On December 31, 1999, Huggins was at a junior college event in Florida. He called back to assistant coach Dan Peters and wanted the word put out that he needed some former Bearcats to show up for a New Year’s Day practice at Shoemaker Center. Huggins gave him phone numbers and said, “Tell those guys I need them at practice.”
“Huggs, those guys are not coming in on New Year’s Day,” Peters said.
“Pete, call them, they’ll be there,” Huggins said.
They all showed up.
“It really surprised me,” Peters said.
UC was 11-3, ranked third in the country and about to play host to UNLV on January 2. But Huggins thought his team needed a test, needed to learn how to compete.
And so they arrived for a little scrimmage: Terry Nelson. Tarrice Gibson. Anthony Buford. Curtis Bostic. A.D. Jackson. Keith Gregor. Donald Little, a freshman center, played with them.
“They just wore them out,” Huggins said.
“Could you at least let Satt cross half court so we can start our offense?” Huggins shouted to Gibson, referring to freshman Kenny Satterfield.
“We had a pretty good team, and we couldn’t get a shot off against them,” Peters said.
“Those guys could play defense at a totally different level,” former video coordinator Chris Goggin said. “It was a fiery game. We scrimmaged forever. Those guys came in and absolutely just wiped the floor with them. T-Rat (Gibson) had Kenny Satterfield almost in tears, just locked him up defensively.
“After the whole scrimmage, our guys are exhausted, laying on the ground. Satt’s sprawled out on the baseline and T-Rat, just for the hell of it, starts running wind sprints.”
Gibson said: “That’s just what I usually do. It was out of habit. When we played, we ran after practice. That was fourth quarter and overtime.”
The Bearcats blasted UNLV the next day 106-66. They did not lose again until February 20 against Temple.
KENYON HAS TO TOUCH THE BALL
If Martin wasn’t already a favorite to be named college basketball’s National Player of the Year, he might have clinched the honor March 2, 2000, during a 64-62 victory at DePaul.
The game was on national TV. Huggins benched Pete Mickeal, UC’s No. 2 scorer and rebounder. UC’s offense was so out of sync that the Blue Demons raced to a 17-point lead.
“Everybody was ready to pack it in,” Huggins said. He asked Martin if the game was over with? “Hell no,” Martin responded.
With 3:36 remaining and DePaul ahead by 10, Huggins did something unusual for him. In a huddle during a timeout, he told his No. 2-ranked team: “Nobody shoots the ball until Kenyon at least gets a touch. He’s the best player in the country. We’re shooting quick, taking bad shots. Whoever shoots it before he touches it is never playing again.”
Team manager Scott Wilhoit turned to Goggin and said, “We’re about to come back.” Goggin gave him a look that said, You’re crazy!
Martin then got on a roll, scoring the next four baskets. Dick Vitale was raving about him on the ESPN broadcast. The Bearcats were within four points with 2:08 to play. Martin’s turnaround jumper with 1:10 remaining tied the game.
Martin finished with 33 points, including his first career three-pointer. He scored 21 in the second half. “He was hitting shots that we had never seen him hit in practice or during the year,” freshman DerMarr Johnson said.
“The DePaul players were asking us, ‘Does he do this all the time?’” Jermaine Tate said. “We were just as shocked as everyone else.”
“I just did not want to lose,” Martin said. “I felt I was the leader of the team and I put the team on my back and told them to get on and let’s go. A lot of people said that’s when I made a true name for myself.”
The game was tied with 22 seconds left, and DePaul was in possession. Tate stole a Rashon Burno pass and immediately got it to Martin. Martin then passed to Johnson, who was ahead of the pack racing toward the UC basket.
“All he had to do was drive in for a layup or take an open shot,” Goggin said. “He took forever to actually shoot the shot. He said the reason he didn’t shoot it right away is because he was looking for Kenyon because that’s what Huggs told him to do.”
Said Martin: “He was just looking around. I was screaming, ‘Shoot it, shoot it!’ After the game, Huggs asked him what was he waiting on. He said, ‘I wasn’t sure if Kenyon touched the ball or not.’”
