Rob Oller commentary: Buckeyes, ’Cats rarely play, but rivalry bitter
Wednesday March 21, 2012 7:41 AM
Quietly, lest they worry their jitters might spread to the youth, older Ohio State basketball fans express anxiety over what they know about Cincinnati. And over what remains unknown.
They know that 50 years ago this week, Cincinnati won the second of back-to-back NCAA national titles by defeating the Buckeyes in the 1962 championship game. This after stunning OSU in the 1961 final.
Those scars would have faded by now, but we generally fear what we don’t know, and Buckeyes fans don’t know enough about the Bearcats’ general DNA to salve wounds and relieve insecurities that go way back.
Had Ohio State and Cincinnati met regularly through the years, the larger sample size would have created concrete distance between 1962 and today. Instead, the teams have played just once during the regular season — in 2006 when OSU won 72-50 in the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis — and never again in the NCAA Tournament.
That changes on Thursday, when No. 2 seed Ohio State plays No. 6 Cincinnati in the Sweet 16 in Boston. It will be a nervy 40 minutes for Buckeye Nation, especially among those who recall the 1961 and 1962 losses.
Dispatch file photo
Jerry Lucas, left, John Havlicek (5) and Ohio State lost to Cincinnati in the 1962 NCAA championship game.
There is more to the friction between the programs than two games played a half-century ago. Among the suspicion and mistrust, it long has been rumored that then-UC coach Bob Huggins was the source who reported potential Ohio State violations to the NCAA that resulted in Buckeyes recruit Damon Flint ending up at Cincinnati in 1993. It is further hinted that current Bearcats coach Mick Cronin was the Woodward High School assistant coach who accompanied Flint on his visit to Columbus, where the free meal occurred. After Flint landed at UC, Huggins brought in Cronin as video coordinator.
Other slights and verbal slams — some real, some perceived — followed through the years. Some of the back-and-forth has contributed to Ohio State choosing not to schedule Cincinnati, but also there is the sense that OSU is loathe to risk what it views as its alpha-dog status in the state; that playing Cincinnati is not a win-win for the Buckeyes.
Regardless of what has built upon the rift between the two basketball programs, the initial bad taste began during the Kennedy administration.
“There is as much pressure on (Ohio State) to win this game as there was on us back then,” said Gary Gearhart, who was a senior on the 1961-62 OSU team. “Just the fact that we’re playing Cincinnati and the fact they did to us what they did. It’s been 50 years and friends still get on me about it. They say, ‘I was a little kid staying up late listening to you guys, and you got beat. And it killed us.’ ”
Cincinnati fans find the OSU angst just so delicious.
Tony Yates chuckled the knowing chuckle of someone who sits on the winning side of history. Yates, who was a junior guard on the Bearcats’ ’62 title team, will always be able to say he never lost to the Buckeyes, who were ranked ahead of UC entering the ’62 game.
“There wasn’t any chip on our shoulder,” said Yates, who also coached Cincinnati from 1983 to ’89. “It was more just the obvious thing that when the other team was rated No. 1 in front of you ... it inspired you to play harder.”
Yates sees no reason Ohio State fans should be overly nervous about playing UC in March.
“The young kids don’t know anything about (1961 and ’62). You can’t expect them to,” Yates said. “It’s just something for the old-timers to hash back and forth.”
Perhaps. But there is more to the hashing than boasting and bragging. There is a tinge or two of resentment that rises from the hilly river town. Yates wonders why Ohio State has avoided Cincinnati for decades.
“On numerous occasions since the ’60s, Ohio State was approached (to play UC) and turned it down,” Yates said. “It probably goes above the head coach. I think it goes up into the administration.”
Yates believes some highbrow Buckeyes are scared to put their school’s premier status to the test because they’re not sure what would happen.
That worry works itself down into much of the older fan base, too. It is left to the younger generations to declare, “Buckeyes vs. Bearcats? Bring it on.”
On Thursday, finally, it gets brought. Buckle up. It should be a good one.
roller@dispatch.com
Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.
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