Right on schedule

Sporting News, The, Jan 8, 1996 by Michael Knisley

You can't say that about most of the rest of the nation's best teams as conference play begins. Take a quick look around the next couple of months with us.

Best in the land...

... isn't Kansas, isn't Kentucky, isn't Massachusetts and isn't Arizona. Right now, it's Cincinnati. And it isn't just this genius-in-residence at TSN saying it. That's the unsolicited assessment of some other people who -- hard to believe -- might actually know even more about the game.

"Right this very minute, the best team in the nation is Cincinnati," says Texas Christian Coach Billy Tubbs. "Boy, the numbers they're putting up against the people they're playing, it's uncanny. At Arkansas, at California. They're just so good defensively, and they have such great athletic ability."

Danny Fortson as a force in the middle, and Damon Flint, Damell Burton and Keith LeGree as triple tyrants on the perimeter -- if nothing else, Cincinnati may be the most balanced team going these days. And do the Bearcats play defense.

"Cincinnati, in my opinion, is the best team in the country right now," Arizona's Olson says. "They've got strength. They've got quickness. They defend like crazy."

A victory at Arkansas, A victory at Cal. A victory over Temple on a neutral court. A rout of Minnesota at home. That's an impressive November-December run. But it gets even tougher for the Bearcats. Memphis, Louisville, Marquette, Tulane, Alabama-Birmingham and I guess you have to throw in DePaul, which ruined Indiana's Christmas by winning in Bloomington. If you aren't on the Conference USA bandwagon by now, the parade has passed you by.

The best conference matchup of the season -- anywhere, any conference -- just might be Memphis at Cincinnati on February 29 (and isn't Leap Day an appropriate time for those two teams to meet?). As long as we're talking matchups, how about a non-conference game between Cincinnati and Arizona on February 11 in Phoenix? Pretty nice.

For the sake of balance, though, we'll throw in a dissent about the Bearcats. We did solicit this one from Cal Coach Todd Bozeman, who saw them first-hand in Cincinnati's 77-70 victory on December 20.

"I think they're pretty good," Bozeman says. "I think they're very good. But the best team in the country? Shoot, where does that put us? I don't know that I could say they're the best team in the country."

The East's big beasts

So we're behind the times already. The augmented Big East started conference games in December. But the real action doesn't start until Villanova plays at Connecticut on January 8 in the first of a series of tasty showdowns among the league's four monsters. Entering this week, Villanova, Connecticut, Georgetown and Syracuse all rank among the nation's Top 15 teams.

The series in January:

Villanova at UConn on the 8th.

Syracuse at UConn on the 21st.

Syracuse at Georgetown on the 24th.

And Villanova at Syracuse on the 29th.

Georgetown's big Big East games don't come until later. Its first game with Villanova isn't until February 5, and its one game against UConn isn't until February 19. That gives Thompson another month or so to continue the tinkering that has already taken a season and a half and remains the single most compelling on-court issue in the league: what to do with Iverson. Georgetown is in some ways still a prisoner of its long fine of big men that stretches back from Othella Harrington through Dikembe Mutombo to Patrick Ewing.