Mick Cronin's message sinking in
Larry Davis says Bearcats have matured on the court

By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • December 27, 2010


The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger
Yancy Gates thinks UC's Big East tournament loss to West Virginia last March really helped the Bearcats grow up.

They get it now. Or at least they think they do.

For the past few years, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats have listened to their coach, Mick Cronin, preach to them about what it takes to win in the Big East Conference, about how every mistake is magnified in conference games, about the importance of attention to even the smallest detail.

It took a three-game run through the Big East tournament last year and a crushing loss on a last-second 3-point shot to West Virginia in the quarterfinals to drive home the point, but better late than never.

“I think our brains changed,” said senior guard Larry Davis. “In a mental way, we matured on the court.”

Nine months later, the Bearcats are set to begin their sixth season of Big East play when they face DePaul at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Fifth Third Arena.

They arrive at this juncture unbeaten through 12 games, still carrying the lessons they learned in Madison Square Garden back in March and still bearing the scars of not making it to the NCAA Tournament.

“I think that really helped us grow up,” said junior forward Yancy Gates. “In close games we’ve got to close them out. (Against West Virginia) maybe we could have made one more free throw and that 3-point shot wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe we didn’t guard a play right and they got a basket off of it. Those types of little things do show up at the end of big games.”

DePaul (6-6) is starting over under first-year coach Oliver Purnell, the former Clemson and Dayton coach who won his 400th career game last week. He takes over a program that has won only two Big East games in the last two years.

The Blue Demons, who have won three in a row, will press every chance they get, even if they don’t have as much depth as UC, so this could be an entertaining game to watch, with lots of scoring and sprinting up and down the court.

If that’s the case, the Bearcats will probably have the edge because of their depth and defensive ability. UC leads the Big East in scoring defense, allowing 54.0 points per game.

“Our depth is a big key to our success and it’s going to have to continue to be,” Cronin said. “A lot of people are scared to go to the bench. If they go to the bench, they’ve got problems. If we go to the bench, it’s an advantage to us probably nine out of 10 games.”

UC, which was picked to finish 12th in the Big East this year after finishing 11th last year with a 7-11 record, has been one of the surprise teams in the league. But its 12-0 record has mostly raised eyebrows around the league from coaches and media who look at the Bearcats’ schedule and wonder just how good they are.

“They probably think that we ain’t played nobody yet,” Davis said.

That’s a skepticism that Gates, for one, can understand.

“We’re just taking it as we have to earn respect,” Gates said. “We know that some of the teams that we beat aren’t known. Some of the team that we beat, we didn’t know of.”

But they know the Big East. And they know that DePaul has had a tough two years. They also remember losing to a Blue Demon team two years ago in the Big East tournament that had gone 0-18 in the league during the regular season.

But that was a much different UC team. In the minds of the Bearcats, it was a different era altogether.

“We’re not going back to that day,” Davis said.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll...312270082/

we've lost several crucial games by a 3 at the buzzer over the years.....I think the WVA in the ncaa hurt the worst due to it being the ncaa tourney. We've lost two BE conference tourney games on 3's...Cuse and last year WVA. Then there was Miles Simon 3/4 miracle 3 at the buzzer.....good grief can we hit one for a change in a big game? Maybe this is our year?!