By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

NEW ORLEANS - When he signed to play basketball at the University of Cincinnati, Eric Hicks assumed he would win the Conference USA championship every year.

"I just thought it was a given that we were going to win," said Hicks, a sophomore.

UC, after all, had won the league's first seven regular-season titles and Hicks had no reason to believe that streak would come to an end when he arrived on campus in 2002.

But it did.

The Bearcats went 9-7 in the league last season and finished in a tie with Saint Louis for third place in the American Division, five games behind league champion Marquette.

"It wasn't a matter of winning it," UC coach Bob Huggins said. "We weren't even a factor."

But this is a new season and the 11th-ranked Bearcats (9-0) are determined to regain that title, beginning tonight when they open conference play at tiny Fogelman Arena against Tulane (6-4).

Robert Whaley did not make the trip to New Orleans. Associate athletic director Brian Teter said Whaley did not meet Huggins' requirements.

The current UC players already have tired of talking about last season, but it serves as motivation for them.

"It was embarrassing for us," senior guard Tony Bobbitt said. "But we can't look back at last year and say we should have done this or we should have done that. We've got the opportunity now, so we'll just take care of it now."

This will be UC's first appearance in Tulane's 3,600-seat on-campus arena since the 1997-98 season. The Bearcats are 4-5 all time in the building.

"It's different from what you're accustomed to playing around the league," Tulane coach Shawn Finney said. "It can be intimidating, because it's very compact and the fans are right on you."

But it might not be so intimidating for UC, which won in a similar environment at Valparaiso in its only previous road game. In addition, Finney said the Green Wave are expecting a crowd of only about 2,000 tonight because the students are not on campus.

"We'll quiet them down," Hicks said. "They won't have much to cheer about."

Huggins, who was ejected from a game at Fogelman in 1995-96 and watched the second half from the television production truck, said he hopes to use the small confines to his team's advantage. Maybe, he said, UC's full-court pressure will be even more difficult to handle in such cramped quarters.

Tulane commits 16.8 turnovers a game. That's why Finney is so concerned about the UC press, which is forcing opponents into 23.2 turnovers a game.

"Hopefully we can get some easy baskets at the end of their press," Finney said.

The Bearcats are likely to be in the face of the Green Wave players from the outset tonight as they attempt to take their first step toward reclaiming the conference title. And they don't need Huggins to get them fired up for that.

UC at Tulane

Tipoff: 8 p.m. today, Fogelman Arena (3,600), New Orleans.

Records: UC 9-0, Tulane 6-4.

Radio: WLW-AM (700).

TV: Ch. 19.

Line: Cincinnati by 17 1/2.

UC

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG
Armein Kirkland	So.	6-8	7.6
Jason Maxiell	Jr.	6-7	15.6
Kareem Johnson	Sr.	6-7	4.2
Field Williams	Sr.	6-3	13.6
Nick Williams	Jr.	6-4	7.7

Coach: Bob Huggins (358-112, 15th season; 526-184 overall).

TULANE

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG
Vytas Tatarunas	So.	6-6	11.0
Wayne Tinsley	Sr.	6-5	9.9
George Brown	Sr.	6-10	5.6
Marcus Kinzer	Jr.	5-11	8.9
Ben Benfield	Jr.	6-3	11.9

Coach: Shawn Finney (45-55, third season; same overall).

---

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com