Melvin Levett acknowledges the crowd at Senior Night earlier this month. (Enquirer photo)
	ZOOM

Melvin Levett has been with the Cincinnati Bearcats long enough to watch several others stand where he does now: Keith LeGree, Keith Gregor, Darnell Burton, Bobby Brannen. This time, Levett is the senior. He is the one facing the end of his college basketball career.

He is the one feeling the responsibility to delay that end as long as possible as the Bearcats begin their effort to reach the NCAA Tournament's Final Four.

"You can never play in the 64 again after this one," Levett said. "I just want to make it the best I can for me and my teammates, just put it together hard for six games."

Levett had a lot more time than he planned last weekend to think philosophical thoughts. UC was eliminated in the semifinals from the Conference USA Tournament by UNC Charlotte. The Bearcats missed a chance to become a top seed in the NCAAs and wound up with the No. 3 seed in the East region.

They lost against UNCC largely because their squad as a whole was less prepared and less enthusiastic about playing in the C-USA tournament than the opposition.

"The weekend was an eye-opener for me," Levett said. "Knowing what guys really felt like on teams before me -- everybody's looking to you as maybe one of the go-to guys, everybody's looking to you for confidence and leadership.

"Sitting back and thinking, it kind of puts everything in perspective -- like, this is it. That one last chance."

When Levett, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard, arrived at UC from Euclid High in Cleveland, he was known as a spectacular dunker and astonishing athlete, but he'll leave UC as this team's most prolific three-point shooter and with the school record for three-pointers in a game (10).

BY THE NUMBERS

• 0-for-9: Levett's three-pointers in his last game, the Conference USA tournament semifinal loss to UNC Charlotte. • 10: His school-record for three-pointers in one game, Dec. 20, 1997 vs. Eastern Kentucky. Levett was 10-of-14 on threes. • 41 1/2: Inches in Levett's vertical leap. That's almost 3 1/2 feet. • 1: Golf carts hurdled by Levett en route to a dunk at UC's Midnight Madness last November. • 42: Levett's points vs. Eastern Kentucky in '97, the most by a UC player in four seasons. • 161: Career threes by Levett, moving him past Nick Van Exel into fourth place on UC's all-time list. • .378: Levett's three-point percentage last season, best on the Bearcats. • 1,094: Career points for Levett, making him UC's 37th 1,000-point scorer. • 0:01: Time remaining when Levett dunked against Duke in November, giving UC a 77-75 victory in the championship game of the Great Alaska Shootout. Levett and his UC teammates are the only ones to beat 32-1 Duke.

He also has become more adept at making a move with one or two dribbles and elevating for pull-up jumpers.

"He's gone from being a great athlete to being a much better basketball player," coach Bob Huggins said. "I think Mel could have worked a lot more on his ballhandling skills. He's not able to attack the goal the way we'd like him to, use his athleticism. But Mel's made tremendous, tremendous progress."

Levett missed all nine of his three-point shots against UNC Charlotte, including the one in the final seconds that might have given the Bearcats a victory had it connected. That made it seem like one of the most difficult nights of his career when, in fact, he'd played well in many areas.

One of the more difficult aspects of playing basketball at the Division I level is that as hard as may be to hide from 0-for-9, it can be more difficult to make others recognize you've held someone else to four shots and two points in 28 minutes, which Levett did with UNCC's Jobey Thomas.

Levett also scored 12 points in the loss, attacking the goal persistently enough to earn seven free throw attempts and make six of them.

So just as Levett's effort against UNCC ought not to be defined by one aspect of his performance, his career with the Bearcats should not be defined by one aspect of his game.

"I'm kind of disappointed in what happened in Birmingham," Levett said. "I think that playing in that tournament, as far as what we wanted to do as a team, we didn't get out of it what we wanted. And personally, I wanted to go out and prove to whoever voted for first- and second-team all-conference -- people didn't think I improved my game at all. Therefore, I kind of played with a little more inner desire, tried to prove something. It didn't work out that way.

"But we've got another tournament to go to, and I'm looking to get on the big stage now and really show some people that I can play ball."

	"He's gone from being a great athlete to being a much better basketball player."
	--Bob Huggins, UC coach

Levett remembers what the seniors on his previous UC teams did for the Bearcats in the NCAA Tournament -- even though only his first effort proved to be successful. They reached the NCAA Elite Eight in 1996 as a No. 2 seed, but in the past two years have lost each time in the second round.

"They had a lot of confidence in me being a young guy, being a sophomore or a freshman," Levett said. "They had the confidence in me that I was going to come in and do what I had to do to help the team. That's the only thing I can give to these guys is confidence, let them know that they are a major key in what we did all season, and nothing changes now."