By Bill Koch
Watching the NCAA Tournament selection show Sunday so soon after their Bearcats were dismantled by Houston for the second time in five weeks had to be trying for UC fans, who saw their school’s streak of nine straight NCAA appearances officially come to an end.
As I watched the selection show with my wife and daughter, I thought about all the times I viewed it in the Fifth Third Arena media room, wondering where I’d be spending the next weekend. I was reminded later via a Facebook comment by Jennifer Scroggins, my former Enquirer colleague, of a much darker time in the UC program.
Jennifer was talking about Sunday, March 16, 2008 the night the Bearcats were invited to play in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational despite a 13-18 record and a six-game losing streak, including a 70-64 loss to Pitt in the first round of the Big East tournament.
This was the second year of Mick Cronin’s massive rebuilding project. To help lift the program out of its crippled state in the wake of the firing of Bob Huggins, Cronin had assembled on the fly a team of mostly junior college players, who gave everything they had under very difficult circumstances to get the proud program back on track.
I was so impressed by their devotion to the cause that I wrote a book about them in 2018 called “The Forgotten Bearcats.” Jamual Warren, Deonta Vaughn, John Williamson, Connor Barwin, Branden Miller, Ron Allen, Cedric McGowan, Marcus Sikes, and Timmy Crowell laid everything on the line.
Gentry, Vaughn, Sikes, Miller, Warren, Williamson and Adam Hrycaniuk (who had been ineligible the previous year) returned in 2007-08 when the Bearcats improved their overall record by just two wins over the previous season. No one expected them to play in a post-season tournament – until the CBI came along.
The NCAA selection show had been over for three hours hours when I got the call from Mike Waddell, UC’s associate athletic director, who told me not to put my notebook away for the winter just yet. The Bearcats were still playing.
“We’ll find out our opponent Monday morning,” Waddell said.
I called Cronin immediately to get a comment. This was back in the days when the Enquirer actually tried to include news stories in the next day’s paper, even if they occurred after 6 p.m. When Mick answered the phone, he was laughing. I’m not sure if he was laughing because of the absurdity of the situation or because he thought it was funny that I had at least one more game to cover after we both thought the season was over.
“To say that our guys are excited is an understatement,” he said. “When I rounded them up to tell them, they were jumping through the phone.”
Cronin did acknowledge, however, that UC’s record wasn’t what you’d expect from a post-season team
. “I was surprised,” he said, “but when you start looking at our strength of schedule and the way we played against Pitt, it’s arguable that we played them better than Marquette or Georgetown.”
The next day UC learned that it would play Bradley on Wednesday, March 13, in Peoria. On Tuesday, I got into my Honda Civic Hybrid and headed west through Indiana, crossed over into Illinois, and kept on driving until I arrived in Peoria almost five hours later. The weather was cold and windy, in a word miserable.
As I walked into Carver Arena for the game the next night, I found myself thinking of the 14 straight years I had covered UC in the NCAA Tournament from 1992 until 2005. Now here I was in Peoria, Illinois, to cover a meaningless game while both the NCAA Tournament and the NIT were underway in other parts of the country. When I got to my seat along press row (another blast from the past), I found a place card that read, “The Inaugural CBI welcomes: Bill Koch, Cincinnati Enquirer.”
The Bearcats' stay in the tournament was brief. They lost that night to Bradley, 70-67, before 5,114 fans, finishing the season with a seven-game losing streak and a 13-19 record. Bradley (18-15) moved on to face Ohio in the CBI quarterfinals.
“I’m not worried about the record,” Cronin said after the game. “I’m worried about trying to build the program and about trying to develop players.”
Sophomore guard Deonta Vaughn led UC with 23 points, but also committed seven of the Bearcats’ 20 turnovers. The score was tied, 37-37, with 14:05 to go when Bradley outscored UC, 22-10, over the next nine minutes to take a 59-47 lead with 5:40 to go. In the end, the Bearcats just didn’t have enough offensive firepower, even for the CBI.
“Before the game, Coach said if we give up 70, we lose. We gave up 70, and we took the ‘L,’” Vaughn said.
After I wrote and transmitted my game story, I grabbed the place card and put it in my computer bag. I wanted a keepsake of this memory. I still have that place card somewhere.
I drove home the next day in an ice storm. This time UC’s season really was over. Three years later, the Bearcats were back in the NCAA Tournament, beginning the streak that came to an end Sunday afternoon.
Note: Mike Waddell, the senior associate AD who called me with the news that UC would play in the CBI, responded on Facebook after reading this post: "Without question that Sunday night call from Rick Giles with the Gazelle Group was one of the most absurd calls I've ever received. When I called Mick to tell him, he hung up on me the first time. When I called back he asked who we were playing. I told him Penn State most likely. Giles called back 10 minutes later and said Penn State pulled out. He then gave us a choice of playing Wichita State or Bradley. I called Mick back to ask who he preffered. He asked who shot the three ball the best. I told him the Shockers. We chose Bradley. When we came back to 5/3 Arena, Obama was speaking so we had to unload the bus from 1/4 mile away, which was a fitting visual for the end of that season. Sadly, there is no 2008 CBI banner in the rafters, but I did put a yellow post-it note up there with 2008 CBI on it in between the NCAA title banners a few weeks later.
Watching the NCAA Tournament selection show Sunday so soon after their Bearcats were dismantled by Houston for the second time in five weeks had to be trying for UC fans, who saw their school’s streak of nine straight NCAA appearances officially come to an end.
As I watched the selection show with my wife and daughter, I thought about all the times I viewed it in the Fifth Third Arena media room, wondering where I’d be spending the next weekend. I was reminded later via a Facebook comment by Jennifer Scroggins, my former Enquirer colleague, of a much darker time in the UC program.
Jennifer was talking about Sunday, March 16, 2008 the night the Bearcats were invited to play in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational despite a 13-18 record and a six-game losing streak, including a 70-64 loss to Pitt in the first round of the Big East tournament.
This was the second year of Mick Cronin’s massive rebuilding project. To help lift the program out of its crippled state in the wake of the firing of Bob Huggins, Cronin had assembled on the fly a team of mostly junior college players, who gave everything they had under very difficult circumstances to get the proud program back on track.
I was so impressed by their devotion to the cause that I wrote a book about them in 2018 called “The Forgotten Bearcats.” Jamual Warren, Deonta Vaughn, John Williamson, Connor Barwin, Branden Miller, Ron Allen, Cedric McGowan, Marcus Sikes, and Timmy Crowell laid everything on the line.
Gentry, Vaughn, Sikes, Miller, Warren, Williamson and Adam Hrycaniuk (who had been ineligible the previous year) returned in 2007-08 when the Bearcats improved their overall record by just two wins over the previous season. No one expected them to play in a post-season tournament – until the CBI came along.
The NCAA selection show had been over for three hours hours when I got the call from Mike Waddell, UC’s associate athletic director, who told me not to put my notebook away for the winter just yet. The Bearcats were still playing.
“We’ll find out our opponent Monday morning,” Waddell said.
I called Cronin immediately to get a comment. This was back in the days when the Enquirer actually tried to include news stories in the next day’s paper, even if they occurred after 6 p.m. When Mick answered the phone, he was laughing. I’m not sure if he was laughing because of the absurdity of the situation or because he thought it was funny that I had at least one more game to cover after we both thought the season was over.
“To say that our guys are excited is an understatement,” he said. “When I rounded them up to tell them, they were jumping through the phone.”
Cronin did acknowledge, however, that UC’s record wasn’t what you’d expect from a post-season team
. “I was surprised,” he said, “but when you start looking at our strength of schedule and the way we played against Pitt, it’s arguable that we played them better than Marquette or Georgetown.”
The next day UC learned that it would play Bradley on Wednesday, March 13, in Peoria. On Tuesday, I got into my Honda Civic Hybrid and headed west through Indiana, crossed over into Illinois, and kept on driving until I arrived in Peoria almost five hours later. The weather was cold and windy, in a word miserable.
As I walked into Carver Arena for the game the next night, I found myself thinking of the 14 straight years I had covered UC in the NCAA Tournament from 1992 until 2005. Now here I was in Peoria, Illinois, to cover a meaningless game while both the NCAA Tournament and the NIT were underway in other parts of the country. When I got to my seat along press row (another blast from the past), I found a place card that read, “The Inaugural CBI welcomes: Bill Koch, Cincinnati Enquirer.”
The Bearcats' stay in the tournament was brief. They lost that night to Bradley, 70-67, before 5,114 fans, finishing the season with a seven-game losing streak and a 13-19 record. Bradley (18-15) moved on to face Ohio in the CBI quarterfinals.
“I’m not worried about the record,” Cronin said after the game. “I’m worried about trying to build the program and about trying to develop players.”
Sophomore guard Deonta Vaughn led UC with 23 points, but also committed seven of the Bearcats’ 20 turnovers. The score was tied, 37-37, with 14:05 to go when Bradley outscored UC, 22-10, over the next nine minutes to take a 59-47 lead with 5:40 to go. In the end, the Bearcats just didn’t have enough offensive firepower, even for the CBI.
“Before the game, Coach said if we give up 70, we lose. We gave up 70, and we took the ‘L,’” Vaughn said.
After I wrote and transmitted my game story, I grabbed the place card and put it in my computer bag. I wanted a keepsake of this memory. I still have that place card somewhere.
I drove home the next day in an ice storm. This time UC’s season really was over. Three years later, the Bearcats were back in the NCAA Tournament, beginning the streak that came to an end Sunday afternoon.
Note: Mike Waddell, the senior associate AD who called me with the news that UC would play in the CBI, responded on Facebook after reading this post: "Without question that Sunday night call from Rick Giles with the Gazelle Group was one of the most absurd calls I've ever received. When I called Mick to tell him, he hung up on me the first time. When I called back he asked who we were playing. I told him Penn State most likely. Giles called back 10 minutes later and said Penn State pulled out. He then gave us a choice of playing Wichita State or Bradley. I called Mick back to ask who he preffered. He asked who shot the three ball the best. I told him the Shockers. We chose Bradley. When we came back to 5/3 Arena, Obama was speaking so we had to unload the bus from 1/4 mile away, which was a fitting visual for the end of that season. Sadly, there is no 2008 CBI banner in the rafters, but I did put a yellow post-it note up there with 2008 CBI on it in between the NCAA title banners a few weeks later.
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