FIVE MO' THINGS, 2/22/13
1) Baseball. Sweet, sweet, baseball. The Reds play a baseball game today. That hasn't happened in 134 days. This one counts significantly less than the last one they played, and as I ice skated toward my car this morning, Opening Day still seemed centuries away, but it's baseball, and while today's game doesn't count, it can do its part to help begin the cleansing of that stench leftover from October.
And baseball will provide some nice background noise for a drive to South Bend tomorrow afternoon.
2) Remember that UC NCAA Tournament bid we were taking for granted? Yeah, me too. Last night might have been the most frustrating Bearcat loss in three years. Quite simply, you have to win that game. You have to win the game when you're up six with slightly more than four minutes to go. You have to win when you dominate on the glass, when you hold the other team without a bucket for almost nine minutes, when you have one of your more productive offensive first halves (which didn't matter at halftime, because they trailed), when you find ways to overcome rare foul trouble from your best scorer....and when you've got the ball with the shot clock off and a chance to win the game in the final half-minute.
Yet, they didn't.
And now, the margin for error has shrunk just a little bit more.
The maddening thing is (like there's more than one), that UC did a lot of good things last night. They pushed UConn's soft bigs around, they scored in the paint and owned the glass. They got sufficient production from their bench, which provided 20 points. They didn't shoot many free throws, but at least they shot them well when they did. They defended well for most of the second half. Parker played one his best games.
They still lost.
The bracket geeks say they're in, and in comfortably. I'd feel really good about that if they NCAA Tournament selection committee was meeting today. They're not. And they won't until the Bearcats play four more regular season games then the Big East Tournament. It's fair to wonder, right now at least, how many of those games will they win? How many do they need to?
Do you trust this team right now? Maybe defensively, for the most part, but other than that, in close games against good opponents, with major stakes on the line, do you trust them? Do you trust them at Notre Dame, where the Irish are near-impossible to beat? At Louisville? Even in a rematch against a UConn team whose coach has the perpetual look of someone who just found his car broken into?
Last night might not have been a must-win game, but if they keep losing games, at some point they'll play in one, and I don't know if I trust this team to win a game is absolutely has to.
It's frustrating because it's not likely to get all that much better. UC is going to shoot a lot of threes. When they go in, they have a chance against almost anyone in college basketball. When they don't, nearly everyone in college basketball has a chance to beat them. There are still too many players that Mick Cronin can't count on - can you really count on the bench production from last night repeating itself? And as good as they are defensively, they've often failed to get stops in big situations in close games, and last night was a prime example.
I'm guessing this team will find a way to get in. At some point, some shots will fall and none of their final four regular season games are completely unwinnable. But with each loss, the urgency to win the next one grows. That's been true for weeks, however, and the Bearcats have yet to respond. If they don't reverse that trend soon, this season could go down as one of Cincinnati's most disappointing ever.
3) Kenyon Martin is a Knick. For ten days at least. No, it's not 2000. No, Kenyon did not get a pair of Oscar Pistorious magic legs. No, I don't think he'll help the Knicks as much as they hope. But my favorite college basketball player of all-time, the only athlete I'd name my kid after if A) I had a kid and B) I named him/her after an athlete, and the Knicks obviously are the NBA team I've lived and died (mostly died) with since I was a tyke. I'm going to enjoy the Kenyon Martin era in New York, even if it's only for a week and a half, as much as possible.
Now, with Jason Kidd and Kenyon in the fold, maybe the Knicks can coax Kerry Kittles and Keith Van Horn out of retirement to reunite the 2002 Nets.
4) Be The Match. Help save the life of Reds employee Chris Herrell. Read his story and find out how you can help by going here.
5) The perfect companion for baseball on the radio this weekend. The Slydepress 2013 Redleg Annual. It's only $4 and it's on sale here. 
