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Paul Daugherty: Big Dance offers confident Bearcat Yancy Gates an opportunity to shin
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Paul Daugherty: Big Dance offers confident Bearcat Yancy Gates an opportunity to shin
Paul Daugherty: Big Dance offers confident Bearcat Yancy Gates an opportunity to shine
Withrow grad: 'I guess it's just getting comfortable with who you are'


[Image: bilde?Site=AB&Date=20120311&...nity-shine]
The Enquirer/Leigh Taylor
Yancy Gates is honored alongside his family and Bearcats head coach Mick Cronin on Senior Night (Feb. 29).

Written by
Paul Daugherty

Yancy Gates is leaning back in his chair at the original Montgomery Inn, spooning big gobs of ice cream and talking about roadblocks. It seems the only thing that surprised the UC forward in his first NCAA tournament appearance last year was the ease with which the Bearcats got to the arena.

"I thought we just had to leave (the hotel) early," Gates said.

He was glad the tournament committee this year assigned his team an opening game in Nashville, a mere four-plus hours away by car. He didn’t want to play in Albuquerque. Not at all. "No (UC) fans out there," Gates explained. "It (would have been) us and Bill" Koch, the Enquirer’s UC beat writer.

These are the good times for Yancy Gates. These are the sunny days he’d heard about, and wondered if his ears were playing tricks. The guy has been through some things. He has emerged, now, a better person and player. Which is, of course, how it’s supposed to work.

Part of the deal when you play sports in college, at least in theory, is that your character makes the same strides your game does. That’s not written in the scholarship. It’s not even implied. If you can score and rebound and play defense, you get to keep attending school for free. There’s nothing in there about spending four or five years on campus and becoming a better human being along the way.

It happened with Kenyon Martin, spectacularly. Martin entered UC as a skinny, silent kid with a speech problem, who could block shots. Four seasons later, he left as a team spokesman and overall No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.

Gates won’t be anyone’s lottery pick this year, and he didn’t have any speech issues, unless you count reticence among strangers as an issue. But he has emerged nevertheless. You can see it in his smile, a big, solar eclipse-looking thing that makes its way across his face and nearly closes his eyes. And in his confident ease in dealing with the public.

Oh, and in his game. That’d be what we’re here to discuss. Gates’ game has evolved more swiftly in the past three months than it had in the previous three years.

By his own admission, UC coach Mick Cronin made "a tactical error" before the season, opting for a style on offense that featured a pound-it-in-to-Yancy approach. Cronin decided the offense would revolve around Gates. Gates might have had the game for that. He didn’t have the personality.

Danny Fortson would demand the ball in the low post, then launch it whenever the mood struck. Gates is not Fortson. "It wasn’t the right role for him," Cronin said.
He prefers to spread the wealth and the burden, and has gotten good at it.

What’s amusing now was serious in early January. That’s when Gates returned from the six-game suspension and some began wondering where Gates might fit in UC’s re-invented, four-guard, pop-a-shot offense. The notion that everyone would slow down, to allow Yancy time to jog down the floor and get comfy in the low post, concerned even Gates’ teammates.

"Yeah, they were even worried," Gates said. "They were like, ‘You gonna be all right’?"

To which Gates replied, "I know how to play basketball. I can adjust. I have a pretty good IQ out there." He adjusted. "Now, they’re creating for me. They’re making it easier for me." What also has happened is, Gates’ ability to score inside – 23 against Georgetown last week – has made life easier for Sean Kilpatrick, Dion Dixon and Cashmere Wright. When Gates is effective close to the basket and Jaquon Parker can get into the lane and Kilpatrick and friends are hot from the perimeter, the Bearcats become problematic to guard.

It is a better, wiser UC team that plays Texas Friday. Gates is atop that list. There could be a correlation between growing off the court and becoming more polished on it. Or it could just be that Gates is a senior whose college career is game to game. Desperation is a great motivator.

Gates can’t exactly explain it. He just knows it to be so.

"I don’t know if it’s that I’m getting older, and I’m more comfortable in all situations," Gates said. "I guess it’s just getting comfortable with who you are. From there, you gain more confidence in yourself."

Or, as Sean Kilpatrick put it, eloquently, "We used to see him sweat. He don’t sweat no more."

Lest we forget this whole thing is about more than winning basketball games, at least in theory, Gates is there to remind us.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120...t|Sports|p
 
03-13-2012 09:05 AM
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