What A Man, Bob Huggins.

Chances are you probably didn't stay up and watch the ridiculous NBA game last night. Memphis Grizzlies-Oklahoma City Thunder, three overtimes and a combined 256 total points made for once exciting game. OKC won the game very anti-climatic fashion by the score 133-123 but it still was once heck of a game, an 'Instant Classic' for sure. NBA, where amazing happens.

How about them Cincinnati Reds? Winners of 5 out of the last 6. Our pitching rotation is finally completely healthy. The stellar defense and offense of Brandon Phillips is tremendous. This team has a certain swagger right now that makes them really enjoyable to watch. Winning is fun, let's keep it up.

Today I came across a Q and A with Bob Huggins in the Cincinnati Enquirer. As many of you know, I love Bob Huggins. I will always be a Huggins supporter. In my mind and in the minds of many others, Bob Huggins will always be the face of UC basketball. What was in the questions and answers that I found interesting was the fact Huggins turned down an NBA coaching opportunity while he was here at UC. Not an assistant job, but a head coaching opportunity in the National Basketball Association. Oh, not just one opportunity..on THREE separate occasions, Bob Huggins turned down the chance to become a head coach in the NBA. I personally did not know this. I knew he had turned down other colleges so he could remain at the University of Cincinnati but it was news to me and others that he turned down the NBA, three times. If he went to the NBA he could have been making at least five times the amount of money and he wouldn't have had to recruit.

What bothers me most about the whole Huggins situation was how it was handled by then UC President Mrs. Nancy Zimpher aka well....I'll keep this PG rated. Honestly, UC's graduation rates for basketball were down right, pathetic. And when Bob Huggins received a DUI in 2004, things were not looking very bright. He needed a slap on the wrist, or the back, or whatever body part you wanted to slap him on. But firing him? Really? You're going to fire the man that is the schools all time winningest coach, conference coach of the decade, national coach of the year, lead his teams to 14 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, and 10 league conference titles. Okay if you're going to fire that man, the face of your basketball program; you're at least going to tell him face to face, right? Nope. The way Bob Huggins found out was by a phone call from a reporter while he was out recruiting. That's what gets me, the way the whole situation was handled.

This brings me to my last point about Bob Huggins, I can't really provide any facts here, just my opinion; I firmly believe Bob Huggins would have won a national championship here at the University of Cincinnati. We will never know the true answer to this statement because he will never coach here again, we can only speculate. Here's my reasoning...the Big East. Bob Huggins is the reason the entire University of Cincinnati's athletic department is in the Big East. No one can argue that. Bob Goin, the Athletic Director at UC when the switch was made from the C-USA to the BIG EAST was quoted as saying "without Bob Huggins, the Big East never would have wanted UC." The man responsible for enabling UC to gain more of a national presence, was never able to coach in that conference, he wasn't given the chance. UC would have won the national championship in 2oo0 IF Kenyon Martin didn't break his leg. Number 1 team all year, the national player of the year goes out and breaks his leg in a conference tournament. Bob Huggins was never able to tell recruits that he coached in the Big East while he was at UC. If he would have been given the chance to coach here, he would have brought in the prospects faster than gasoline prices have gone up. O.J. Mayo, Bill Walker, Michael Beasley and I've heard as far fetched as Kevin Durant all would have come to UC to play for Huggins. Trust me, it's a lot easier to recruit a 17 year old athlete if you can tell him he'll be playing in the Big East compared to the Conference USA. He was the definition of a players coach. It really hurts me and other Bearcat fans to think about this whole situation, just knowing what could have been really kills me.

Here are some pretty cool/inspiring quotes either about Huggins or from Huggins himself:

Then President Nancy Zimpher asked former Athletic Director Bob Goin to fire Bob Huggins, his response: He refused. "I wouldn't do that to a janitor, I'll give any guy a second chance." Goin later "stepped down."

While choking up about his run at UC, "I've said it I don't know how many times, this is a great town with great people. It was a great run."

"I don't think I'm a bad guy. If you talk to people who know me, you don't hear bad things. Have I made mistakes? Sure, but I'd venture to say most people have. I'm sincerely sorry about them, and I try to fix them, that's life."

and my personal favorite...this was a couple days after XU opened their new arena called the Cintas Center..

