While he tends to get long winded ..some good stuff....
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Ever have one of those moments when something really incredible but totally unexpected just happened and you don't know exactly how to verbalize what you're thinking so you just let loose some high decibel unintelligible yelp that is impossible to spell or phonetically pronounce and sounds much like what would come out of a dog's mouth if Larry Flynt rolled his wheelchair on his tail?
I've had this happen three times....
1) My sophomore year in college when at a party, the two most attractive girls in attendance started sucking face. (Sadly, this was my the highlight of my sexual year. Actually, it might be the highlight of my sexual life.)
2) When Larry Centers fumbled during a Bengals/Cardinals game in 1997, giving Jeff Blake a chance to work his magic and throw a game-winning touchdown pass to Carl Pickens in week one. (This was the day Princess Diana died. Am I a bad person for thinking of Larry Centers, Jeff Blake, Carl Pickens whenever I see anything related to Princess Di?)
3) Last night when Dion Dixon stole the ball from Luke Loucks and dunked it.
To that point, I had literally bitten off every fingernail, exhausted myself from frantic pacing, and had started inventing expletives to yell at the TV in disgust, encouragement, despair, and triumph. From about the 5:00 mark of the first half, every play, every possession in what amounted to a street fight with nets was met with an extreme reaction. If you were in the other room listening to me, you would think I was simultaneously having orgasms and getting my limbs sawed off.
Then Dion Dixon stole the ball and dunked it.
I'm That Fan, the guy who never thinks his team is going to win games that like that one. And you if you root for UC, you know what I'm speaking off. Nearly every school who's played in enough big games has lost games in the most heartbreaking fashion, but it just seems like games like that one, slugfests where no one can pull away, NEVER go UC's way.
Think of every big UC game over the last 20 years. There have been plenty of wins, but the games that stand out are the ones where the guy chucks in the 35 footer to beat the Bearcats or the one where the dude with the 11% three-point shooting percentage can't miss in the final minutes, or the one where the point guard dribbles off his foot, or the one where Darnell Burton gets called for traveling, or where Gerry McNamara makes the three........
If you're a Bearcat fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
And so despite feeling pretty good despite them being down one at half, despite loving how sloppy the game was being played because of how it favored Cincinnati, despite being very impressed by UC's effort (never say this team doesn't play its ass off) in the face of one of the best defenses the Bearcats have seen, and despite Sean Kilpatrick knocking down the two biggest threes of his life late in the second half, I spent most of the night failing to convince myself that they were gonna win.
Then Dion Dixon stole the ball and dunked it.
I don't know if Dion is a drinking man, and I doubt we'll ever find ourselves in the same tavern, but his drinks are on me for life if he is and if we are. That moment might not have iced the game...UC still needed more stops (How freaking good were they defensively?), made free throws (I did not figure on this team being as good from the line as they were last night), and needed to again overcome themselves (Maybe they're most endearing and enduring quality. Also when I buy Dion his drinks, I will be sure to ask about his two late-game turnovers. Then I will hug him), but it was the signature moment in a signature game.
It's also when I followed up that sound that preceded the dunk and steal combo with this....
"WE ARE WINNING THIS F***ING GAME."
(I know, I know, I went "we." Look, my team hadn't been to a Sweet Sixteen in 11 years, there was a minute and a half to go and tensions were high. Give me a break)
Those who know me and have watched UC games with me (including the poor folks in Vegas who got to witness my act during Bearcats/Longhorns Friday) know how rare such bravado is for me.
But plays like that never happen, and if they do, they happen against the Cats and not for them. And I guess I figured that if Dion can pull off what Bearcat players in games like that never pull off, then maybe, just maybe, a win was meant to be.
We've spent so much time, not just with this year's UC team but with many recent incarnations, comparing them to their predecessors, discussing what made them different from the squads of the "glory years." And in one respect, the grit the Bearcat showed in one of the most physical basketball games you will ever see, stood up to whatever standard was set by past UC teams that always seemed to embody exactly the kind of toughness the Bearcats put on display that night.