Johnson said he hesitated because he didn’t want to drive to the open lane and somehow end up getting called for a charge. He pulled up for a 15-foot jumper and nailed the game-winning shot with 2.7 seconds remaining.
“I was thinking, ‘Should I drive in or sit here and take the shot?’” Johnson said. “I just set my feet and hit the shot.”
THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED
UC’s overtime loss to Loyola in the 1963 national championship game has to be considered the most heartbreaking day in Bearcat basketball history.
No. 2 may very well be March 9, 2000.
That was the day Kenyon Martin broke his leg in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Bearcats were the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, and Martin was the best player in the country. Just three minutes, four seconds into their Conference USA tournament quarterfinal game against Saint Louis, the six-foot-nine Martin went to set a screen on the baseline. He started to fall, and Saint Louis guard Justin Love hit Martin’s left knee. Martin fell hard on his own right leg.
“It was a freak accident,” he said.
Martin tried to get up but couldn’t. He said he knew right away it was broken.
“I felt bad for him,” Huggins said. “When I went out there (to the court), all he talked about was how he came back for his senior year to win a national championship. My only thoughts were about him. They weren’t about anything else. Kenyon and I were really, really close. I probably spent as much time with Ken as I did anybody that I’ve had. The whole halftime, I hardly talked to the team. I was on the phone with the doctors at the hospital. My concern was how bad he felt because of what he wanted to do, but more important my concern was that he was going to be able to play again. It would’ve been tragic if he wouldn’t have been able to play again.”
The UC players were stunned. “We didn’t know how to respond,” DerMarr Johnson said. “That’s a game we still should’ve won even with him out. It affected everybody.”
“We all were in shock,” Huggins said.
Martin rode in an ambulance to Campbell Clinic in Memphis. His sister, Tamara Ridley, was with him. At the clinic, Martin’s leg was X-rayed and put in a cast. He said he rushed staff members because he wanted to return to the arena to cheer on his teammates. “I thought that would mean a lot to them just to see me come back,” he said.
“When he walked in and everybody saw him on crutches,” Huggins said, “. . . it was totally the opposite affect.
“Everybody was concerned for him more than anything. Kenyon was and still is the ultimate team guy. He’s the greatest team guy you could ever have.”
The Billikens, who had lost to UC by 43 points five days earlier, went on to win 68-58.
Huggins was emotional. Not only did Martin’s injury likely end UC’s bid for a national championship, Martin also is one of Huggins’s favorite players.
“He was hurt,” Martin said. “He felt the way I did. That was a chance to get to the Final Four and win the national championship. But more than he was hurt about that, he was sad for me because I had worked so hard to get to where I was. He knew all the work I put in.”
Martin said he had never suffered a serious injury playing sports, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it. He said his family, teammates and coaches and the Cincinnati community helped him through a difficult time with support and kindness.
He did his best to maintain perspective.
After breaking his leg during the 2000 Conference USA Tournament, UC star Kenyon Martin was on crutches during the Bearcats’ NCAA Tournament games. (Photo by Lisa Ventre/Univ
ersity of Cincinnati)
“I had already made a name for myself and showed how well I could play,” he said—and indeed, he would be the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft three months later. “It took away a chance to win the national championship, which I thought we would’ve won. I’ve had other things in my life that were a little harder than that, but playing sports, yeah, that was the hardest.”
After Cincinnati lost to Tulsa in the second round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament, Martin was in tears in the locker room. He had sat on the bench giving Huggins water the whole game. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you all,” Martin told his teammates. “That kind of touched me,” DerMarr Johnson said.
“I was their leader,” Martin said. “They looked up to me, not just on the basketball court. It was rough to see those guys struggle and to see us lose like that. It was rough.”
SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Martin knew he was going to collect several National Player of the Year and team awards at UC’s postseason banquet in 2000. What he didn’t know was that his jersey No. 4 was going to be retired, with a banner to hang in Shoemaker Center alongside banners honoring Basketball Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson (12) and Jack Twyman (27).