"You can't spell CINTAS without NIT."

I will remember Bob Huggins for shedding tears on senior day when Kenyon Martin graduated. I am going to remember Bob Huggins as a great coach, but more importantly as a great person. I will always remember the handwritten letter he wrote my dad after being forced to leave UC. I will remember Bob Huggins as my favorite coach, in any sport, and in any era. What a man he is.

This picture gets me. every. single. time.

Bob Huggins, what a coach, and what a better person.

That is the Truth.

Work for Justice.

Due to the cancelation of the Cincinnati Reds game tonight, I have the night off from work. Kind of a weird feeling considering I'm always working on Monday nights. No complaints here though, lucky for you I have time to blog. I'll try to keep blogging in the near future but I'm not going to make any promises.

I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with this entry. It has been months since I've blogged. I thought about giving my thoughts on my sports teams from the past months but that's too much to cover. I decided to go with the flow with this one, just write out my thoughts; my apologies if this is just a bunch of scrambled thoughts.

September 11th will always be a day that none of you will ever forget, myself included. Not to rub it in, or gloat about how bad my day was but September 11th was especially bad for me because that was the day we buried my great grandmother. While only being 10 years old at the time, I still remember the day being awful. Cowards attacking the United States and I said my final goodbyes to the nicest person I had ever known.

Through all the tears that were shed that day, despite all that happened, my 5th grade little league baseball team still had practice that night. I couldn't understand why I had to go to practice, I didn't want to. Terrorists were in the midst of attacking our great country and my great grandma was no longer around. I remember asking my dad a couple days after the terrible day why exactly we had baseball practice, why didn't we cancel it due to what went on that day? He explained to me that if we stopped what we were doing then the terrorists would have succeeded in their goal, their goal of making us live in fear.

While I have a very good memory, there are very few days I remember exactly what I did every second of that day. What I ate, what closes I wore, who I talked to and all of those meaningless details. Unfortunately two of those days were very tragic days for me. September 11th, and the day that took my best friends dads life. I know it was only yesterday but you can add that to the small list of days where I remember exactly what I did all day. For those of you who know, I like to tweet. So last night when I was at a, social gathering, I happened to pull up twitter and noticed a of couple strange 'tweets.' One saying there's a immediate press conference by the white house happening within the next twenty minutes. I turned on the TV but found nothing. Luckily for twitter, I was kept informed of the news. I kept reading Osama bin Laden was dead but I was skeptical at first because of the people reporting it. I asked a couple other people I was with if they heard anything about this but no one had. Once again I flipped on the TV and there it was, the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks was dead.

Honestly it didn't settle in at first, partly because I was with a large group of people who were in a different state of mind. I left the house to return to my own where my roommates and I flipped on CNN. For three hours we watched the news, looked at people's facebooks and twitters. Everyone was talking about the fact that Osama was dead. We blasted America music and lit up cigars. It was a time to celebrate. Will this change anything in the war on terror? I have no idea honestly, I don't think anyone does. What I do hope is that is provides closure for all of the lives lost on that miserable September day.

My great grandma, all of those innocent people in the trade center towers, all of those firemen who risked their lives to save complete strangers, all of those soldiers who ahve lost their lives protecting us, those were the people I was thinking about last night.

Justice was served last night and I hope this is the start of better things for the United States of America.

Quote of the blog: "If you want peace, work for justice."

one of the coolest photo's, ever:

That is the Truth.

Crosstown Shootout.

Well Ohio $tate is now 1-10 in it's career against the SEC in bowl games, congrats to bUCkeye nation for finally get it done! Hopefully for them it won't be another couple decades before their next win against the SEC. But yeah you're probably right, it will be!

I know this is repetitive but Marvin Lewis and Mike Brown are pathetic. It's seriously at a point now where you start to wonder if the NFL is going to step in and help out the Cincinnati Bengals. Seriously, it's a joke. How Marvin Lewis has a job and how Mike Brown is allowed to own a professional sports team boggles my mind. 60-69-1 over the last eight years. That's a .428 winning percentage. In 8 years, the Bengals have managed only 2 winning seasons and 0 playoff victories. But according to yesterday's debacle of a press conference there needs to be no change? Right. What kind of black mail does Marvin Lewis have on Mike Brown? The only reason Mike Brown sees no reason for change is $$$. People are still buying season tickets and showing up to the games and paying 40 dollars to park so why should he change anything. Selfish, greedy, self-centered, pathetic, embarrassing, insert any adjective you want to describe the Bengals..whatever they're doing now just isn't working and there needs to be change.

