By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Last Tuesday's upset of fifth-ranked Oregon provided encouragement to University of Cincinnati basketball fans who were starting to believe this would be a down season.

It also gave an emotional lift to the Bearcats' players.

But it did nothing to change UC coach Bob Huggins' opinion of his team.

"We're just a bad team," Huggins said Saturday. "Want do you want me to say? We're bad."

With that kind of assessment from their coach, the Bearcats (5-2) shouldn't have to worry about feeling too full of themselves when they take the floor at 5:30 p.m. today to face Clemson (6-0) at the Civic Center at Anderson, about 30 miles from here.

Clemson is playing its pre-Atlantic Coast Conference games in the makeshift arena while on-campus Littlejohn Coliseum is being renovated.

Huggins' opinion could be disregarded as some sort of psychological ploy to prevent a letdown in his players for the next game, except the coach usually means what he says.

Was he encouraged by the Oregon tilt? Not necessarily.

"I was happy that we won," Huggins said. "And I'll be happy if we win tomorrow. What's encouraged? We made some shots. We had the same shots before and didn't make them."

The guy who made a sizeable portion of those shots was Bearcats guard Tony Bobbitt. All eyes will be on him today to see if he can replicate his 29-point, career-high performance.

Bobbitt plays with such emotion and enthusiasm that he seems a likely candidate to get carried away with the first success he has experienced on the Division I level. But he says he has already put that game behind him.

"I've been back down to earth since the four zeroes hit the clock against Oregon," Bobbitt said. "That was my night. I was feeling it. I got my confidence back. But that one's over. Anybody can get beat. We've got our minds focused on Clemson now."

Clemson has won all six of its games against a soft schedule. The Tigers have played Wofford, High Point, Penn State, Maine, Gardner Webb and Winthrop.

Clearly, UC looms as their first real test before they open ACC play Jan. 5 against Duke.

"This schedule was made for this reason," Clemson coach Larry Shyatt said after his team's win over Winthrop on Thursday night. "We needed to develop a degree of confidence."

Bearcats point guard Taron Barker will have his work cut out for him for the second straight game. After holding Oregon's Luke Ridnour to 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting, he'll be matched against Edward Scott, a second-team all-ACC selection last season who leads the Tigers with 19.3 points a game.

Unlike Ridnour, Scott doesn't look to score in transition every time down the floor. In fact, he scores most of his points after Clemson's offense breaks down and he's forced to go one-on-one.

"They're more of a grind-it-out team on offense," Huggins said. "They'll be the biggest, strongest front line we'll play all year."

But the game might present more of a mental than a physical challenge for the Bearcats, who must make sure they don't carried away with a little success.

That's a message that was hammered home rather forcefully by Huggins on Thursday during a particularly bad stretch of practice.

UC's players talk as if they understand.

"We can't be up here one day and down here the next day," Barker said. "We've got to be even every day in practice, off the court, all the time."

Said Huggins: "I'm anxious to see what all of them will do. We've got to keep getting better. We've got to find some way to get this group to where we're back to 25 (wins) and back in the NCAA Tournament."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com

UC at Clemson

Tipoff: 5:30 p.m. today, Civic Center at Anderson (5,000).

Records: UC 5-2, Clemson 6-0.

Radio: WLW-AM (700).

TV: Fox Sports Net.

Series: UC leads 3-0.

Line: UC by 6.

UC

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG
Leonard Stokes	Sr.	6-6	14.9
Jason Maxiell	So.	6-7	12.1
Kareem Johnson	Jr.	6-3	11.4
Field Williams	Jr.	6-3	11.4
Taron Barker	Sr.	6-1	8.1

Coach: Bob Huggins (337-102, 14th season; 505-174 overall).

CLEMSON

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG
Olu Babalolo	So..	6-6	8.8
Ray Henderson	Sr.	6-8	9.3
Sharrod Ford	So.	6-9	10.8
Chevy Christie	So.	6-4	12.2
Edward Scott	Sr.	6-0	19.3

Coach: Larry Shyatt (61-71, sixth season; 70-80 overall).