TicketsDec. 6, 2010
By Garrett Sabelhaus
GoBEARCATS.com
The University of Cincinnati women's basketball team will not finish near the bottom of the BIG EAST like the preseason rankings predicted.
Head coach Jamelle Elliott doesn't want anyone to know that, though. She's just fine with other teams thinking they'll roll all over the Bearcats.
"I want to stay as far under the radar as possible," Elliott said. "I don't want them to think, okay, Cincinnati's a good team because all the sudden their going to start preparing for us a lot harder than they have been in the past. I want them to think that we're as bad as possible."
Her secret is bound to come out soon, though, after her team gave the No. 4 ranked Xavier Musketeers more of a scare than they wanted when they came to Fifth Third Arena Sunday for the annual Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout.
The Bearcats battled back from a 16 point halftime deficit and cut the Xavier lead to two in the second half before eventually falling 69-61 in front of 7,258 fans.
It was a far cry from the 69-38 thumping Cincinnati took last season from the then No. 5 Musketeers in Elliott's first year. Xavier head coach Kevin McGuff had a first-hand look at how the Bearcats have changed from a year ago.
"You could see their system a year more developed," McGuff said. "I thought they did a great job today, played well and they've played well coming into this game so it's about what I expected they would do today."
In the end the combination of Xavier's 6-foot-5 Amber Harris and 6-foot-6 Ta'Shia Phillips was too much for the Bearcats. Harris and Phillips are easily the biggest players UC has seen all season and scored 20 and 12 points respectively. The two each had three blocks.
Shareese Ulis was the leader for the Cats scoring a season-high 24 points on 8-of-16 shooting, one point shy of tying a career-high.
"Our team was led by a warrior," Elliott said. "She just goes out and leads us into battle every single night. As we play more and more games the troops are starting to be right behind her battling just as hard as she does every game."
Ulis has a knack for finding her teammates well. UC was down six with 3:50 left when Ulis found a cutting Kayla Cook who was wide open under the basket to cut the lead to four.
Xavier answered just enough in the final minutes and got a questionable foul after an inbound pass with the Bearcats down five with 30 seconds to play.
Tyeasha Moss hit both free throws in the double bonus to put the Cats away.
"If you would have told me before this game that we would be down five with five or six minutes to go, I would have said you have to be crazy," Elliott said.
Elliott couldn't ask for a better day on the glass though against the massive Xavier front line. UC was edged out on the glass 35-34, very respectable against a team that, on average, out-rebounds its opponents by 12 a game. That rebounding margin is good enough for first in the Atlantic-10 and 19th in the country.
"Their front line is probably bigger than two of my guys on top of each other," Elliott said. "I can't believe it. I never thought that we would be this close on the boards with these guys. If you would have told me that they would have only out-rebounded us by one rebound I would have said, I'm not going to curse but, `you gotta be kidding me.'"
The Bearcats were led on the glass by Chanel Chisholm and Cook who each had seven followed by Tiffany Turner who pulled in six.
BIG EAST play is next for the Bearcats who have over a week off before welcoming Louisville to town December 15th at 7 p.m.