Tales from the Cincinnati Bearcats Locker Room

by Michael Perry

  Michigan won 76-72 before 50,379 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis.

  Nelson never saw Webber again.

  GONE WITH THE WIND

  Some of the Bearcats who played on the Final Four team will always feel they were treated as second-class citizens in Minneapolis. By fans. By some national media. By tournament organizers.

  “We were treated just like garbage there,” Buford said. “We just felt really, really disrespected.”

  “It’s just not right,” Huggins said.

  The other teams all brought great story lines. There was Indiana and Bob Knight. Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, a former Knight assistant who had perhaps the top program in the country. Michigan and its Fab Five freshmen (Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson, Juwan Howard).

  UC sports information director Tom Hathaway told Buford about a production meeting with TV representatives who talked about how they were going to present the teams during the telecast. They had met with officials from Duke, Indiana and Michigan—the other teams in the Final Four—to get their OK, but when it came to Cincinnati, Hathaway was told how it was going to be.

  “They basically said, ‘We’re going to show some stuff about Oscar Robertson and we’re not going to have much on your team,’” Buford remembers being told. “Hathaway said he was kind of in shock.”

  All of which is why Buford ending up throwing away the ring he received from the NCAA for being in the Final Four. He said it was silver with a black face that said “NCAA” on it. UC was on the team bus headed back to the airport in Minneapolis. Buford doesn’t remember when, but he recalls slipping the ring off his finger and pitching it out of the bus.

  “It was a bad vibe,” Buford said. “And I felt like my memory of playing in the Final Four is all I need. The ring I got from UC I keep.”

  STAND BY YOUR MAN

  In September 1992, roughly six months after UC’s Final Four run, the Bearcats were gearing up for another shot at a national title. Six of the top eight players were returning.

  Things were looking good—until the day Huggins called Corie Blount into his office to explain that he was being declared ineligible to play his final year at Cincinnati by the NCAA.

  Blount had started his career at Rancho Santiago Junior College in 1988-89. He played four games his first season, then broke a bone in his foot that wouldn’t heal. He sat out the rest of that season, then played in 1989-90 and 1990-91. The NCAA considered 1988-89 a full season because it did not recognize medical redshirt years at the junior-college level until January 1992. So when Blount finished one year at UC, he was out of eligibility. UC officials appealed to the NCAA, the governing body of college athletics.

  “Huggs said he was behind me 100 percent,” Blount said. “Based on the season I already had, of course, I wanted to play, but I wasn’t really disappointed. Huggs said I could stay at UC and get my degree. I didn’t really have the NBA in my mind back then. I never really could see that I would be a draft pick. I figured I’d have to try out to play somewhere.”

  In October, the NCAA rejected Blount’s appeal and a UC compromise that Blount sit out four games of his senior season. “. . . We will not stop trying to right this wrong,” UC Athletic Director Rick Taylor told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

  The NCAA did allow Blount to have the opportunity to appeal to an administrative review panel at the NCAA convention in January 1993. While Blount’s lawyer hinted at suing the NCAA, he ultimately decided to wait for the review panel to hear the case.

  “I really didn’t know whether I was going to play again, but I knew I had a good chance,” Blount said. “It would’ve been a shock if they would’ve said, ‘No, you can’t play at all this year.’

  “Rick (Taylor) was a hard little guy, but he would call me in his office, and I can honestly say he was telling me, ‘We’re going to do everything we possibly can to help you resolve this problem.’ I had a lot of people always telling me, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ That’s what made it easier for me.”

  Meanwhile, the six-foot-10 Blount stayed in school and continued to work out on his own. When the Bearcats were on the road, Chuck Machock would work with Blount on post moves. Blount tried to stay in shape in case a new ruling occurred.

  That’s what happened.

  On January 15, 1993, the day the team was leaving for a game against DePaul in Chicago, Huggins told Blount to come along just in case his eligibility was restored.

