After slow start, Cincinnati puts things into high gear

Victoria Sun

Friday, Dec. 21, 2001 | 11:46 a.m.

Bob Huggins had seen enough.

Less than five minutes into the game between No. 25 Cincinnati and Louisiana-Monroe, his Bearcats looked tired and disinterested.

The scrappy Indians trapped and hustled their way to a 5-5 tie at the 16:11 mark and after a media timeout, Huggins benched all five starters the same way top-ranked Duke coach Mike Kryzewski did during the Blue Devils' recent overtime victory over No. 7 Kentucky.

The move worked on two accounts as the subs infused the team with new energy and the starters came to life for what turned out to be a routine 102-66 victory at Valley High School in the second round of the Las Vegas Classic Thursday night.

"He always tells us that no matter who you play against you have to play hard all the time and that's what we tried to keep in our minds," said Cincinnati guard Steve Logan. "We're No. 1 in the nation in defense.

"We get in the passing lanes and make teams do the things they don't want to do, things like that, so we play with pride on defense. Years ago we played offense first, now it's vice versa."

Which is very bad news for every other team on the Bearcats' schedule because not only is Cincinnati (9-1) stepping up its defense, it's starting to make big shots.

The Bearcats sank 12 of 15 3-pointers for a total of 17, the second most in school history, in their ninth straight win.

Logan had five of the treys and scored a game-high 23 points in just 25 minutes while Taron Barker made five 3s for a career-high 18 points.

Although Huggins wasn't pleased with the team's 19 turnovers, he acknowledged that it was making progress.

"We're starting to rebound a little bit better, we're better on defense," Huggins said. "We're finally making shots.

"I thought this team could make shots early on and we didn't make shots. I knew we shoot the ball too good to keep shooting the way we were."

Before Thursday, Cincinnati made just 52 3-pointers in 165 attempts, a lowly 31.5 percent.

In their last five victories before this one, the Bearcats beat their opponents by an average of 29.2 points, including a 75-55 laugher against crosstown rival Xavier.

"Coming off a big win at Xavier that kind of gave us some confidence," Logan said. "Then we come home and beat Richmond, which was a decent team, so coming out to this tournament we have a great deal of confidence and guys are playing with tremendous passion.

"That's what we tried to do. We didn't think we were going to let up (against Louisiana-Monroe). We just tried to keep the pace up for 40 minutes."

Up next for Cincinnati, ranked for the first time this year, is undefeated Mississippi State (11-0) today at 5 p.m.

"I don't know one of these guys who's not ready to play on our team," Logan said. "We want to be the first team to knock them off."

There's one more thing the Bearcats would like to do.

"I think we have something to prove because I think everybody overlooks Cincinnati," Barker said. "We're going to take it one day at a time and try to move higher and higher in the rankings.

"We're just going to try to win this tournament and move up."

In other action Thursday:

Austin made one of two free throws with 17.6 seconds left to complete the scoring. Richmond had a chance to win, but Reggie Brown's 3-point attempt fell short at the buzzer.

Deane's off-balance layup off the glass with 2.4 seconds left sealed the win for Purdue (7-4).