University of Cincinnati vs. Xavier University tomorrow night. Thursday at 7, on ESPN2. When the basketball schedule comes out, both XU and UC fans automatically look first to see when this game takes places. Hatred for the other team is an understatement. I joke with my mom that I would rather drop out of school before I would go to Xavier, jokes on her, I'm not joking. There's nothing good about Xavier.

While Xavier has won the past three Crosstown Shootouts, 47-30 is the overall series record for UC-XU..with the Bearcats of course having more wins. Just like UC has more wins this year, more wins in its program history, more All-Americans than Xavier, more Sweet 16's than xavier, more Elite 8's than Xavier..since Xavier has never been to the final 4 UC clearly has more final four appearances and National Championships than Xavier. The list can go on and on how UC is simply better than Xavier and this year will be no exception. UC's defense is too much for XU. The Muskies only run 6 or 7 people in their rotation compared to UC's 9 which will be a big factor. With all that being said, it is a rivlary so I expect it to be physical which will make the final score close. I look for Yancy Gates to absolutely handle Kenny Frease. Tu Holloway should have his way and get his 20 points, but can anyone on Xavier help him out? I don't think so..my prediction: UC 68 Xu 61.

Quote (s) of the blog: Xavier girls are ugly. Can't spell Cintas (XU's home arena) without NIT. Xavier girls are still ugly.

Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis at the debacle of a press conference..

That is the Truth.

Different Feeling.

Happy New Year everyone! If you're looking for a resolution from me, sorry to disappoint but you're not getting one. I am going to TRY to blog more but I'm not making that a resolution.

Anyway..

As much of a down year the Big East had in football, it's representing pretty well in the bowl games. With a 3-2 record, the Big East has the best winning percentage out of any of the 'BCS conferences.' Better than the Big 10, ACC, PAC 10, SEC, and the BIG 12. Yesterday the Big 10 went 0-5, ouch.

UC basketball moved its record to 14-0 with friday night's victory over Seton Hall. Let me recap it for you since you were probably participating in festivities that caused you to not go to the game or at least watch it. It got off to an interesting somewhere after the national anthem but before the tip off. As the teams shook hands, Seton Hall's best player Herb Pope and Cincinnati's Yancy Gates exchanged words and had to be separated. That set the tone for the entire game; constantly the officials were talking to the two, informing them to "cool it." UC got off to a slow start but to Seton Hall's credit they had a great game plan for us, actually it was a pretty simple game plan, play a 2-3 matchup zone. Simple and great at the time made it a close game for the first half, UC went into halftime with a 6 point lead, 35-29. In the second half, neither team really took control right away. Seton Hall cut the deficit to four points with 11 minutes left. Yikes. For the first time all season, I felt nervous. To my delight, UC decided to turn it up a couple notches and won 70-53. Freshmen Sean Kilpatrick was clutch off the bench, adding 14 much needed points and 6 strong rebounds all in just 18 minutes of play.

This team is different from any recent UC team. I would tell you just to trust me on this one but here's why I think this team is for real. Defense defense defense. UC ranks number 5 in the nation in defense, only allowing 54 points a game. Having a defense is so vital in college basketball because when you're offense slumps your defense has to be able to step up and win ball games for you and that's exactly what UC has...a good defense. Tey don't give away the ball. UC is ranked top 20 in the country in turnovers, they commit only 11 turnovers a game which is a plus. UC has started out 2-0 in Big East. UC has won back to back Big East games by double digits for the first time in its program's history. The crowd gets into it at times where last year and years previous they wouldn't. There is a different feeling to this team and I think the rest of the city is starting to realize that the Bearcats aren't going away without a fight this year.

Come to a game, they're fun. I promise you. With that being said..XU next thursday. X week. Gosh I hate them. More to come on this rivalry later in the week.

Quote of the Blog: "God said let there be light more recently than Xavier's been in the final four" (they've never made it to one.)

UC freshmen Sean Kilpatrick..

That is the Truth.