  In Chicago, the Bearcats had a team meeting to talk about what they wanted their record to be the rest of the way after Blount returned. He was in a hotel room with Van Exel and Martin when Huggins called Blount to his room. “Well, big fella, you’re back,” Huggins said with a smile, then he gave Blount a hug.

  Blount played 28 minutes the next night, coming off the bench for eight points, seven rebounds and five assists. UC won 70-64.

  EVERYONE WAS WATCHING

  The summer after he left UC, Erik Martin was playing in an NBA summer league game when another player approached him. “Hey man, who’s the crazy guy who took his jersey off?” the guy wanted to know.

  “That was me, but I ain’t crazy,” Martin told him. “You just have to know Huggs.”

  The years may pass, but Martin can’t escape the moment on national television when he left the Bearcats’ bench in the middle of a game and stripped off his jersey on the way to the locker room. “I try to forget that, but you’d be surprised how many people still say, ‘Aren’t you the guy who took your jersey off?’”

  Be assured, Martin has a sense of humor about it.

  So, what did happen?

  Cincinnati was playing host to DePaul at Shoemaker Center on January 30, 1993, for a noon game. Martin hated early games. So he was already groggy and in a bad mood when the game started.

  But here is what he remembers:

  Nick Van Exel threw a pass and a DePaul player tipped it out of bounds. Martin saw the tip and pulled back his hands, letting the ball go. The officials didn’t see the deflection and gave DePaul the ball.

  “So Huggs took me out,” Martin said. “He’s screaming, and we’re going at each other. Let’s just say I said something to him, and he said, ‘Go to the locker room!’

  “Usually when Huggs said that, you just leave it at that and sit there. That day I got up. I took off my jersey and threw it down. I can remember a fan asking, ‘Hey Erik, where ya going?’ I just kept walking.”

  Martin said he went straight into the locker room, got undressed and took a shower. A student manager came in to tell Martin that assistant Steve Moeller said: “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Moeller walked in at the next timeout.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Back to the dorm,” Martin told him.

  “No you’re not. You’re crazy. If you do that, you’re off the team,” Moeller said.

  Soon, another assistant coach, Larry Harrison, came in and echoed that message.

  Martin got dressed, sat and waited for halftime. He went into the coaches’ locker room and apologized to Huggins. There was a misunderstanding about what Martin had said. Huggins acknowledged that, hugged him and followed him into the locker room. UC was ahead 40-25.

  “If coach Mo hadn’t come in, in five minutes I probably would’ve already been at the dorm,” Martin said. “When Huggs came in, he said something to me, but to be honest he didn’t dwell on that situation at all. He just said, ‘You’re going to start the second half.’

  “My mom and (family) wanted to know what happened. I told people, reporters, fans, that stuff happens in practice all the time. They just happened to have the camera on me as I was walking out of the gym.

  “I try not to regret anything I’ve done in life, but if I had a chance to do that over again, I wouldn’t have done it like that. But I’m an emotional person, so if that’s what came out that day, that’s what was supposed to come out.”

  YOU OWE ME

  UC was in the 1993 East Region
al semifinals of the NCAA Tournament against Virginia at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. Blount is a California guy who had never been to New York City.

  The players were allowed to check out New York during the day, but Blount wanted to see more. Problem was, that night the team had an 11 p.m. curfew because there was a game the next day.

  Teammate Mike Harris was from Brooklyn, N.Y., and he took Blount and Darrick Ford home to meet his family. Afterward, the three ran around New York for a while having fun. All of a sudden, they looked at a clock. It was 2 a.m.

  The players hurried back to the hotel, walked into the lobby and saw the entire coaching staff sitting there waiting.

  Huggins sent Ford and Harris to their rooms. He asked the other coaches to leave.

  “Let me tell you something, Corie,” Huggins said. “You’ve got a chance to make more money than anybody on this team. But you’ll be happy going back to Monrovia (California), hanging out with your little gang-banging friends, talking about how I could’ve done this, I could’ve done that. You don’t understand the opportunity you have right now. We’ve got an opportunity to do some big things. And instead of you focusing on what we need to do, you’re out running around and breaking rules with two young guys.

