By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins didn't fully understand what a rivalry was until he coached against Xavier in his first Crosstown Shootout.

"The biggest rivalry I coached in before was Walsh-Malone," Huggins said.

Like most newcomers to what has become one of the most hotly-contested rivalries in the country, Huggins thought he had an idea what the Crosstown Shootout was all about before he coached in it.

He was wrong.

The UC coach found out the moment he walked onto the court at the Cincinnati Gardens on Jan.31, 1990, that game exceeded any previous conception he held about rivalries.

"I don't even think you figure it out in the (pregame) interviews," Huggins said. "You figure out that it's pretty big in the city, but when you walk in the arena it's just unbelievable.

"It's the intensity of the whole thing from the fans, everything. We played in the Final Four (in 1992) and it's not the same."

Huggins said he felt good about his team's chances even though he went into his first Shootout with a team comprising only eight scholarship players and competed against an XU team that would go 28-5 and featured future NBA all-star Tyrone Hill.

"I had guys like Lou (Banks)," Huggins said. "The harder and the tougher it was, the better they were."

Indeed, it was Banks, who scored 26 points, along with Levertis Robinson (21) and Andre Tate (22) who appeared to have secured a victory for Huggins in his first game against Xavier.

The Bearcats wiped out an early 10-point deficit and were leading by seven with 1:33 left in overtime when everything came apart.

Michael Davenport connected on a 3-pointer to trim the lead to 86-83 with 54 seconds left. UC led 88-84 when official Ken Falkner made two calls that still infuriate Huggins 13 years later.

The first was a traveling call against Banks with 24 seconds left.

"I couldn't believe it," Huggins said. "I was stunned that a guy could make a traveling call from the other end of the floor when there's two guys standing there."

UC led 88-87 lead when Davenport slapped the ball out of Banks' hands. Falkner ruled the ball had touched Banks before it went out of bounds and awarded possession to XU with 17 seconds left.

Jamal Walker then made a 3-pointer to give Xavier the victory.

"If you look at the tape," Huggins said of Falkner's call, "it's very plain that he didn't see it."

After the game, Huggins talked briefly with his players in the locker room, then stormed out and walked across the court, looking up at the emptying seats and muttering angrily. He later kicked the door frame of the interview room.

By now, he was fully indoctrinated into the intensity of the Crosstown Shootout.

Huggins says he doesn't remember walking across the court after the game, but he does remember how it felt to lose that game and what effect it had on his first UC team's postseason chances.

"A win there would have put us in the NCAA Tournament," he said.

Huggins, with a 7-6 record against the Musketeers, is a veteran of the Shootout now. No one has coached in more of them.

But as he enters his 14th XU game, he's still trying to figure out the best way to approach it.

"I've tried to downplay the thing," Huggins said. "If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't downplay it. Last year was the first year we went at it the way they go at it."