Tickets
By Bill Koch
GoBEARCATS.com
NEW ORLEANS - For the past two weeks, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats have been frequently reminded about the last-second 3-point shot that Tulane's Jonathan Stark used to hand the Bearcats one of their most damaging losses of the season.
"They showed us a clip of that buzzer shot approximately 20 times in the last two days just to put it in our mind that it kind of affected our chances with the whole (NCAA) tournament deal," said sophomore guard Kevin Johnson.
By the time they arrived at Devlin Fieldhouse on Saturday afternoon to face Tulane again, the players were eager to make amends. But before they could take the floor to set the tone, a group of more than 100 UC students who call themselves the Rally Cats had already taken care of it.
The Rally Cats, who had filled two busses for the 12-hour drive from Cincinnati, showed up early, cheered almost constantly, and easily drowned out the smattering of Tulane fans among the crowd that was announced as 2,430.
The Bearcats took care of the rest, jumping out to an 18-4 lead midway through the first half and cruising to a 63-47 victory that gave them their fifth straight 20-win season. They prevailed with sticky defense, tenacious rebounding and outstanding 3-point shooting to put that Feb. 14 loss behind them once and for all.
After the game, the entire team walked over to the corner of the arena where the Rally Cats were stationed and saluted them for their support.
"It was awesome," said associate head coach Larry Davis. "We had louder fans than they did. I told the guys before the game, I said, `Do you guys understand where you play? Look around. There's a lot of red around here. You play for Cincinnati, one of the elite basketball programs in the country. You need to go out and play like you play for one of the elite basketball programs in the country.' "
The victory was the third in a row for the Bearcats, who improved to 20-9 overall, 11-5 in the American Athletic Conference. Tulane, which was led by Louis Dabney's 18 points, lost for the fourth straight time and ninth time in its last 10 games. Stark, the hero in the first UC-Tulane game, scored only six points. He missed the only 3-point shot he took.
Johnson was instrumental in UC's fast start, hitting three 3-pointers to make sure the Bearcats didn't suffer another 0-for-11 3-point shooting night like the one they had in their first encounter with Tulane.
"Any time any of our perimeter guys are making shots it makes our offense flow a lot better." Johnson said. "Hitting early shots definitely changed the game."
The Summit Country Day product finished with a career-high 15 points, but he had plenty of help. Octavius Ellis produced his second career double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Gary Clark pulled down nine rebounds to go with eight points, five assists and two blocked shots. And Shaq Thomas scored 11 points, giving him three straight double-figure scoring games for the first time in his UC career.
The Bearcats shot 47.2 percent from the field and made 7 of 15 from beyond the arc. They out-rebounded Tulane, 40-26, and recorded 18 assists after having 20 against Central Florida on Wednesday night.
"We were just pumped about playing the way we're supposed to against these guys because the first time these guys saw us it wasn't the Bearcats," Clark said. "They were beating us to the rebounds and boxing us out. We need to get up and down fast. That's one of our main objectives from now on. We have to play that way. We're getting better at it."
Seeking every possible edge, Davis had pulled out another motivational ploy from his bag of tricks at the team meeting Friday night.
"We have history class sometimes and sometimes we have artwork," Clark said. "Right now we have a monster chasing us. Tulane was the monster this week and next is Tulsa. There's a big gap and you've got to jump over that to leave the monster behind. If you don't outrun him and come up short against these teams, you'll get eaten."
The Bearcats easily outdistanced the Tulane monster. They never led by fewer than 12 points once they jumped out to that big early lead and led by 23 with 4:19 to play. UC scored only four fast-break points, but Davis said that doesn't mean its emphasis on pushing the ball in transition was shelved or that it failed to pay dividends.
"Early in the game we didn't get layups in transition but what we got was a push-up to a quick cut to a quick ball screen and they could never get their zone set, just waiting on us and lock in on everybody," Davis said. "We've got to continue that."
Davis agreed after the game that this was one win UC had to have.
"The (selection) committee can't look at us and say you got beat by Tulane twice," he said.
But with two regular-season games remaining - at Tulsa on Wednesday night and at home vs. Memphis next Sunday - they haven't safely cleared the abyss yet. The monster is still chasing them.
Bill Koch covered UC Athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBEARCATS.com in January, 2015 as featured columnist. Follow him on Twitter @bkoch.
After playing at Tulsa on Wednesday, the Bearcats return home for the final game of the regular season on Sunday, March 8, at Noon. For tickets to that contest or the 2015 American Athletic Conference Championship (March 12-15 in Hartford, Connecticut), call 877-CATS-TIX or visit BearcatsBasketball.com.