  Coach Huggins was prophetic when he told Corie Blount (44) that he had the potential to earn NBA riches if he was willing to dedicate himself to the game. Blount did, and was taken by the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the 1993 NBA draft. Blount played 11 NBA seasons for the Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, and Toronto Raptors. (Photo by University of Cincinnati/Sports Information)

  “Look,” Huggins continued, “I’m going to play you tomorrow. But if you don’t play your ass off, I’m going to take your ass out as soon as I can.”

  Blount ended up with 19 points and 11 rebounds in 33 minutes, and the Bearcats won 71-54.

  NO PLACE LIKE HOME

  Damon Flint remembers the day NCAA officials came to Woodward High School in April 1993 to interview him about his recruitment to Ohio State, the school with which he signed as a high school senior. Flint had hoped to team with Derek Anderson in the Buckeyes’ backcourt.

  But the NCAA cited the Buckeyes for several violations in recruiting Flint. The most severe: Giving Woodward coach Jimmy Leon $60 for meals and transportation during an October 1991 visit to Columbus. The most petty: Ohio State coach Randy Ayers going to Woodward during a non-contact evaluation period to offer Flint condolences after his mother died in September 1991.

  Flint still could have attended Ohio State—if he sat out his freshman year. However, the McDonald’s All-American felt he had worked too hard to achieve a high enough standardized test score to be academically eligible.

  Flint decided to turn to the hometown school that had been recruiting him as long as he could remember: The University of Cincinnati. Flint knew Huggins and all the players. He was a frequent visitor to Shoemaker Center.

  “I told Huggins I was coming,” he said. “I felt welcome.”

  GETTING THE POINT

  Flint was a great scorer in high school, averaging 29.4 points a game as a senior at Woodward. But when he got to UC, Huggins needed him to play point guard as a freshman because there really wasn’t a solid playmaker on the roster. Starting point guard Marko Wright broke his foot.

  “He’s the boss,” Flint said. “We didn’t have anybody else to do it. But that’s the type of player I am. If we win, I’m happy. We won a lot. That was a big sacrifice.”

  The Bearcats were 99-34 during his four years.

  Flint finished his career with 1,316 points and was, at the time, third in career three-point field goals made and third in assists.

  He never played point guard in high school but considered himself versatile enough to pull it off in college. “I didn’t want to be one dimensional,” he said.

  Flint played shooting guard most of his last three seasons, but was also a backup point guard.

  “I think in the end it was the best thing for Damon,” Huggins said. “Because Damon turned out to be a player, not just some guy who stood out there and shot.”

  With all his offensive talent, Flint said his two most memorable games came on the defensive end.

  During his freshman season, he went head to head against California guard Jason Kidd on February 20, 1994, in the 7-Up Shootout in Orlando, Florida The Bearcats lost 89-80, but Flint scored 26 points; Kidd had 22.

  In the 1996 NCAA Tournament Southeast Regional semifinals, UC came up against Georgia Tech and its star guard Stephon Marbury. Flint held Marbury to 15 points on four-of-13 shooting and finished with 18 points, six rebounds and three assists. He was named Player of the Game, and UC won 87-70.

  UC players Damon Flint (3), John Jacobs (55), Curtis Bostic (43), Marko Wright (5) and Mike Harris (32) celebrate after the Bearcats defeated Memphis 68-47 in the championship game of the 1994 Great Midwest Tournament. (Photo by Lisa Ventre/University of Cincinnati)

  “I was definitely jacked up for that one,” Flint said. “That was Marbury’s last game. He told me right after the game that he was leaving early for the NBA.”

  CROSSTOWN LETDOWN

  No. 19 UC played rival Xavier, ranked No. 22, at a sold-out Cincinnati Gardens in January 1994.

  This would be the only Crosstown Shootout for Cincinnati’s Dontonio Wingfield, and it would be a completely forgettable outing for the heralded freshman from Albany, Georgia.

  Wingfield sat out the final 7:30 of the first half, and Xavier led 41-31 at intermission. Huggins was yelling at Wingfield in the locker room at halftime.

