Assistant coach Rod Baker and guard John Carson try to console D'Juan Baker after the game.
(Saed Hindash photo)
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BOISE, Idaho - He answered all the questions, all the doubts at the end. Was he tough enough? Here's one game-winner. Did he have the heart? There's another. Could he play under pressure? OK, here's a third. . .
Well, that last one didn't win a basketball game for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Perhaps it should have, but West Virginia's Jarrod West assured it would not.
Baker made his fifth three-pointer of UC's second-round NCAA Tournament game against West Virginia with seven seconds left, lifting the Bearcats to a two-point lead. West responded by driving the ball upcourt and banking in an improbable three-pointer for a 75-74 Mountaineers victory. It made Baker less of a hero, perhaps, but no less heroic.
''I hope people will look at me now . . . if anybody wondered if I was tough enough, I hope I answered that question,'' said Baker, who scored 25 in his final college game. ''I always knew how much heart I had, how tough I was.''
As a junior, Baker was absent from the UC rotation in part because of that debate. His shooting ability never has been questioned, but the Bearcats demand aggressiveness and intensity from all their players.
After he was named captain last spring, Baker turned into that player, that person. He hustled teammates to class. He began this season with four games of 26 points or better in his first five.
Following Ruben Patterson's return, Baker began to struggle with his role, and it seemed his career would end in the same nondescript fashion as it began. He committed two major errors in UC's loss at South Carolina, including an offensive foul just as Bobby Brannen was about to give the Bearcats an eight-point lead with a minute to play.
That game was near the start of a stretch in which he cracked double figures just once in nine games and looked to be drifting from prominence. ''He's such a wonderful kid,'' said UC coach Bob Huggins. ''D'Juan Baker is as great a guy as you're ever going to coach.
''I just think he sometimes wanted so much for the team to do well that he didn't want to make mistakes. If he'd miss a couple shots, he'd pass to somebody else and expect them to make it.''
In the final regular-season game, though, as the Bearcats clinched the Conference USA championship, he scored 13 points and made the game-winning jumper to defeat Saint Louis. He tore through the league tournament with 50 points and made the all-tournament team, then opened the NCAA Tournament with 13 points and the shot that defeated Northern Arizona with three seconds left.
With the Bearcats digging from a hole through most of the final five minutes against West Virginia, Baker emerged as their best option. He made a three-pointer to tie the game with five minutes left, another to slash a four-point deficit with 1:03 left and that last one, which just wasn't enough to extend his UC career another game.
''Me and my dad always talked about me being the one in the clutch, having the ball,'' Baker said. ''I still feel like there things I could have done to help us win, that I didn't do enough. It doesn't matter what anyone says. I'm still going to feel that way tomorrow, next week, next month.''
Blame UC, not fate Tim Sullivan column
Notebook: Huggins tried to get whistle at end
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