that stuff like that happens. Everybody is so keyed up emotionally, and our guys don't back down from very much.
“I've looked at the tape, and it's not a question of our guys initiating anything. It's more a reactive thing to what happens. And I don't think people are doing things intentionally; I think they're just so emotionally keyed up that those things happen.”
In addition to leading the Bearcats in steals and minutes played, though, Mickeal leads them in technical fouls. He has had three called against him, all in the past month. Huggins, by comparison, has been nailed once this season.
“We have to understand those things happen, but a technical foul is a personal foul,” Huggins said. “It happened to Pete in the Oklahoma game, and hopefully he's learned from that.”
When Mickeal was teched in the win at Oklahoma, it was his third first-half personal, and he wound up playing 24 minutes and scoring four points. Against UNLV and Tulane, Mickeal followed his technicals with a combined 24 points in the remaining 43 minutes. He scored the next two UC baskets after being punished in the Tulane game.
Mickeal believes he often plays better when he's angry. “Technicals are nothing I'm proud of,” he said, “but they happen. With the way I play, it doesn't really hurt me, and I don't think it hurts me at the next level. Guys know how I play, they know I'm intense, and they know I'm not a bad guy. If I was a bad guy, it would be different. I wouldn't be out here acting like this. Huggs lets me get away with it because he knows I'm just so emotional.”
Elmore suggested UC tried to intimidate Ohio, but Mickeal denies the Bearcats take the court with that intent.
“That's just how we play,” he said. “We're 16-1 doing that.”
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