By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Eric Hicks didn't hear the cheers when he slammed home two fast-break dunks in the University of Cincinnati's exhibition victory over Athletes in Action Thursday night. But the buzz from the crowd was there.

"You're zonked out when you're out there," Hicks said. "You don't hear nothing. You're just trying to do the right stuff so you don't come out."

There was nothing especially dazzling about either dunk. Rather, the cheers came from UC fans eager to see what marvels lie beyond those shots from a young man nicknamed Helicopter because of his leaping ability.

Hicks, a freshman from Greensboro, N.C., is the most highly regarded of UC's newcomers, a player known for his athletic ability. But neither Hicks nor UC fans have seen the full spectrum of that ability as he continues to recover from knee surgery he underwent last summer.

"I'm about 70 to 75 percent of what I was," Hicks said. "I'm starting to get a little of the quickness back, but not back to where it was. Hopefully it will be back by midseason at the worst."

Hicks, a 6-foot-6 forward, averaged 5.5 points and 3.0 rebounds and 11.5 minutes a game during the two exhibitions.

BANNER IDEA: With Michigan having removed the 1992 Final Four banner from Crisler Arena after forfeiting its games from that season because of the illegal payments made to Chris Webber, perhaps it's time for UC to do a little banner rearranging.

UC lost to Michigan in the Final Four that year. Because the Wolverines have forfeited that game, the Bearcats technically finished 30-4, making the '92 team - and not last year's team - the first Bearcats basketball team to win 30 games in a season.

It also means UC coach Bob Huggins has 501 career victories instead of 500.

More important, it means UC was national runner-up that year. The school would be within its rights to replace the NCAA 1992 Final Four banner at Shoemaker Center with one that reads, "NCAA 1992 National Runner-up."

"I'm going to do it, too," athletic director Bob Goin said as he watched the Bearcats practice last week. "And I'm still thinking about putting up a national championship banner, because if we played that game (against national champion Duke) we might have won. I'm going to put down national champions, question mark."

Michigan, after defeating UC 76-72, lost to Duke in the national title game. UC coach Bob Huggins has long maintained that if UC had gotten past the Wolverines, the Bearcats would have beaten Duke because the Blue Devils were too physically spent to handle UC's full-court pressure.

"We would have beaten them," Huggins said. "Christian Laettner was so tired."

TRADITIONALIST: Huggins doesn't like this year's rules experiment that allows an NBA-width lane in exempt games - the Preseason NIT and other preseason tournaments, such as the Great Alaska Shootout and Maui Invitational.

To the UC coach, it seems like an attempt to make the game more like the international game, which also uses a wider lane.

"America invented the game," he said. "Now all of a sudden we want international rules? I don't understand that. You can't have post players (with the wider lane). That's why all the big European players stay out and shoot away from the goal. All the traditional things we've done here in terms of post moves are out the door. You're going to end up with five perimeter players."

Supporters of the wider lane say it will allow more movement near the basket.

EMPTY SEATS: UC attracted an average of 10,136 fans for its two exhibition games, some 3,000 below Shoemaker Center's seating capacity. Last season, UC didn't sell out a home game until Jan. 16, against DePaul, and sold out only six for a team that went 31-3 and received a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

As of Friday, plenty of tickets were available for next Saturday's regular-season opener against Tennessee Tech.

Single-game tickets for all games except the Dec. 7 Xavier game go on sale at 9 a.m. Monday at the UC ticket office in Shoemaker Center.