Bearcats grinding through dog days
Cronin feels Kilpatrick's, others' pain - to a point


The Enquirer/Gary Landers
Mick Cronin: "I love (Sean Kilpatrick), don’t get me wrong, but I think everybody’s sore. It’s a long year. That’s part of it.”

Written by
Bill Koch

Mick Cronin calls this time of year the dog days of the basketball season, similar to the dog days of baseball in the heat of July and August. The season has become a grind, the end is still a long way off and all that time on the court is beginning to take its toll physically on the players.

“It’s too early to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, but it’s definitely late enough to where it’s not new and fun anymore,” the UC coach said Thursday.

As the Bearcats (15-6 overall, 5-3 in the Big East) reach the halfway point of their Big East season at Rutgers (11-10, 3-5) Saturday, no one is hurting more than sophomore guard Sean Kilpatrick, UC’s leading scorer at 15.6 points per game.

Kilpatrick is trying to play through a groin injury he suffered Jan. 14 against Villanova and a hip pointer – or bone bruise – that he incurred last Saturday near the end of the game at West Virginia.

“I went up for a blocked shot and they called goal-tending and I came down on my hip,” Kilpatrick said. “It was pretty painful. I got up and I was feeling all right, but once I hit half-court, I started feeling it. I was, like, this is crazy. It was like a real sharp pain, so Coach sat me out. It still hurts bad, but Coach is limiting me during practice. If I stay in practice a little bit too long, he’ll look at me, like what are you doing? I just try to give all I can.”

Kilpatrick is coming off a subpar offensive game Monday in UC’s loss to Syracuse when he scored only eight points, about half his average. He did not attribute his curtailed production to injuries but conceded that the pain affects him while he’s on the court, mostly when he’s on defense attempting to move laterally.

“You can’t really blame anything like that on being hurt,” Kilpatrick said. “Look at Kobe Bryant. He has a torn ligament in his wrist. He’s not complaining about it, so why should I?”

And even if he did, he wouldn’t get much sympathy from Cronin.

“I’m not happy about it,” Cronin said of Kilpatrick’s injuries, “but as a coach you try to be matter of fact. If a guy’s healthy, he plays. If he’s not, he doesn’t. To me, if you’re well enough to play, you’re well enough to play well. I think everybody’s sore. I love S.K., don’t get me wrong, but I think everybody’s sore. It’s a long year. That’s part of it.”

That’s not to say Cronin does not make concessions for the so-called dog days. At this time of year, practices become a little shorter, with less physical contact, as he tries to preserve his players for the games. With 10 more of them to play before the Big East tournament, he understands that his players can push themselves only so far.

“We try to keep the guys fresh,” Cronin said. “We do not over-practice. One thing we do a lot is shoot. It’s almost like football, how much do you actually hit? What we call the combat parts of our practice, where there’s physical combat for the rebound, that’s limited from here on out, actually starting last week.”

In addition to being limited with his lateral movement, Kilpatrick said, simply running up and down the court is painful, but he said there’s no chance he won’t be on the floor Saturday at Rutgers, which has lost three of its last four. It’s that time of year, with the Bearcats needing every win they can get to bolster their NCAA Tournament resume.

“I’m playing,” Kilpatrick said. “Injuries are part of the game. I would do anything and everything to help my team. These guys are guys that I battle with every day. I’m not going to just give up on them now.”

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120...h-dog-days