Memorable Bearcats: Jackson Julson

This week's Memorable Bearcat is Jackson Julson. How is Jackson Julson a Memorable Bearcat? You must be asking yourself that, as you ponder if Bearcats Blog is on crack. The reason that Jackson Julson is a Memorable Bearcat is because...... I hated him. Dun dun dunnnnn. Cue dramatic gopher.


Now let me say this, I didn't, and don't actually hate Jackson Julson, I just didn't like his style of play. Or his incredibly annoying, WASPy name. Jackson Julson sounds like someone who rows crew. He sounds like one of those people that wears a sweater around his shoulders and plaid shorts. He sounds like one of those people when you are at a group gathering, you will order a Bud Light, and he will look at you in disdain as he orders a white zinfandel. Who orders white zinfandel at a bar? C'mon son. He sounds like one of those guys you see at a party or gathering where you know like 3 people and you say "Who's that douchenozzle in the corner?" "Oh, that's Jackson Julson." Automatically, he puts you on the wrong foot. It's not even his fault, it's his parents fault. Now that he's kinda famous, he can't change his name. He's stuck as Jackson Julson forever. He sounds like he should have played for Xavier, Rhode Island, George Washington, St Louis, some preppy school. He also looked like a doofus.
Example A

Oh look at me dive at the ball I have no chance of getting with my breathe rite on! I'm Superman!

Look at his face as he holds the ball. Ugh. Not even Damon Flint can 'stand' him. Get it? Because he's falling down?

 In this one, he is like "Oh look at me, I can play defense too guys." How about standing in front of the guy with the ball dude? Works better. All pictures are from the Enquirer by the way, please don't sue me.

Jackson Julson is probably a cool guy, and I would like him if I met him, but I haven't met him so there. I mean no offense, just having fun. Don't paste this on his Facebook though. Let's take a real look at his UC career, at least the 96-97 season thanks to our friends at Stat Sheet.

There are seriously no good pictures of Jackson Julson, so that one with him with another weird look on his face is going to have to do. Julson, despite my jokes, was a huge recruit. He was a part of one of the most heralded classes in UC history. He came in with Dontonio Wingfield, Damon Flint, Darnell Burton, Marko Wright and Brian Wolf. Wingfield was a special talent, Flint was solid, and so was Burton. Wright and Wolf enrolled at UC, then were eaten by grizzly bears in a camping expedition before the season started. Tragic. Julson rotated between starting and coming off the bench. In the highlighted year, he started 28 of 32 games. He averaged but 10 minutes an outing though. He scored 2.3 points a game on 45% shooting. He loved to shoot the triple for some reason only known to himself. He took 60 shots, 23 from three. Oh yeah, he was 6'9 as well. Julson made just 7. He took more threes than free throws, 19. If I remember correctly, he took 3s at the worst times. Well, nearly every time is the worst time when you don't make them. Julson averaged just under 2 boards a game, 0.6 offensive, 1 defensive.

Julson scored maybe a career high 10 points in a blowout win over DePaul. He had 8-2 steals in a demolition of Arkansas. He pulled in 6 rebounds in a win over Howard. The year before, 1996, Julson made the game icing free throws in a Conference USA tournament win over St Louis. He made those after a tough offensive rebound on a Flint missed free throw.

Julson's early career, and late career, were beset by injuries. He had elbow problems his early years. He had a knee injury after the 97 season ended, and that was that for his UC career. He said his heart wasn't in basketball anymore. He went to Georgetown, Kentucky Georgetown, to finish up his schooling. I read something on some forum that popped up on a google search that said that Julson wanted more minutes his senior season, but UC had Bobby Brannen, Kenyon, and Ryan Fletcher coming into their own, so Jackson split town.

Jackson Julson is now a financial services professional in San Antonio, Texas. We here at Bearcats Blog had some fun with Jackson, but we wish him the best. We hope he takes this in the spirit it was given. In closing, one last picture of Jackson Julson face.

Memorable Bearcat Games: Arizona 79 Cincinnati 76

This Memorable Bearcat game is quite painful. I remember this big Cincinnati v. Arizona clash being on a Sunday afternoon. My best friend and I were working on a huge project for school that was probably due the next day. For the life of me I can't remember what it was about. I do remember that it took all fucking day and it was boring as shit. Arizona came into the game rocking a 17-4 record, and Cincinnati an 18-1 mark. The Bearcats had been dominating since their 1 point loss to UAB, winning every game by at least 10 points. Arizona  was starting to get the ship right after some early Pac 10 struggles. Both teams had big time NBA talent. Cincinnati had Danny Fortson, Arizona Jason Terry (who didn't play) and Michael Dickerson. Both teams made runs deep into the tournament. Arizona went to the Sweet 16 where they lost to Kansas, and Cincinnati went to the Elite 8, where they lost to Mississippi State. 

The first half was a barn burner. The Wildcats played without standout center Ben Davis, who was in foul trouble, but that didn't stop them from putting 41 on the mighty Bearcat defense. The Bearcats hung in there, scoring 38. Cincinnati pounded Arizona on the glass, 26-16 in the half. The Bearcats won the rebounding 46-32, but Arizona must have gotten some rebounds in the second half that were huge, because Lute said "We got got killed on the boards, but as soon as Ben came back in the game the second half, he gave us strong rebounding." Davis had 6 rebounds, so that's kinda a weird thing to say. I'm going to go ahead and guess that Damon Flint had a huge first half, because he had 16 points. The highlight of the first half would have to have been when guard Reggie Geary got a steal and bent the rim on a breakaway dunk.