  The Musketeers won 82-76 in overtime that night. Wingfield finished zero of seven from the field in 15 minutes; he barely played in the second half. Jackson Julson started the second half instead of Wingfield, who did not re-enter the game until 7:27 remained. His only two points of the night came on first-half free throws.

  “He didn’t play well. He hurt us,” Huggins said afterward.

  THE NON-HANDSHAKE

  As it turned out, Wingfield was just a subplot for the evening. The main event was Huggins vs. Xavier coach Pete Gillen.

  The context to this is, of course, that Huggins and Gillen were not—how shall we say this?—too fond of each other. The UC-Xavier rivalry may have peaked during this time because of the coaches’ dislike for one another.

  At some point in the game, Huggins was yelling at one of the officials, when—according to the UC coaches—Gillen looked down the sideline and essentially shouted for Huggins to sit down and shut up.

  “I pointed after a few things were said,” Huggins said afterward. “They need to coach their team and I’ll coach my team.”

  Gillen said later that Huggins was trying to gain an advantage with the officials and that he was just trying to stick up for his team and “keep the officials from getting intimidated.” Huggins said some of the XU assistant coaches started shouting at him during the game.

  When the game was over, the Xavier fans rushed the court. As Gillen approached Huggins, the UC coach refused to shake hands. That incensed Gillen.

  “If I lost, I would’ve shaken hands,” Gillen said that night.

  “I’m not a phony,” Huggins countered. “I’m not going to act like everything’s all right and shake hands after the game.”

  The next morning, sitting in his office, Gillen suggested the schools should take a break from playing each other.

  “It’s just sad, it’s a very bitter series,” he told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “We should definitely play next year, but then we might have to think about a cooling-off period . . .”

  Never happened. Nor did Gillen ever have to coach in another Shootout. He left Xavier after the 1993-94 season to coach at Providence College.

  HOW PROPHETIC

  Just eight days removed from a devastating loss to Canisius College from Buffalo, N.Y., at Shoemaker Center in the Delta Airlines Classic (the Bearcats blew
a 20-point lead), Cincinnati had a game at Wyoming on December 17, 1994.

  The team was in a considerably better mood, having won at No. 11 Minnesota (91-88 in overtime) on December 14.

  The Bearcats traveled right from Minneapolis to Laramie, Wyoming, to get adjusted to the thin air.

  “It was going to be a fight against fatigue,” said LaZelle Durden, UC’s leading scorer and a team captain. “I pushed myself in practice to prepare for the situation.”

  Cincinnati had two bad workouts leading up to the game. Huggins told his team: “LaZelle’s gonna have to score 50 for us to win because he’s the only one who’s practiced well.”

  Well, Huggins was close. Durden ended up with 45 points in a dramatic 81-80 victory.

  The Bearcats trailed all game and were behind 80-78 with 15 seconds remaining. Keith LeGree dribbled the ball upcourt for UC and passed to Durden. Durden went to the right side and, with time running out, took a one-handed, off-balance, three-point attempt from roughly 25 feet out. He missed it, but Wyoming’s LaDrell Whitehead fouled him in a call disputed afterward by Wyoming coach Joby Wright. “I wasn’t sure it would get called,” Durden said. “But I know for sure he fouled me.”

  During a timeout, all the UC players were pumping up Durden. Jim Burbridge, an academic advisor who traveled with the team, pounded his chest and said: “Money. Nerves of steel.”

  “That gave me confidence,” Durden said.

  With no time remaining, Durden calmly made all three of his free throws to stun the crowd of 8,688.

  “That was a dream come true for me,” Durden said. “I would say that was one of my highlights. . . . And that was the most tired I’ve ever been in my life.”

  He finished 16 of 32 from the field, seven of 20 from three-point range and six of seven from the foul line, and totaled the most points for a Bearcat in 45 years.

  In the locker room after the game, John Jacobs needled Huggins. “Coach, you lied to us,” Jacobs said. “You said LaZelle had to score 50 for us to win.”