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Beware the Mad Irish
Location: Wish I was on the N17...
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SHOCKED AND DISMAYED - UC IS #1!!!
Holy crap!!! My Alma Mater is #1 at something anyway...  Unfortunately it's because all of you hate us 
Bob Huggins grabs the jersey of Donald Little to express his displeasure after Little argued a call with the referee during a 2002 NCAA Tournament against Boston University. Little was later kicked off the team.
Linky
Quote:
Why are Bearcats hated?
Complex factors add up to giant image problem
By C. Trent Rosecrans
Post staff reporter
The Bearcats are No. 1. The most-hated, most-reviled, most-demonized college basketball program in the country.
At least, according to Sports Illustrated On Campus.
It wasn't exactly unanimous, but when the staff members of the magazine inserted into more than 70 campus newspapers nationwide were searching for their "Least Rootable Teams" in college basketball, there was a pretty fair consensus.
Matthew Waxman, who wrote the article in the Nov. 11 issue, said the one team that was on everyone's Top 10 was the University of Cincinnati. Not everyone had the Bearcats No. 1, he said, but because they were on everyone's list -- and no other team was -- it made them a clear front-runner for the top spot.
"When we were deciding, the editors and writers got together and talked about teams we had a gut feeling about -- and we decided to research them," Waxman said. "You could lay out a case for each school. Some schools we found there were two sides of the issues. Some schools negative stuff came up again and again and there wasn't another side. It wasn't the most scientific thing.
"We didn't start out saying this was our No. 1 choice; it was a consensus. (UC) was pretty much in everyone's first group."
That consensus led to Waxman's article. In it, he wrote, "Every year without fail the Bearcats trot out a police, er, starting lineup stocked with (junior college) transfers and miscreants."
When the Bearcats tip off the season tonight against Valparaiso, there will be no junior college transfers on the court and only two on the bench.
Starting point guard Chadd Moore resents the reputation of his teammates being called, among other things, miscreants.
"If you really look at it, we've really got some nice guys," said Moore, himself by all accounts a pretty nice guy who enters every press conference with a smile and leaves with a "thank you." "It's not everyone. Some guys have made mistakes in the past, but who hasn't made mistakes?"
• Top target
There are places that have worse transgressions -- a player was killed at Baylor and the coach was accused of covering it up, there was alleged academic fraud at Georgia, one player was dismissed and four others were suspended at St. John's for their roles in a sexual encounter with a woman they met at a strip bar in Pittsburgh. From his jail cell, a former player accused Missouri coach Quin Snyder of committing NCAA violations. The NCAA uncovered 41 violations committed by Snyder and his staff. St. Bonaventure was citied by the NCAA for lack of institutional control and it cost not only basketball coach Jan van Breda Kolff his job, but also university president Robert Wickenheiser his job.
The Bearcats are not even the worst offenders in the state. Ohio State fired coach Jim O'Brien this past summer for allegedly giving money to a player, and the Buckeyes face possible NCAA sanctions.
The difference, perhaps, is that the Bearcats win. UC has been to 13 consecutive NCAA tournaments, the third-longest active streak in the country, tied with Kentucky and behind Arizona (20) and Kansas (16). UC has been a top-three seed eight times and has started the season ranked in 10 of the last 13 seasons. The Bearcats enter tonight's game unranked at the start of the season for the first time since 2001. That season the Bearcats went 31-4 and were No. 5 in the final Associated Press poll.
"All we did was win. It makes for enemies," said former UC standout and current Denver Nugget Kenyon Martin. "When you keep winning and are beating everybody, it makes for people not to like you. I'm sure there's some people that don't like Duke and North Carolina and all those teams, teams that keep winning year after year."
Winning, though, isn't the only culprit. Critics of Huggins and his teams point to rap sheets and grade sheets.
• Lineup problems
When writing the Sports Illustrated On Campus story, Waxman had limited space. So he was faced with a conundrum. How better to illustrate his point of Bearcats and their run-ins with the law -- a guy taping his roommate to a chair and allegedly torturing him? Or a guy allegedly punching a police horse? Either one sounds great if you're trying to prove a point.
Waxman went with Donald Little.
