Tuesday, February 01, 2000
Hitting the road doesn't faze UC
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tulane coach Perry Clark had the Cincinnati Bearcats exactly where he wanted them: in a deficit, out of sorts, on the road.
The Bearcats made it anyway. They recovered to claim a 72-59 victory early last month over the team that has presented itself as the second-best in Conference USA and convinced Clark there may be something special about them.
“This Cincinnati team compares with any team I've seen; not just on sheer talent, but their mentality,” Clark said. “We had them on the ropes here, probably playing as well as we can play, and they came out in the second half and those kids just wouldn't let them lose.”
This UC team is ranked No. 1 in the nation with its 20-1 record and 8-0 mark in C-USA, but it has not relied on playing at home to polish its record.
UC has 11 wins in 12 games played outside the Shoe, which is the average for the previous 10 seasons under coach Bob Huggins. The best for a Huggins team: 15 in 1995-96.
Neither of UC's opponents this week has lost yet at home. North Carolina Charlotte is 7-0 at Halton Arena. Alabama Birmingham is 10-0 at Bartow Arena. This appears daunting, but it is the sort of circumstance the Bearcats faced in nearly every road game they've played.
UC won in places where few others have been successful this season. The Bearcats were responsible for the first homecourt losses of four opponents, and still are the only team to win at Oklahoma, Tulane and Louisville.
UC's six road opponents to date had a combined record of 32-2 entering their game. They are 55-12 at home now, with UC responsible for half of those defeats.
“Historically, we have not fared well in Birmingham and Charlotte,” Huggins said. UC has a 1-2 record in Halton Arena and a 2-4 record at Bartow Arena.
“I think our guys certainly look for challenges and play better when they're challenged,” Huggins said. “And I'm sure they realize Charlotte is going to be a real challenge for them. When they shoot the ball in, they're as good as anybody in the league.”
One thing that has made UC tough on the road is that freshman guards Kenny Satterfield and DerMarr Johnson have played better away from Cincinnati.
Satterfield averages 6.4 assists and 2.7 turnovers in road games, compared to 4.1 assists and 3.5 turnovers at home. Johnson's scoring average increases from 12.7 to 13.4 points when he leaves the Shoe behind, and his shooting percentage goes from .452 to .518.
At this time last season, the Bearcats were 9-1 in games played away from the Shoemaker Center, then lost three in a row in early February. So this group still has more to do to disconnect from its predecessors.
The obvious difference was that four of those nine wins were claimed by a basket or less, whereas this UC squad has won games away from home by an average of 16.7 points.
“I just think we're so confident in our abilities,” Fletcher said. “I don't even know if we have to play our best every time we go out, but if we go out and play hard, we feel there's nobody really that can compete with us.”
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