TicketsNo. 10/10 CINCINNATI (25-4, 14-2) at Tulane (14-14, 5-11)
SERIES INFO: 40th meeting; Cincinnati leads 25-14 overall; Cincinnati leads 9-8 in New Orleans;
Cincinnati leads 14-6 in Cincinnati; Cincinnati leads 2-0 at neutral sites
LAST YEAR'S MEETINGS: Cincinnati won 92-56 on Jan. 1, 2017 at Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati;
Cincinnati won 78-61 on Jan. 21, 2017 at Devlin Fieldhouse in New Orleans
STREAK: Cincinnati - 4
COACHES: Mick Cronin is in his 12th season at Cincinnati (262-139); 15th season overall (331-163)
Mike Dunleavy Sr. is in his second season at Tulane (20-39); second season overall (20-39)
AP/USA TODAY RANKINGS (FEB. 26): Cincinnati (10/10); Tulane (--/--)
RADIO: 700 WLW; Dan Hoard provides play-by-play with color analyst Terry Nelson
TV: ESPN; Kevin Brown provides play-by-play with color analyst Mark Adams
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By Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI – From 1996 through 2004, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats won seven straight Conference USA regular-season championships and eight out of nine. If UC fans began to take them for granted back then, they certainly don't anymore.
Since the Bearcats joined the Big East Conference for the 2005-06 season and then became charter members of the American Athletic Conference in 2013, they've won only one conference title. That came in 2014 and they had to share it with Louisville.
Beginning with Thursday's game at Tulane, the 10th-ranked Bearcats have a chance to win their second league title under head coach Mick Cronin with a over the Green Wave, which will clinch at least a share of the title. A victory at No. 11 Wichita State on Sunday, then, would give them the title all to themselves.
The first order of business for UC (25-4 overall, 14-2 in the AAC) will be to take care of business against Tulane (14-14, 5-11) at 9 p.m. Thursday at Fogelman Arena in Devin Fieldhouse in New Orleans. The Green Wave broke a six-game losing streak Saturday with a 79-68 victory at South Florida, but has plenty of firepower on offense, ranking fourth in the league in scoring with a 74.7-point average.
"Conference championships are huge," said senior forward Kyle Washington. "Basketball connoisseurs in particular, they know what it means. A regular-season championship means that you won the most games out of any team in your conference. That's a hard feat to do in any conference, so we don't sneeze at that a bit and I think the fans should value it more. It means a lot to all of us."
It means a lot to Cronin, too, but as he pointed out Tuesday, a conference title isn't viewed by fans and the media the way it once was.
"Unfortunately winning any regular-season conference championship in college basketball doesn't mean what it did when I was growing up," Cronin said. "You can have a great year and win the regular-season championships but we all know that in our game all people really care about is March Madness. But I will tell you it's hard to do, really hard to do. I know Gary (Clark) cares about it and Kyle, so it would be great for us.
"Now obviously there's a lot more basketball to be played. Whether we win Thursday and we're able to clinch a share, we're still trying to point toward March and get better. But it's a great accomplishment. It's hard to accomplish, really hard."
The Bearcats have a 25-14 lead in the all-time series against Tulane and have won 14 of their last 15 meetings. They'll be favored to win again Thursday, but must contend with the Tulane scoring combination of 6-foot-6 guard Melvin Frazier, who ranks fifth in the league with 16.1 points per game, and 6-foot-8 guard Cameron Reynolds, who averages 15.4, which ranks seventh.
Tulane's problem has been stopping its opponents from scoring. The Green Wave has allowed 74.1 points per game, with opponents shooting 44.6 percent from the field against them.
"In their last five games they're 1-4," Cronin said, "but they've had 20 more assists than turnovers. That's almost unheard of for a team that's 1-4 over a five-game stretch. It tells you that they're really good on offense. Even when they don't win, they're good on offense. Even when they don't win, they pass the ball. They've struggled defensively. Maybe it's a little bit a lack of depth so you're playing tired guys."
Actually, Tulane has 24 more assists than turnovers during that stretch, but it did turn the ball over 16 times against Houston and 13 times against Wichita State.
The Bearcats are no different from any other team in that they, too, will measure the ultimate success of this season by how far they go in the postseason. Certainly their fans will. That doesn't mean they don't appreciate having the chance to win a league title, but that's reality of the state of the game these days.
"March Madness has gotten so big in the course of our lifetimes that you can save your whole season in March," Cronin said. "If you can sneak into the tournament and make a run, people will forget about your struggle. Maybe it's because all people care about is filling out their bracket. I don't know. It's tough to say. It's kind of how it's evolved. Is it good for the game? Probably not. I know in college basketball, coaches and players, they're scrapping and fighting to win their league. They care. Definitely."
The atmosphere at Tulane's Fogelman Arena is different from any other venue in the league. The Green Wave averages only 2,936 fans per game, so the Bearcats won't be able to thrive off the enmity they usually receive from road crowds.
But Cronin said that shouldn't matter.
"We've got a lot on the line," he said. "To me, I would hope that if we played it at 9 in the morning and the gym was empty we'd be playing like we've got a lot on the line. We've fought hard to get to the point where we're at."
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.