Unabated Sports

Sure, a sold-out Fifth Third Arena is rocking. Sure, it's Big Monday. Sure, it's UC vs. Louisville. But my favorite time of year is over. The NFL season is complete, and the long off-season is now underway. Yeah, college basketball is a decent substitute but it's not the same. Especially with the local teams on the outside looking in at the Big Dance. Take this game, for example. The Bearcats jumped out to a big lead early, but I still couldn't get too juiced. I mean, they jumped out on West Virginia and how did that turn out? Sure enough, the 12 point lead evaporated in a matter or minutes. By halftime, Cincinnati held on to a one point lead.

I switched over to a seat amongst the fans. That definitely perked me up for a bit. Nothing like the screamings of a passionate crowd to get the blood pumping. Of course, Andy Kennedy's squad had something to do with that holding a lead until the final buzzer. Some quality point floor play by Devan Downey, strong defense, and some good performances on the foul line gave the Cats a clutch win against the Birds. UC is now 16-8 overall, and 5-5 in the Big East.

Best line of the post-game press conference came from the coach, Andy Kennedy, on Eric Hicks, who suffered a concussion in the game: "If there's one place you can hit him and not hurt him, it's in the head." Yeah, people have said that about me before.

Close second from the coach, about Jihad Muhammad: "Can't live with him, can't live without him."