Saturday, December 11, 1999UC ready to make contact
Toughness gives No. 1 Bearcats edge over foes
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati EnquirerFriday was a busy day for the Cincinnati Bearcats. There were final exams, 105 minutes of practice and another 15 minutes spent autographing basketballs for the benefit of the Athletes Reaching Out charity. A number of players were required to lift weights, after they got the feeling back in their hands.
No.1-ranked UC (6-0) thus is another day stronger as it prepares for only its second home game — at 6:05 tonight against Mississippi Valley State (1-6) at the Shoemaker Center.
MISS. VALLEY ST. at UC • When: 6:05 p.m. today at Shoemaker Center.
• Record: UC 6-0; MVS 1-6
• TV: WXIX (Channel 19)
• Radio: WLW-AM 700
BY THE NUMBERS
• 1: Mississippi Valley players with at least 20 attempts and a shooting percentage over .400
• 23: Average margin of defeat for the Delta Devils
• 750: Days since UC lost a game at the Shoemaker Center.
• 1: UC game for which tickets remain — Feb. 23 against Southern Mississippi.If there was one lesson to be learned from the four games played on the two nights of the Great Eight, including the Bearcats' win over No.7 North Carolina, it was the importance of toughness in winning at the game's highest level.
“I think it's part of our game,” coach Bob Huggins said. “I think there probably was a time when we were ahead of everybody else, but I don't think that's true anymore. You look at Michigan State — I thought Michigan State was really strong.”
UC beat North Carolina because the Bearcats overpowered the Tar Heels as much as outplayed them. It was the same when Michigan State faced Kansas the night before and, to a lesser extent, with Connecticut beating Arizona.
It's not enough to have size. It's not enough to have skill. It's essential to have both.
Consider Kansas, which entered the Michigan State game on a remarkable offensive roll but scored only 54 points in a double-digit loss. The Jayhawks were outrebounded by 12, and center Eric Chenowith was punished by big men A.J. Granger and Andre Hutson, managing only six shots.
North Carolina absorbed beatings from UC and Michigan State in the space of eight days. The Heels were outrebounded by a combined 20 in those two games and lost by a combined 19 points. Center Brendan Haywood is not a physical player under normal conditions. With power forward Kris Lang limited by injury and with reserve Brian Bersticker out, there was no one to shield him from contact.
Michigan State and UC followed different approaches to defending Haywood, both with the same basic principle: make him feel it.
The Spartans schemed to keep the ball out of Haywood's hands and allowed him only three shots; UC played behind Haywood but tried to push him out beyond the blocks before
catching the ball. Either way, the Heels lost.
“I think it had a big impact,” Bearcats power forward Jermaine Tate. “We didn't want him to kill us. We tried to contain him, keep him away from the basket and make him make some plays we didn't see him making.”
Haywood's distaste for contact costs him in rebounding. For Chenowith, it often leads him to shoot fallaway attempts that minimize the punishment he must absorb.
Players who show those tendencies under Huggins usually get a hard time in practice and rarely get to participate in games.
“Those guys in any system aren't going to be very successful,” Huggins said.
In training now, the Bearcats pay as much attention to body-fat percentage as to strength gains measured by weightlifting increments. “Body fat percentage ... is the greatest single indicator of athleticism,” Huggins said.
However pleased he may be with his team's physical condition, it frustrates Huggins that UC self-imposed a restriction on bringing players to campus during the summer before they began as full-time students.
Because UC begins classes in September, later than most schools, the preseason training time is cut down. “It's a terrible disadvantage for us,” Huggins said. “If we'd had them in during the summer and lifted three days a week, we'd be so much farther ahead. You can't make it up. Once you lose it, you can't make it up.”
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