By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

They assembled for practice Monday afternoon expecting the worst.

"There's going to be a lot of running, a lot of yelling, a lot of fussing," University of Cincinnati center Rod Flowers said.

The Bearcats, cast from their lavishly appointed Shoemaker Center locker room and banished to an auxiliary room downstairs after Saturday's loss to Marquette, also are forbidden to wear their standard UC practice gear.

There would be no red or black teams for practice, just shirts and skins. Point guard Taron Barker captured the mood best when he showed up wearing a shirt with a picture of a skull and crossbones on the front.

UC coach Bob Huggins cancelled a scheduled media conference so he could spend more time practicing and viewing tape.

"That's a locker room for champions, for guys who play hard," Huggins said. "They don't deserve the same treatment as the guys who do (play hard).

"It's got nothing to do with motivation. It's loyalty to the people who have played so hard and earned that stuff."

Senior forward Leonard Stokes agreed with Huggins that the Bearcats don't deserve to dress amid the luxuries of a state-of-the-art stereo and big-screen TV that they usually enjoy.

"People sacrificed a lot for us to have some of the stuff we've got," Stokes said. "We don't appreciate it.

"It's like when you're little and you have toys and you don't do what you're supposed to do. They take it away from you."

Huggins said Monday's practice, which began with a film session at 2:30 and ended with shooting at 6, was just so-so.

Stokes said the session was no more demanding than a typical practice.

"We've just got to fix what we need to fix to win games," he said.

Flowers said he saw the banishment coming. He was a freshman two years ago when Huggins did the same thing. It took the Bearcats three games to get back into their locker room - a loss to Louisville, an overtime win over Wake Forest and a victory over Tulane.

"It worked before," Flowers said. "So I assume it will work now. It makes me angry, but it gets you more focused on what you've got to do."

Forward Jason Maxiell tried to take it all in stride.

"It really doesn't bother me," he said. "It's discipline really. I've been disciplined my whole life. Some players may need it, but some players may think , 'Oh, well. He's just being Huggs.'"

Dan Peters, UC's associate head coach, said Huggins is merely sending a message to these players about what's expected of them after two straight losses.

"You've got to do something," Peters said. "You can't sit by and be idle. You've got to be pro-active about it. He's going to try to establish what his philosophy is, make sure those kids understand this is what he believes in, what's been successful."

Peters said UC's players shouldn't be surprised that they were booted from their locker room and essentially stripped of their Bearcats identity in practice.

"They came here to play for him," Peters said. "They knew what the bottom line was. They're all told that when they're recruited, that it's not going to be easy."

Peters, who coached with Huggins when he began his head coaching career at Walsh College in 1980, said he has never seen him this frustrated with one of his teams.

Every team loses games, Peters said. What bothers Huggins and the other coaches is when the Berarcats lose because they don't appear to be playing hard.

"You absolutely lay it on the line," Peters said "You can't tell me people in here on Saturday didn't think at times in that game that we didn't just flat quit. You could feel it. That's not what we stand for."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com

UC at Louisville

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: Freedom Hall, Louisville.

TV: ESPN.

Radio: WLW-AM (700).

Last meeting: Louisville won 74-71 last season at Freedom Hall.