I know today was a regular season game against a struggling UCONN team at home, but it felt like so much more. On the way to the game I passed some people glancing at the work being done at Nippert stadium, and a little kid pointed and said “Look Mom a Cincinnati mark!” as he pointed to the fading white C-paw on the middle of the field. I smiled because growing up in Cleveland I never got to experience a college campus until I was visiting friends at their own.
I arrived at 5/3 an hour early because I live off campus now and wanted to avoid traffic, I walked through Linder Center and what a crowd. Everyone was waiting to get Autographs from the 92 final four team. Children and families excited for the Bearcats! Entering the Arena I was wowed by the amount of effort put into making this throwback game special. Jon really put a lot of work building new graphics (it could not have been quick to put together all of those circles to make the video board look old) and it really helped get myself and fellow students into the mood. I wasn’t even a year old yet and I would imagine all other students hadn’t been bored, so the info about inventions that were released in 1992 were great!
Usually I would leave statistical analysis to Nick because he actually knows what he’s talking about but I’m bored so i’ll give it a shot.
Things that amaze me. Washington/Clark/Cumberland on offense. Look at the Total points column, together they accounted for 62 of UC’s 82 points. The future of this team is so bright I can’t stand it. Anyone on any night can step up and contribute, and that’s something UC has never had before. It used to be if our two producers had a bad night we lost. It’s why we never made it far in the tourney. These days, any combination of 3 players can step up and push this team to a victory. Even Quadri Moore stepped up for a game this year.
One of my biggest fears for this team was free-throw shooting, and as we can see that has been getting better each game. By tourney time I don’t think we’ll need to worry about free throws. UC made 10-12 tonight. Defensively UC has 27 Defensive rebounds. That is going to and any other blog will confirm key for UC. Personally, I wanted us to have more Offensive rebounds too, but during Mick’s post game interview he mentioned he would rather this team hustle back to defense than waste too much time trying to get offensive rebounds. Obviously one of us is wrong. I’m sure there’s more to be talked about regarding stats but i’m dumb so i’ll leave those to any other blog.
During half time they announced the 92 team as if they were about to play today and that was something special. Icing on the cake of today was our decisive victory over UCONN. Usually this game is terrifying and a rock fight and after what UCONN did to us in the tourney last year in .8 seconds (impossible) i’m so glad. This team is special, it’s their conference and everyone else just lives in it.
