Saturday, February 26, 2000
Bearcats still playing for top NCAA seed
UC could be No. 1 overall with big finish
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The seeding process for the NCAA Tournament can be difficult to comprehend, even for college basketball coaches, but the Cincinnati Bearcats understand it well enough.
They figure if they win the rest of their games, they will most likely get what they want: the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region, with their first-round games played in Cleveland at Gund Arena.
“We know what we've got to do now — we've got to win out,” said center Kenyon Martin. “We don't have a choice. We've got to go out and play every game like we're trying not to get a two seed.”
The Bearcats (25-2, 13-0) have three games remaining in the Conference USA regular season, starting with Sunday night's visit to the Shoemaker Center by Louisville (17-9, 8-5). They conclude the season with the C-USA tournament in Memphis March 8-11.
With six more victories, UC would have its first 30-win season in school history. The Bearcats are No. 1 in the Ratings Percentage Index by a wide margin. They own 16 victories against the RPI top 100 and 10 against the top 50, the most of any team in the nation. Closing out the season with another half-dozen wins will add to their leads in those categories.
Thus it is possible, even with the Bearcats having abdicated their top position in the wire-service polls, they could be the tournament's No. 1 overall seed if they finish strong. They could have left no doubt by beating Temple and closing on a long winning streak. “We put our fate in somebody else's hands,” UC coach Bob Huggins said.
UC's closest competition for the top seed is Stanford, which has a 22-1 record and is 10-1 against the Top 10. The Cardinal have a game remaining against Arizona (23-4), another contender for a No. 1 regional seed. Duke (22-3), Temple (21-4), Michigan State (21-6), Ohio State (19-5) and Tennessee (21-4) also are in the hunt.
The committee tries to pair the best of its No. 1 seeds with the weakest of the No. 2s when putting together the bracket. That could mean avoiding teams such as Arizona or Michigan State until the Final Four. “I think its a big difference,” Huggins said. “Especially this year, I think it's a huge difference.”
Huggins explained to the Bearcats the importance of pursuing the top seed.
“I think you wouldn't want them coming in saying, "Well, if we would have known that, we would have done something different,' ” Huggins said. “They didn't really understand how it works. I think they have a better idea now.”
“We just hope we don't slip like we did last year,” Martin said. “I want to be close to home. I'm not trying to go back to Boise.”
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 Bearcats still playing for top NCAA seed
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