UC officials decided to surprise Martin. Huggins said some fans called and wrote, suggesting the honor, especially after Martin broke his leg. Athletic director Bob Goin made the decision to retire the number.
“Certainly it wasn’t very controversial,” Goin said. “It was obvious his performance merited something very special, staying in school and coming back and doing what he did. I did it for Charlie Ward (at Florida State), too.”
Goin said maybe a half-dozen people knew of the plan. The “jersey” was hung on the wall and covered up the night before the banquet.
“They didn’t tell me,” Martin said. “That was exciting. It was touching. You get emotional. I had my jersey retired in high school, too. To have it retired in college, that was even more special.”
AUTHOR, AUTHOR
When Alex Meacham, a fan-favorite walk-on (aren’t they all?) who totaled 20 points in 21 games in his UC basketball career, told Huggins that he wanted to write a book about his experience as a Bearcat, Huggins said: “You’re not going to make a lot of money. All you’re going to get is exposure.”
That was enough for Meacham, a Roger Bacon High School graduate and a member of UC’s team from 1997-99.
“How many people can say they wrote a book?” Meacham said. “My theory is sometimes you do things just for the experience, and sometimes it can lead to bigger opportunities.”
Walk of a Lifetime, which was released in August 2000, sold close to 3,000 copies in just over three years. In addition to hoping hardcore UC fans would be interested in the book, Meacham targeted a younger audience, hoping to send a message to junior high and high school players about persevering. Meacham’s book is about his overcoming several injuries and his persistence in wanting to achieve his goal of being a Bearcat.
“My senior year, nobody knew my story,” Meacham said. “People at the games knew me and would chant my name, but they would think, how the hell did this guy get here?”
Columnist Paul Daugherty of The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote about Meacham in February, prompting Simon Anderson, a UC professor of music education who owns Clifton Hills Press, to tell Meacham he should write a book.
“I can barely write these papers for school,” Meacham joked.
Meacham would end up working on the project with Anderson, his roommate Sam Dunn, who writes scripts for commercials and writes and edits videos, and Cincinnati Herald reporter Marc Brown.
“We were doing something related to the book every day for 14 months,” Meacham said. “That’s no joke. Every day we did something. If you go to a bookstore and pick up a book, you have no idea what that person went through to do every single piece of that book. Every piece was an adventure.”
In the end, Huggins was right on in his advice.
“Everybody who plays for UC should have an opportunity to do something,” Meacham said. “Some go play in the NBA. Some guys go play basketball overseas. I’ve kind of made a career out of playing for UC. My credibility with Shining Star and working with these kids is I wrote a book and I played for UC.”
HOTEL, MOTEL, HOLIDAY INN
B.J. Grove was a talented big man from Cincinnati, six foot 11 (the good news) but often weighing upwards of 300 pounds (the bad news). He also didn’t always practice to Huggins’s standards.
UC had a game February 1, 2001, at Charlotte, and Athletic Director Bob Goin wanted to send Grove a message.
The day before the trip, student manager Corey Brinn was called into a meeting with Goin and told he was going to be put on a special mission in Charlotte: He was in charge of Grove.
The Bearcats were going to be staying at the Embassy Suites in Charlotte, as usual. Grove and Brinn were going to stay in an old hotel with few amenities in the Charlotte area. Grove was not allowed to travel on the team bus, speak to his teammates or be part of the team with the exception of practices and the game.
“From the minute the team left campus, I was with B.J.,” Brinn said. “We had to take a cab to the airport. We sat by ourselves at the airport. Once we got into Charlotte, we found our own cab from the airport to the hotel.”
Trainer Jayd Grossman, who made the team’s travel arrangements, booked Grove and Brinn into another hotel.
“We pulled up not knowing what to expect,” Brinn said. “It’s 11 or 11:30 at night. When they checked us in, there’s a big plate of homemade cookies. Well, B.J.’s in heaven. He starts grabbing cookies and putting them in his pocket.