But in another sense, Dion's play felt so un-big-game-Bearcat-like. Goofy as it may sound, corny as it may sound, after 20 years of rooting for this program, it was the kind of play I've come to expect Cincinnati NOT to make. That might not be fair, but it's true.
These guys are different though. The big basket is being made, the key defensive stop is materializing, and unlikely heroics are becoming the exception. And for once, I find myself actually expecting UC to figure out ways to win big games against good teams.
We spent years wondering when, and sometimes if, UC would ever have a team that was just like the ones of old. In reality though, we just wanted them to have one good enough to have a chance to show how it was different from them.
These Bearcats, on top of the many things they've accomplished this season, have more than taken advantage of that opportunity.
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I always felt like the people who swore off UC's basketball program in the months after the school hired Mick Cronin did so more out of convenience than anything. It didn't take a basketball savant to understand that the Bearcats were not going to be very good for a while, and of course, they weren't.
I think that had Mick Cronin inherited a fully-stocked roster, complete with experience players and littered with future pros, that people wouldn't have been so fast to burn their UC shirts and replace them with Kansas State, and later West Virginia gear. I've always felt that for some, turning their back on the Bearcats had more to do with needing a good team to root for and the Wildcats and Mountaineers being logical teams to turn to than it did loyalty to Bog Huggins. Clearly, those two teams were going to be better off in the short term, and both were. And maybe the emotional investment into the new teams by the old Bearcat fans was worth it, even though I sorta doubt it.
But I feel sorry for those folks this morning.
It's great to root for a team that wins every year, but I think even the people who root for consistent juggernauts would tell you that what makes the big wins sweet is thinking about the heartbreaks along the way. The reason being at GABP on the night that Jay Bruce clinched the division in 2010 was so sweet is because I remember being in that ballpark for so many meaningless, drab, September games. If the Bengals ever win a playoff game, I'll think of the years of misery the franchise put me through and how rewarding it would feel to finally see them win one. UC's recent football success has often made me think of the few people who actually gave a crap about the program pre-2006.
Last night's win was awesome for a billion reasons, but the best part was thinking about the hopelessness and helplessness of watching the Marvin Gentrys and Timmy Crowells of the world play for UC, and of hearing people tell me that no one cared about Bearcat basketball anymore. I thought of what it felt like to watch a team that didn't even qualify for a conference tournament. I thought of what it felt like to watch them lose games in ways that were previously unimaginable to teams previously unheard of.
I thought of the looks I'd get when I told people I was still a UC basketball fan, which is the same look I've seen people give to coworkers they know are being laid off.
I thought of the nights I sat in near empty Fifth Third Arena, when the coaches didn't even have to yell instructions to players.
I thought of the people who still called our shows to talk about the Cats. Even if they were screaming about the coach or the direction of the program, they still cared when it didn't seem like many did.
I thought about the people who, despite it being hard to at times, still gave a crap about UC basketball.
I know the program's bandwagon is filling up, and I'm very, very okay with that. Most sports fans, to at least a small extent, are bandwagon fans and I say the more, the merrier, and I hope those who have returned are enjoying what the team is doing now.
But I feel for those who left and never came back, because while they might have found a new team to root for, there's no way it can be the same. There's just no way. They've missed out on a memorable journey and a hell of a season. They missed out on what last night was....on what this recent run has become....and on sharing UC's success with their fellow fans. I'm sure some are resentful and I'm sure others are apathetic, but either way, they're missing out.
Read more:
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Sweet 16 celebration thread
![[Image: 487795_114453135352089_100003622105102_73652_163.jpg]](http://s18.postimage.org/j2xnzkw15/487795_114453135352089_100003622105102_73652_163.jpg)
The highlight at the 1:35 mark is :ncaabbs:
