TicketsBearcats Dominate Conference USA All-Decade Team
Huggins, Martin earn unanimous honors
Contact: Brian Teter
3/8/2005
Kenyon Martin is Conference USA's Player of the Decade. |
CINCINNATI, Ohio--Since Conference USA was formed in 1995, the University of Cincinnati has dominated the sport of men?s basketball, and so today, when the conference announced its All-Decade honors, it was decorated with Bearcat hoop legends over the past 10 years. Bob Huggins was named the Conference USA Coach of the Decade, while former All-American Kenyon Martin was chosen as the Player of the Decade. Both were unanimous choices from a panel of media representatives from C-USA cities that have covered the league.
C-USA also announced its 10-member All-Decade team, and three former Bearcat greats who were league Player of the Year recipients, head that impressive list. Besides Martin, the consensus National Player of the Year in 2000, Danny Fortson and Steve Logan were voted to the All-Decade team, as well.
Both Fortson (1996 and 1997) and Logan (2001 and 2002) were two-time C-USA Players of the Year, as well as consensus All-Americans for the Bearcats. Rounding out the Conference USA All-Decade team were Dwyane Wade and Travis Diener of Marquette, Reece Gaines and Francisco Garcia of Louisville, Quentin Richardson of DePaul, Antonio Burks of Memphis, and Charlotte?s DeMarco Johnson.
Martin was Conference USA?s most decorated player during its first decade of existence. Not only was the former No. 1 overall pick of the 2000 NBA draft the National Player of the Year, he was the C-USA Player of the Year in 2000 and a three-time league Defensive Player of the Year. The Dallas, Texas native led UC to a No. 1 ranking into the 2000 C-USA Tournament, but he went down in the quarterfinals with a broken leg, ending the Bearcats dream of a trip back to the Final Four and a national championship.
Huggins has led the Bearcats to eight regular season championships in the league?s first 10 years, including four postseason tourney titles. He is also the only coach to win the prestigious Ray Meyer Coach of the Year award three times and has led the UC to 13 straight NCAA Tournaments, the third longest streak in the nation. The Bearcats finished C-USA with an all-time league record of 123-33 (.788), 21 games better than the second most, Memphis.
?I appreciate and am thankful for this honor, but it also shows what can happen when you have really good players, and we have been fortunate to have a lot of those here for a long time,? Huggins said. ?Conference USA has been good to the University of Cincinnati and UC has been good to the league, as well.?
The Bearcats, ranked 21st this week in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and No. 22 by the Associated Press, open postseason play on Thursday night at 9:30 p.m. EST in the quarterfinals of the Kelly Tires Conference USA Tournament in Memphis against the winner of Wednesday?s Houston-South Florida contest.