By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bob Huggins cuts down the net after the Bearcats beat DePaul to win the Conference USA Championship game. (Ernest Coleman/ Enquirer)

FIRST ROUND

No. 4 Cincinnati (24-6) vs. No. 13 E. Tenn. St. (27-5) Time: 3:05 p.m. Friday Place: Columbus TV: 12, 7 Radio: WLW-AM (700)

Denny Crum, in his final season as the head coach at Louisville, was at the Tipoff Party held before the 2001 Conference USA Tournament in Louisville, talking about coaching in the postseason.

Crum, who won two national championships with the Cardinals, knows something about what it takes to win in the NCAA Tournament.

"Sometimes," he said, "when you get to the postseason, it's as much about luck as being good."

Then he pointed at University of Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins.

"And that guy has had all the bad luck," Crum said.

Under Huggins, UC has won or shared eight of nine regular-season league championships. The Bearcats entered the postseason with 150 wins over the past six seasons. They're making their 13th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

"It doesn't seem like that means a whole lot to media people, because you don't read or hear about that very much," Huggins said. "You read or hear about what happened in March all the time."

And March hasn't been kind to the Bearcats in recent years.

Since losing to Mississippi State in the 1996 regional final, UC has lost in the NCAA's first or second round in six of the last seven years.

"If you're a football coach and you go 10-1 and lose in the Orange Bowl, you're still deemed to have had a pretty good year," UC assistant coach Andy Kennedy said. "If you're a basketball coach and you're 24-5 and you get beat in the first or second round of the NCAA Tournament, people think, 'What a disappointing year.' "

So much of a team's success or lack of success in the NCAA Tournament is determined by which team you're matched against, Kennedy said.

"You may play a team that's strong in an area where you're weak," Kennedy said.

Matchups worked in UC's favor when the Bearcats burst onto the national scene after a long drought in Huggins' third season at UC in 1992.

Anthony Buford, who does the color commentary on UC's local TV broadcasts, was a starting guard on that team and remembers how things seemed to break the Bearcats' way.

"To face Michigan State (in the second round) was good for us," Buford said. "We had to live with having a huge lead that we lost in East Lansing earlier in the season. For us, it was a chance to right a wrong. That gave us extra motivation."

The Bearcats also benefited when UTEP knocked off No. 1 seed Kansas and when they were paired in the regional final against Memphis, a team they already had beaten three times.

UC eventually lost to Michigan in the national semifinals.

The next day, Huggins said the Bearcats' appearance in the Final Four would not be a one-time thing, that they would be back again and again.

They haven't returned.

They came close in 1993 when they lost in overtime to North Carolina in the regional final, and again in 1996 when they were beaten by Mississippi State in the regional final, victimized by their own poor shooting and Dontae Jones' 23-point performance.

But the most heart-breaking turn of events occurred in 2000 when the Bearcats entered the C-USA Tournament ranked No. 1 in the country and armed with national player of the year Kenyon Martin, only to see Martin break his leg in the first round of the conference tournament.

Without Martin, UC was eliminated in the second round of the NCAA Tournament by Tulsa.

"Who doesn't think we would have gone to the Final Four if Kenyon doesn't break his leg?" Huggins said.

But they didn't, and they still haven't returned since that magical run in 1992.

"In my opinion, he's been unfairly criticized along those lines," Buford said of Huggins.

"But I don't think he puts much credence in that criticism. I know it still burns in him to win the thing and get back to the Final Four."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com