The Bearcats didn’t deserve to win yesterday. Plain and simple. Letting an opponent attempt, not make, but attempt 15 more shots than you will not win you games. Period. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is: November or March. You can’t expect to win games if you don’t give yourselves a chance, in this case that’s just shot attempts alone.
When the Bearcats went up by six with 13:33 left in the game yesterday against Houston, I said to myself that we were 13:33 away from a league championship. What followed next was along the lines of shocking, embarrassing, and heart-ripping. Getting outscored 44-22 in a 13:33 span on your own home floor on Senior Day is just embarrassing. There’s no other way to put it. It was also shocking. It’s just so rare to see the Bearcats get beat like they did yesterday on their own home court. This is the Bearcats worst home loss since December of 2014 against VCU. That speaks to the culture Mick Cronin has established here. Cincinnati does not lose at home. And if they do, the margin is typically razor-thin.
As far as heart-ripping; man, right now I feel as low as I have felt all season. Zach and I were talking after our Sunday Special and he noticed I was feeling this way. He also asked how I felt after the loss to ECU. That loss, as bad as it was, was actually not that heart-ripping. That loss just made me really mad (I played five games of Pain Pool that night, and I have still not had Skyline on any day there’s a Bearcats basketball game since). It obviously shouldn’t have happened, but losses like that happen all the time in college basketball. But another thing I told Zach was that because we have gone 26 years without going to a Final Four and have made only four Sweet 16’s since 1992 that every loss like the one yesterday is going to cause overreactions from some fans. Have any of you noticed that when the Bearcats are winning everything is calm and all seems right in the world? But when they lose, all Hades seems to break loose. This team not being able to win important games, Mick Cronin not being an offensive coach or recruiting offensive players, whatever it is all has a light shined on when the Bearcats lose. It’s the same way with the Bengals, in case any of you haven’t noticed.
This loss is also making me think about what the Bearcats really accomplished this regular-season. Asides from winning the Crosstown Shootout, not much. They had chances to get Quadrant 1 wins on the road at Mississippi State, Houston and UCF. All three games resulted in losses. The win at Temple was really good, but that’s about the only great win they got this season. I get it that the Bearcats lost a lot from last year, but they were in control of their own destiny to win at least a share of the regular-season title, and possibly the conference outright and they promptly lost both games last week. I tell you what, this has been a sharp, drastic turn on the Bearcats season. Now, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t expect much from them now going into the conference tournament and ultimately the NCAA Tournament. At this point, I’ll be happy just to win the next game. Seriously.
Before the UCF game last week, I thought the Bearcats were going to go 2-0. I thought this team was a team of destiny. They’ll find a way to win both games and an outright regular-season championship, right? Well, they didn’t. But 0-2? Getting embarrassed at home on Senior Day? Unless they have a good showing in Memphis, they’ll be just another team in the NCAA Tournament if they even make it. I’m serious on that too. My biggest fear with the Bearcats right now is if they lose their first tournament game on Friday night, and who knows at this point, the selection committee could leave them out.
I honestly don’t know at this point what’s going to happen with the Bearcats. At this time last year we were celebrating an outright regular-season championship and the high hopes heading into the postseason. We finally had a Bearcats team and, to an extent, a Cincinnati sports team ready for postseason play. Now today we have a team that throughout most of the regular-season appeared like a team who could be a force to be reckoned with in March. But when it mattered most in the final two games of the regular-season, the Bearcats brought us all back to an unfortunate reality that was cast after the season-opening loss to Ohio State: a team with not a lot of offensive firepower that consists of Jarron Cumberland and a bunch of dudes, as Mo Egger would say.
Are the Bearcats much-improved since that loss to Ohio State? Heck yes. But are they ready for postseason play and a deep March run? Honestly, I don’t know. We’ll find out more next week in Memphis.
Here’s the hope I have. Last year the Bearcats were winning heading into March. That winning made you think not once about losing the way they did in the NCAA Tournament. This year, the losing in March has already happened. But there’s still some basketball left to be played. I completely understand when Mick Cronin referenced in his postgame press conference yesterday how Bob Huggins used to say that it’s never okay to lose. But in light of losing yesterday, it didn’t come at the worst of times. Another thing to note is that the Bearcats closed the regular-season with six games in a 17-day span. That’s an average of one game per every three days. Maybe the Bearcats were exhausted this week, and that’s why they put up the subpar performances they did. After all, they beat UCF in a rock-fight earlier in the regular-season and only lost by seven to Houston on the road. The loss to Houston yesterday was the worst it could have been. There is hope going into postseason play, but I still just don’t know what to expect and what’s going to happen with this Bearcats team.
Let me be Frank and Cut to the Chase 