UC Notes

I'm working a list of the worst 25 UC losses I can remember after the debacle from Wednesday, but I took a little break to throw some notes your way. Most are football, but there are a couple basketball at the end. 

• The Bearcats hired an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. It's one man, and that man is Mike Bajakian. Mike held the same position under Butch Jones at Central Michigan. The CMU offense lead, or was near the top, of the MAC in every offensive category that's important. CMU had the 15th best offense, and 14th in terms of passing efficiency. Good news
• The Bearcats are ranked 19 on the SI top 25 for 2010 too early edition. 
• Rivals did their look back at the football season for the Big East. They had Brian Kelly as the coach of the year, UC as the surprise of the year, UC's defense as the worst bowl performance, and Zach Collaros as the offensive breakout player for next year.
• Former Bearcat Mike Mickens signed to the Bengals offseason roster. He was on the practice squad last season. 
• Lance McAlister threw down some hot venom after the loss to St John's saying the following "In year four....if UC basketball lacks: A leader, Shooters, The ability to play hard consistently,  The ability to close out games, The ability to hit FT's, What exactly is being accomplished?" Harsh words
• I heard on twitter, not the greatest source ever, that the end of the game inbounds by Rashad Bishop was not to happen. Bishop was directly told not to throw the ball deep, and that UC didn't run the play drawn up. 
• One final thing, to the people calling for Mick Cronin's head, chill. Let's play the season out first before we go crazy saying he needs to go. If you remember, the program was nothing 4 years ago and we knew this would be a process. Now that we finally have expectations, we can't bail on the man who brought them back. Just relax peeps, it's January. 

SI has Lance Stephenson as one of the top freshmen in the country

(Enquirer)

The next Sports Illustrated that you open will not only have Bengals playoff preview, but it will mention the Cincinnati freshmen sensation, Lance Stephenson. Ok sensation was a bit much probably, but Born Ready was mentioned among the nation's elite freshmen. John Wall was on some of the covers, and there was probably a big write up about him. I'm guessing they write about the people on the cover. Who knows? Does anyone read magazines anymore? Anyway, the other freshmen mentioned were Kansas' Xavier Henry (not pronounced like Xavier, but za-v-eh. We should say Xavier like this from now on.), DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky, Avery Bradley of Texas and Derrick Favors of Georgia Tech. Here is what SI wrote about the Bearcats leading scorer.

Before he even set foot in Cincinnati, New York City basketball prodigy Stephenson had starred in a documentary,Gunnin' for That #1 Spot, and graced the cover of Dime magazine, which proclaimed, THIS 17-YEAR-OLD WOULD BE AN NBA STAR RIGHT NOW. In sum: the 6'5" freshman guard has an outsized ego (he talked trash to opposing coach Chris Mack during the Bearcats' loss at Xavier) and nerves of steel. (He was fouled with less than a second left and made both free throws in a breakthrough 71--69 win over No. 10 Connecticut on Dec. 30.)

Great press for the Bearcats and Lance. Enjoy him while you can, because it doesn't seem like he's lasting long for better or worse.