Little was dismissed from the UC basketball team in 2002 following his arrest for beating a former roommate.
He was sentenced to 30 days in jail after admitting to his involvement in the beating of his then-roommate Justin Hodge. Little pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault, admitting he punched Hodge twice and knocked out one of Hodge's teeth.
The punches were what Little was convicted of, but Waxman went with the initial allegations, that Little tied Hodge to a chair, threw weights at his head, hit him with a whiskey bottle and burned him with a coat hanger before stabbing him.
"Definitely the tone, had it been for the main magazine, it would have been a lot straighter," Waxman said of the way the article was written. "It's written for college kids. They don't sit down for 20 minutes and read an entire article; they read it between classes. We try to have blasts to amuse them that are factually correct."
It was Art Long who allegedly punched a police horse in 1995. A jury acquitted him of the charges. But still, those allegations are brought up when people talk about the Bearcats' transgressions.
"That kind of thing lingers in the memory a lot longer than the garden-variety assault charges that happen all over the country," said CBS Sportsline college basketball writer Gregg Doyel.
Long, a junior college transfer, was ordered to attend a 14-week counseling program to have misdemeanor domestic violence charges dropped.
"A lot of people don't understand the word 'acquitted,'" Huggins said.
The Bearcats have had other arrests, including current UC players Armein Kirkland and Eric Hicks. The charges against both Kirkland and Hicks were dropped.
Among former players, Dontonio Wingfield served half of his one-year sentence for assaulting two police officers, and Shawn Myrick spent six months in jail after pleading guilty to sexual battery.
But still, it's Little and Long who are best remembered.
Little, by the way, has a liberal arts/social sciences degree from UC.
• Taking a chance
There was never any question that Robert Whaley was a gifted basketball player. Of all the questions surrounding the 6-foot-10 center, talent hasn't been one of them.
Still, Whaley was just the latest example of a guy Huggins took a chance on and didn't work out.
Whaley signed with Missouri out of high school, but Snyder rescinded his scholarship offer while Whaley was on trial for two counts of criminal sexual conduct. That trial ended in a mistrial.
He then went to junior college and pleaded no contest in a Kansas court in a plea deal that reduced two felony counts of aggravated battery to two misdemeanor counts.
Then he came to UC.
"The average basketball fan is also the average American, who believes in 'innocent until proven guilty' and second chances and all that -- as long as it happens somewhere else," Doyel said. "Bring that sort of thing to my back yard, and we've got a problem. That's how people think. Huggins doesn't suspend players because fans or the media demand it. He doesn't back off recruits for PR purposes. He recruits who he wants, and he sticks with them -- and the average college basketball fan says, 'There goes Huggins.' Well, sure, there goes Huggins. Whether he's doing it for basketball purposes or humanity purposes -- and let's be honest; it's probably a mixture -- he's consistent."
The problem is, Whaley wasn't the first player with problems Huggins has brought to UC. And he won't likely be the last.
Last season Whaley never played up to his potential, at one point quit the team and served as a constant distraction. Whaley contributed just 127 points and 54 rebounds to the Bearcats in his 22-game career. He transferred to NAIA Walsh University in August.
"That's where Huggins keeps bringing it on himself," said ESPN.com's Pat Forde. "You can't bring in the Robert Whaleys of the world when you've brought in the Donald Littles of the world and the Art Longs of the world."
• Huggy Bear
Just as fat guys are called "Tiny," short guys are called "Stretch," Bob Huggins is called "Huggy Bear."
UC wasn't "the least rootable team" under Tony Yates or Ed Badger. It was just another program with some tradition and little else.
Coming from Akron in 1989, Huggins changed that. He turned the Bearcats around on the court and some fans off off the court.
Fair or not, any time a UC game is televised one camera is sure to be focused on Huggins. During a game he has few unexpressed thoughts and he is known as very demonstrative.
Huggins has the reputation as the ultimate tough guy. Much of it goes back to his blue-collar roots and rust belt upbringing. While other coaches wear $3,000 suits, Huggins is the everyman in the black UC windbreaker or a jacket and no tie.
He also often says what he feels and rarely apologizes for it. That makes him an easy target for fans and media alike.
