Thursday, March 02, 2000
UC nears perfect conference season
Only DePaul tonight, St. Louis Saturday in way of 16-0
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Bearcats are in pursuit of basketball perfection, but not the sort that can be easily quantified. They are in position to finish 16-0 in Conference USA, but they readily admit they've been far short of perfect to this point.
Point guard Kenny Satterfield cites UC's inadequate on-the-ball defense. Coach Bob Huggins mentions rebounding that does
not measure up to the program's historical standards. There is the issue of UC's habitual second-half deterioration. No one even talks about a recent slump in the team's perimeter shooting, but it's there.
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UC at DePAUL
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• When: 9 p.m. today
• Where: Allstate Arena (17,500), Chicago
• Records: UC 26-2 (14-0 Conference USA); DePaul 18-9 (8-6)
• TV: ESPN
• Radio: WLW-AM (700)
BY THE NUMBERS
• 11.1: Quentin Richardson's scoring average the past seven games.
• .273: Richardson's shooting percentage in that period.
• 35: Percent of Richardson's shots in that stretch that were 3-pointers.
• .290 Richardson's 3-point percentage in those games.
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Despite all that, No.2 UC (26-2, 14-0) enters tonight's 9 p.m. game against DePaul (18-9, 8-6) at the Allstate Arena just two games short of the first unbeaten season in C-USA. The Bearcats have won their league games by an average of 16 points, with only two opponents finishing within 10 points.
As rare as an unbeaten conference season is, with only the most dominant teams able to finish the job, UC remains unimpressed by the possibility. Duke's great team did it a year ago in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Kentucky's 1996 national champions did not lose a Southeastern Conference regular-season game. The last team to do it in the Big Ten was Indiana's 1976 national champions. It's never happened in the Big East.
So?
“I don't really look at it as going unbeaten in the conference,” senior forward Jermaine Tate said. “I look at it as trying to get closer and closer to the tournament, working on what we need to work on and trying to get the highest seed.”
The Bearcats are trying to immerse themselves in the urgency of playing for a No.1 NCAA Tournament seed, which they see as more of an accomplishment — and, more to the point, a greater advantage — than the unbeaten conference season.
“It's all kind of preparation for where we need to go from here on,” Huggins said. “We've taken care of winning the league. Now, it's just preparing to continue.”
No top seed has ever lost a first-round game in the NCAA Tournament. Only five of 40 No.1 seeds in the 1990s failed to reach the Sweet 16, which is the step the Bearcats were unable to take the past three seasons.
UC never has been a No.1 seed. Three times it has been seeded second — in 1993, 1996 and 1998 — and its best teams played in the tournament (1959 through 1963) when the field was positioned more according to geography and there were no official seedings.
There would be no doubt about the Bearcats' position on the bracket should they finish with a win here and another at home Saturday against Saint Louis, then a sweep of the Conference USA tournament next week in Memphis. They probably then would be the No.1 seed in the Midwest Region and play their first game at the Cleveland State Convocation Center.
“We've talked to them about how things work — the last 10 games, how important they are,” Huggins said. “This notion that it's more of an important game for DePaul because they need it to get into the tournament or whatever — we need it to get the No.1 seed. So it's not any more important for them than it is for us. That's what our guys have to understand, which I think they do.”
Huggins has not yet been able to impress upon the UC players the importance and value of employing maximum effort for each game's full 40 minutes. The Bearcats have appeared bored with some of their conquests.
That has led to the late defensive lapses that occurred in wins over UAB, Houston and Louisville. Not so easily explained is their recent offensive malaise.
In the past five games, UC has shot .338 (24-of-71) from 3-point range. Take out guard DerMarr Johnson's 11-of-31, and the Bearcats are at .260 in those games. They passed for 67 assists and committed 61 turnovers in that stretch.
With that, the Bearcats have scored in the 60s in two of their past five games, after it happened only twice in the first 21. Martin has never been better offensively, topping 20 points in six of his past seven games, but the offense rarely has been as fast and fluid as it was in the previous two months.
It would be no surprise to see DePaul employ an extended 1-3-1 zone — a similar defense to the one that slowed the Bearcats against Xavier and Temple. The Blue Demons played the zone almost exclusively in last year's overtime win against the Bearcats.
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