UC vs. tOSU

[Phatcat]

Found this article on a UC message board. Very good article on the teams not playing since 1962.
[u]
[b]A long time coming [/b] [/u]
Ohio State and Cincinnati will meet for first time since 1962 NCAA final
Friday, December 15, 2006
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

NEAL C . LAURON DISPATCH
Former Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins, who was a graduate assistant at Ohio State in 1978-80, yearned for his Bearcats to play the Buckeyes.

DISPATCH FILE PHOTO
Cincinnati defeated Ohio State 71-59 in Louisville, Ky., the last time the teams played.



The Berlin Wall of Ohio college basketball falls Saturday.

Or maybe Ohio State and Cincinnati will just play atop the wall for two hours and return to their respective camps, not to meet again for another 44 years … or 85.

The neutral-court showdown in Indianapolis between the state’s two highest-profile men’s basketball programs, the Buckeyes of the Big Ten and the Bearcats of the Big East, will be their first since the 1962 NCAA championship game.

It will be the first time they have met during a regular season — actually volunteered to play each other, in other words — since 1921.

What was at the root of their cold war on the hardwood? Theories abound. A definitive explanation remains elusive.

"It’s an interesting quandary, isn’t it? " former Ohio State athletic director Jim Jones said. "It’s been going on for 40 years and nobody really knows why."

Forty-four years ago last March, Cincinnati defeated Ohio State in the NCAA championship game for the second straight season. As they had the previous year, the Buckeyes entered the game ranked No. 1, the Bearcats No. 2.

So ended the era of what is considered the finest Ohio State team in history, coached by Fred Taylor and led by Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek to a 78-6 record, three Big Ten championships and the program’s only NCAA title, in 1960.

Cincinnati played in the championship game in 1963, as well, losing to Loyola (Ill.), before fading from the game’s upper tier. It would be 29 years before the Bearcats returned to the Final Four, and longer still before they reunited with the Buckeyes.

"I don’t really think the fact they lost the two (championship) games had anything to do with it," said Marv Homan, longtime Ohio State sports information director and a radio announcer during the basketball program’s heyday. "I was very close to Fred through the years, and I never sensed any animosity toward Cincinnati from him."

Homan and others close to the program during that time said the lack of interest in the matchup could have come from administrators and been passed through generations.

Playing Ohio schools a no - no


Except occasional games against Ohio University, Taylor’s teams did not play other state schools. That stance, administrative or not, was relaxed under his successors — Eldon Miller, Gary Williams and Randy Ayers — but never to the extent of including Cincinnati.

"Eldon’s policy was they would play Ohio teams in St. John Arena but (not on the road) … because if they lost, it would hurt them in recruiting," said Dispatch sports columnist Bob Hunter, who covered Ohio State basketball from 1977 to 1985.

It’s an age-old, pretentious paranoia afflicting programs such as Ohio State. Schools that rule the roost in their states look at such games as nothing to gain and everything to lose. Kentucky, for example, avoided Louisville during the regular season from 1922 until 1984, when the state legislature mandated an annual game between them.

"I would love to see teams that are the top dog in their particular state play some of the other up-and-coming programs, because I think they could weather the hit no matter what happens," said former OSU player Clark Kellogg, who will be the analyst on the CBS telecast Saturday. "If a Xavier or UC would beat Ohio State occasionally … I don’t think an avalanche of prospects are suddenly going to decide they don’t want to play for Ohio State."

Huggins wanted shot at OSU


With Cincinnati struggling through most of the ’80s to win more games than it lost, a series between the two schools held little cachet.

That changed when Bob Huggins was named UC coach in 1989. Huggins, who grew up in Ohio, had been a graduate assistant at Ohio State from 1978 to ’80. He openly yearned for a shot at the Buckeyes. And in three years, he had the Bearcats in the Final Four.

"When Hugs first got hired, he made the comment that if it were one game, one time only, and it was in Columbus, tell him what time to show up and they’d be there," said Paul Keels, then the radio play-by-play announcer for the Bearcats and now the voice of the Buckeyes.

