By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Xavier head coach Thad Matta talks to his team during drills at the Cintas Center Thursday. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

Two days after telling the Enquirer he didn't "know if we weren't as ready as we needed to be to play (UC)" in last year's Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout, Xavier coach Thad Matta said Thursday that wasn't the case.

UC won last season, 75-55, at XU's Cintas Center.

Matta said before Thursday's practice that the Musketeers were ready last year and will be ready Saturday for this year's Shootout.

"It bothers me a little bit to say we weren't prepared as a staff to play the game," Matta said. "Our team will be ready to play."

Matta said the issue of him not being ready last season was one partially created by media trying to come up with story ideas.

"That's discouraging, because we work so hard to prepare ourselves for every game that we play," Matta said. "I understand people like to make something out of whatever, and the controversy that wants to be created for this game, maybe I can't control that, but we have a game to play on Saturday. And we will work just as hard as we did last year to prepare our guys to play."

TV RATINGS DOWN: Fans, coaches and players will say the Crosstown Shootout is intense as ever in Cincinnati, but nationally the game has lost some of its appeal since 1999 when Xavier upset a No. 1-ranked UC team.

That game, televised by ESPN on Dec. 18, 1999, drew a 1.45 share or 1.1 million households. The next season, though, UC was ranked 17th and the game lost almost half of the national-television audience when only 611,000 households tuned in for a .76 share Dec. 14, 2000.

Then last season, when both teams were unranked and the game was Dec. 14, it drew a .76 share with 627,000 households viewing. The average share for all college basketball games on ESPN last year was .84.

ESPN spokesman Mike Humes couldn't explain the drop-off in viewership but said the game does well by itself, without any conference or TV promotional affiliation.

"It's on its own, not part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge," Humes said. "The game has its own interest cache and people who know every year that it's going to be on."

LUNCHEON CANCELED: The Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout Luncheon, a pregame ritual for 13 years, was canceled this year because it had "become a little stale," said Skyline vice president for marketing Tom Allen.

"The event certainly leveled out," Allen said of the luncheon, which was held on game day last year and regularly drew 800-900 people. "So we decided to take a year off and see where we go next year."

That doesn't necessarily mean the luncheon will be back next year. Skyline might combine its VIP party, which was Wednesday night, with some elements of the luncheon, Allen said.

At its height, the event drew 1,200 people in 1998.

Last season, the luncheon was held on the day of the game, which caused UC coach Bob Huggins to leave a team shootaround early.

"It had become very time-consuming and difficult for the coaches," Allen said.

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com