Cincinnati finally was tested this week.
On Thursday, the Bearcats hosted the Crosstown Shootout, taking on heated rival Xavier in what always seems to be one of the most physical and hard-fought games of the season. Cincy rolled, winning 66-46 as they completely shut down Tu Holloway and thus shut down Xavier's entire offensive attack.
It was an impressive win against a Xavier team that has been anything but this season. Just like Cincinnati's 34 point win over Dayton has been questioned, as well as their 10 point win at Oklahoma. Simply put, heading into Sunday's showdown against Villanova, the only thing that has been proven by the Bearcats this season is that they can dominate the middle of the Atlantic 10.
Beating the best in the Big East is a different story.
And early on, it looked like the Bearcats were going to be completely overmatched.
Corey Fisher caught fire early, scoring 20 of his 21 points in the first half, and Villanova jumped out to a lead that reached 20 points early in the second half. With Mick Cronin already saddled by a technical foul, Ibrahima Thomas picked up one of his own -- which also happened to be his fifth foul -- it looked like this game was going to get away from Cincy.
But it didn't.
The Bearcats were able to cut into the lead, getting all the way down to seven at point, as they pressured Villanova into forcing turnovers and attacked the basket to the point that each of the Wildcat starters had four fouls. All of this came from a team that is not known for their spurtability.
So what did this game tell us about the Bearcats?
Well, we now know that they aren't the kind of team that can go into Villanova and leave with a win. But there also aren't many people outside of southern Ohio that believed the Bearcats were capable of a win like that prior to Sunday.
I'm not yet convinced that Cincinnati is a potential tournament team.
When he wants to be, Yancy Gates is arguably the best big man in the Big East. But how often does he play that way? Dion Dixon, Rashad Bishop, and Sean Kilpatrick have all put up impressive numbers early in the season, but they combined for 13-40 shooting from the floor against Villanova, scoring just 33 points and finishing 1-16 from three. As a team Cincinnati shot just 36.1% from the field, 2-20 from three, and 15-25 from the line.
The Bearcat's toughness was promising on Sunday afternoon. They were down and responded, cutting a 20 point lead to seven.
But if Cincinnati was really a tournament team, would we be commending their ability to turn a blowout into a mildly interesting game?
Monday, January 10, 2011
Cincinnati still looks like a mediocre team |
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2 comments:
Yes, losing to the No.7 team on the road by 7 is quite the indictment of Cincinnati...or not. Admittedly, a win would have (maybe) told us that Cincy was really good. But losing to a very good team on the road doesn't seem to indicate much about about a team, other than the fact that they are not a top-10 team.
They lost by 11, not seven. They got the lead down to seven. And I'm not saying they aren't a tournament team, I just don't buy it yet. Getting behind by twenty at Villanova and scrapping back to cut the lead to seven when that is the only game that comes against a real opponent does not convince me that this is a team that will be dancing.
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