"It's that Huggins has done nothing to court the press," Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Mark Bradley said. "In his defense, he's always been like this. I met him when he was the Akron coach. He's no different, it's just people see it now."
But there are more people who will defend him than you'd think.
"He really is two different people," said New York Daily News college basketball writer Dick Weiss. "There's the guy on the sidelines and then if you get him off the court, there are times I think he is introverted."
Waxman, writer of the Sports Illustrated On Campus article, said he's never spoken to Huggins.
"Some of the harshest columns have been written by writers who don't go to college games, let alone practices," said Sporting News college basketball writer Mike DeCourcey. "I think you can criticize a guy's coaching moves without necessarily being there -- like Herman Edwards should have taken a shot at the end zone instead of settling for a tying field goal. But the stuff with Huggins gets personal."
It will likely get more personal this year following Huggins' DUI arrest in June.
"I don't know if it's possible to hear any more some places," Huggins said. "The things people have already said, in the places that are bad, can't get worse.
"I'd be lying if I said it didn't get to me. Sure it does."
Even with his ranting and raving on the sidelines, few doubt Huggins' players' loyalty to their coach. Former players Corie Blount and Tarrance Gibson were at the press conference announcing Huggins' suspension following the DUI. He's as much an ex-players' coach as a players' coach.
"They all come back because there's a relationship, they know I care about them. They care about me," Huggins said. "It's my family. It's my extended family. Every major decision I've had, every major thing that's happened in my life they've been a part of."
• Intimidation factor
Wearing the black hat isn't always bad. If you're the biggest, baddest guy on the block, some people will be intimidated before you even take the court.
Forde, a longtime Louisville Courier-Journal columnist, said you could tell the Cardinals used to be intimidated before the opening tip.
"At the end of the Denny Crum era, Louisville was scared to death of them and you could see it," Forde said. "They backed down."
Players like Erik Martin and Dontonio Wingfield and Melvin Levett and Danny Fortson, plus the fact his teams always play hard, add to the reputation of a big, tough team. And when they're already disliked, that goes a long way.
"They do have a dark charisma that draws out very strong emotions," Forde said. "When they come to Freedom Hall or to Marquette or to Memphis, people get extra juiced up to root against them.
"I think some of that is unfair racial stereotyping. Black men in black uniforms and coached by a menacing guy and they think thugs. It's unfair. They play hard and nasty. They've had some questionable characters but that doesn't mean they all are."
Forde pointed to last season's Conference USA championship game against DePaul. The Bearcats were "mouthy and antagonistic" he said. But they also weren't the one punching another player in a sensitive area of his body.
• Ready for redemption
Still, if one thing the recent past has proven, it's that anyone can be redeemed.
The Bearcats' bad-boy persona isn't permanent. It only takes one good run. It's worked before.
Last season Eddie Sutton was the sentimental favorite for many fans at the Final Four. Sutton coached his Oklahoma State team to San Antonio and was lionized for his long work in college basketball.
It wasn't that long ago that Sutton nearly killed one of the country's most storied programs and was known as one of the biggest cheaters in college basketball. Basically, he was Jim Harrick without a ring.
But there people were, rooting for him to win his first NCAA title. He was America's Sweetheart.
The year before, it was the heartwarming tale of Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim winning his first NCAA title.
"Jim Boeheim was a sympathetic figure a couple of years ago and he's all-time Mr. Whiney," Bradley said. "Success has a way of changing a reputation. Instead of Huggins' tough love producing a second-round exit, it would be Huggins' tough love leading his team to a title."
Tarkanian was even painted as a genius when his UNLV teams were dominating college basketball.
Huggins' best chance at a title was thwarted in 2000 when Martin suffered a broken leg and was lost for the rest of the season. That could add to the Huggins' legacy if he ever does win the title.
The story could be the perfect melodrama, complete with his 2001 heart attack and his DUI this summer.
"I think the media, as far as we set agendas, and cement reputation could come around," Wolff said. "People love the stories of recovery and redemption."
Imagine that, love and Bob Huggins and the Cincinnati Bearcats.
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__________________
What are you willing to give up in order to get what you want?
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11-19-2004, 01:25 PM