“We got to our room, and it’s one of those old hotels. You’ve got the two beds, and in between the beds are the sink and a mirror. The bathroom’s off in the corner. It doesn’t really have a door on it. The shower’s right there. The TV had about six or seven stations, and none of them were any good. We were both depressed the minute we walked in.”
The next morning, they had to take a $40 cab ride to Halton Arena for shootaround. They had to wait about an hour for a cab to take them back to the hotel. They found their own pregame meal and had to return to Halton.
After the game—Grove had six points in 16 minutes—they met the team at the airport for the flight home.
Finally, Grove and Brinn were allowed on the team bus from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport back to campus.
“It was an experience,” Brinn said. “We were laughing. After we first got there and the initial shock, we had a pretty good time together. . . . I think he learned his lesson.”
THIRTY YEARS LATER
Oscar Robertson was sitting courtside watching a feat rare to the UC basketball program, though common to Robertson when he played.
Kenny Satterfield, a sophomore point guard from New York City, became only the fourth Bearcat to get a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 105-57 victory over Tulane at Shoemaker Center. And Satterfield only played 24 minutes. His 10th assist came on a pass to freshman guard Field Williams, who drained a three-pointer with 5:24 remaining.
The only other UC players to have triple-doubles were Kenyon Martin, Rick Roberson, and Robertson. Eric Hicks joined the club in January 2006.
MOTIVATIONAL TACTICS
In five years of playing in the Rock-N-Roll Shootout in Cleveland, the Bearcats had never lost. They beat Temple, Western Kentucky, Massachusetts, Dayton and Gonzaga. But on December 30, 2000, the streak ended with a stunning 69-66 loss to Toledo at Gund Arena.
The new year did nothing to calm Huggins after the defeat. On Thursday, January 4, 2001, he had the doors to the team’s plush locker room locked and made the players dress in the smaller, no-frills men’s soccer team locker room in the lower level of Shoemaker Center.
“Our locker room is for champions,” Huggins told the Bearcats, who dropped to 25th from 19th in the Associated Press poll that week.
For t
wo days, the team was locked out of its customary digs. The third night, Cincinnati pummeled Charlotte 76-66, leading by as many as 20 during the game.
“I think it got the guys’ attention,” Jamaal Davis said afterward of Huggins’s actions.
Not totally.
Two weeks later, UC dropped consecutive games at Saint Louis and at home against a struggling Louisville club. The day after the loss to the Cardinals, Huggins approached student manager Brinn about two hours before practice and told him to find plain gray T-shirts and black shorts for all the players. Much of it ended up being too small. But the guys had to wear it anyway.
“We couldn’t find stuff that big quick enough,” Brinn said.
The team was also prohibited from entering their locker room again.
“We really don’t come out and play like Cincinnati Bearcats, so why should we dress like them?” Davis told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
It worked again. In their next game, the Bearcats upset No. 8 Wake Forest 78-72 in a game that would turn around the 2000-01 season.
Two years later, Huggins would dip into the same bag of motivational tactics. In February 2003, after No. 18 Marquette beat UC 82-76 in Shoemaker Center, Huggins again banned the team from its locker room and would not allow the players to wear UC practice clothes. Instead, they were “shirts” and “skins” during practice. This time, they dressed in the women’s rowing team locker room in the Armory Fieldhouse.
“It’s got nothing to do with motivation,” Huggins told The Enquirer at the time. “It’s loyalty to the people who have played so hard and earned that stuff.”
After a 77-71 loss at No. 5 Louisville three days later, the Bearcats upset 11th-ranked Oklahoma State 61-50 at Shoemaker.
MAKING THE CALL
Sometimes it’s fate that lands a player in a certain basketball program.
Huggins remembers watching a high school player in Louisiana whom he’d been recruiting. The player was very athletic but—with Huggins in the stands—shot miserably in the first half of the game, going something like three for 20 from the field. Huggins turned to then-assistant coach Mick Cronin and said, “I’m going to call Logan.”
Tales from the Cincinnati Bearcats Locker Room Page 18