Still, Ohio State balked.

When the Buckeyes played in the NCAA Midwest Regional in Cincinnati in 1992, then-OSU athletic director Jones asked then-UC athletic director Rick Taylor if UC, the host school, could spare 300 more tickets for Ohio State fans. Taylor offered them in exchange for a homeand-home series. Jones refused. Later that year, the NCAA fined Cincinnati $25,000 for the attempted extortion.

One year later, Ohio State was in trouble with the NCAA, and any possibility of the cold war ending in the foreseeable future disappeared. Damon Flint, a coveted guard from Cincinnati Woodward High School, signed a letter of intent in November 1992 to play for Ohio State. He never did. Instead, he enrolled at Cincinnati after the NCAA penalized Ohio State for violations while recruiting him.

Flint affair riled Buckeyes


An investigation found that Ayers and two assistants entertained Flint and his high school coach at an off-campus restaurant during an unofficial visit in October 1991. One of the assistants, Paul Brazeau, subsequently gave Flint’s coach $60 to cover their expenses for the trip. Ohio State did not report the violations until questioned by the NCAA 16 months later.

Some at Ohio State suspected UC of blowing the whistle. Cincinnati denied it. Flint’s coach at Woodward, Jim Leon, also denied snitching.

"That was going on when I got there," said Andy Geiger, who became Ohio State athletic director in 1994. "Randy was pretty upset. I didn’t think it was possible to have that game at that point."

Coincidentally, the Bearcats’ current coach, Mick Cronin, was Leon’s assistant at the time, a UC student working his way through school. After Cronin graduated in 1996, Huggins hired him as the team’s video coordinator. One year later, Cronin was promoted to fulltime assistant. He was coach at Murray State the past three years before UC hired him in March. After Geiger hired Jim O’Brien to replace Ayers in 1997, O’Brien said he did not object to playing Cincinnati. A year later, his mind had changed, for reasons he never divulged publicly.

Geiger first told then-UC athletic director Bob Goin that Ohio State was "not good enough" to compete with the Bearcats, who by then were a top-10 program.

After O’Brien quickly transformed the Buckeyes into a Big Ten contender and took Ohio State to the Final Four in his second season, Geiger’s rationale changed.

"The key games on the schedule are the Big Ten. Playing a game that in the minds of some is bigger than the Big Ten doesn’t make any sense. I still feel this way," he said this week.

Huggins was impediment


One of O’Brien’s former assistants, Dave Spiller, said the aversion to playing UC went deeper than that.

When Geiger searched for Ayers’ replacement in 1997, he ignored Huggins despite his success at Cincinnati and his known interest in the job. Asked this week whether Huggins’ presence at UC was a factor in Ohio State not scheduling the Bearcats, even after the OSU program had improved, Geiger said, "I don’t think directly."

Spiller, however, said it became clear within a year after O’Brien and his staff arrived in Columbus that "Ohio State would never play Cincinnati as long as Huggins was coaching there."

Huggins accepted a buyout at UC in August 2005 rather than be fired by UC president Nancy Zimpher; he now coaches at Kansas State. His former assistant, Andy Kennedy, was interim coach last season. Cronin was hired in March. He must rebuild the talent base that disintegrated in the wake of Huggins’ departure.

Coincidence or not, three months after Huggins was dismissed, Saturday’s matchup in the Wooden Tradition was announced.

It might not be one and done


Geiger’s successor, Gene Smith, has said it might not be the last time the teams play. Ohio State coach Thad Matta, who replaced O’Brien two years ago, acknowledged that more games against UC "could be something we would look at." Cronin is more enthusiastic, telling The Cincinnati Enquirer this week that the teams should play every year.

"I’m saying this, and I’m the one in my first year trying to reload," Cronin said.

So is it the start of a thaw? Or is Ohio State only playing the Bearcats now because they are perceived to be down?

Only time will tell, just as it did for 44 years. Or 85.


bbaptist@dispatch.com

[Palmer4HOF]

as a graduate of OSU, I don't even give a fuck about saying this...


FUCK THE BUCKS



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UC
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UC

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