The second half saw Cincinnati dominate. Darnell Burton scored 9 of his 12 points in a big Cincinnati run that put the Bearcats up 68-59 with under 6 minutes left. Arizona would make a run. Obviously you knew they would make a run because hello, the score is in the title. Spoiler alert much. Michael Dickerson scored on a put back to cut the lead. Next trip, Geary drilled a wide open lead to cut the lead to 2 with 4 minutes left. Cincinnati was able to push the lead back out to 4. I'm guessing they got the ball to Fortson. I have no idea because no one says how Cincinnati scored, and all the youtube videos are of Arizona points. The score was 73-69 with 2:20 left in favor of the Bearcats. Dickerson got the ball after a pass inside to Davis, and knocked down a trey. On UC's next possession, Keith Gregor tried to get the ball inside to Fortson. The only problem was that Gregor was being trapped, and Danny was surrounded by 7 Wildcats. The bad pass turned into a breakaway lay up attempt by Simon that was blocked by I think Monroe, but Davis got the put back for the lead. Cincinnati took the lead on a 3 pointer. Or a 3 point play. Let's say it was Flint, since he made the most 3s in the the game. The Bearcats forced Arizona into a wild, tough shot by Dickerson. Dickerson fell on the floor. It appears UC tried to slap the rebound out of bounds, but the ball went right to Dickerson, who threw it back out top. Simon drove, found Davis on the wing, and he splashed one home in Fortson's face for the tie. UC raced the ball up the court. Keith LeGree drove to the rim and had his shot blocked by Davis out of bounds with 3 seconds left. It could have been a charge, but there was no call. LeGree for some reason tried to bounce pass the inbound to Fortson. The ball was tipped. Fortson couldn't bring it in. Simon wrangled the ball, took a dribble and threw one in from 65 feet for the win. It was terrible. There was a smashed chalkboard in the UC locker room, and a smashed face for my friend who said the shot was awesome.


Unbelievably, it's hard to find information about a random February basketball game from 1996. You would think that it would be incredibly easy. But no, it's not. The AP didn't bother to say how UC scored to take the lead at the end of the game for crying out loud. Sadly, there is video of the shot that sucked. It's video of Arizona's run the last few minutes, making it even worse. View it if you want to punch something.

Just a Heads Up

Quick heads up post for your Tuesday. First of all, UC made the Big East Tournament in baseball. The mighty Bearcats earned the 7 seed, and play the 2 seed Connecticut Huskies tomorrow at 1 pm. You can watch the game on BigEastBaseball.com. You can listen on Sirius. I don't know what channel, because we can't know everything peeps. That's your Bearcats Blog tip of the day. Other match ups include 6) Rutgers v. 3) Pittsburgh at 10 am, 8) West Virginia v. 1) Louisville at 5, and 5) South Florida v. 4) St Johns at 8.

The other note is that the Big East roundtable I participated in over at East Coast Bias is up. It was a fun time, and you should all ch-ch-check it out. Orange 44, the UConn Blog, the Nova Blog, Pitt Blather, we all talked about the Big East. And so did some other people. Tomorrow, Memorable Bearcats Games continues with a memorable Bearcats game. If you have any suggestion for that, or Memorable Bearcats, drop a line or comment.

Bearcats Breakdown: Ibrahima Thomas

Bearcats Breakdown today focuses on one of the more unsung players on the Cincinnati roster this season, Ibrahima Thomas. Thomas was in his first season as a Bearcat, his junior year overall. He played 2 seasons at Oklahoma State if you don't remember. Thomas wasn't eligible until December, and didn't get consistent minutes until January. But, he came on late in the season, and is one of the players I'm interested in seeing next season.

Scoring

Ibrahima Thomas averaged 5.75 points a game his first year at UC. In his full year at OSU, he averaged 6. Thomas shot a horrible 38%. His effective field goal percentage was 41, and his true shooting percentage was 44. All of those are pretty bad. Thomas played 18 minutes a game, and used 19.6 of UC possessions when he was on the floor. That resulted in his offensive rating being a poor 94.7. Thomas was 54-141 on the season overall. He was determined to shoot the 3 ball, putting up 31 attempts. He made 8. He made 2 of 2 in the WVU regular season game, meaning he was just 6-29 the rest of the year. Take away a 3-7 string he had in 3 games, and he was 3-22 outside those 4 games. Thomas was also horrible from the free throw line, going 45-83, 54.2%. But, the good thing in that was that he got to the line a lot. He shot more free throws this season than he did in his Oklahoma State career. The biggest thing that kept Thomas' scoring, and percentage down was his inability to make put backs. I swear he missed at least 3 a game. At least. If he can learn to score from inside 5 feet, he's going to be very good.

Thomas had his biggest scoring day in one of the Bearcats biggest games, scoring 13 against Syracuse. Thomas made 4-8 from the field, 4-6 at the line, and hit a 3. Thomas had 11 against Cal State Bakersfield. Seriously, who didn't have a good game against Cal State Bakersfield? If UC didn't play them, everyone's stats would suck. Thomas matched the 11 in a winning effort against Winthrop. Thomas scored 10 against Lipscomb, his first big UC performance. Winthrop and Lipscomb came back to back, and I think some of the fanbase might have had raised expectations for Thomas then. Ibby scored 10 on a season high 12 shots in the win at UConn. He scored 10 one last time against Seton Hall in only 14 minutes. Here is a freaky occurrence. Ibrahima Thomas had all of his double digit scoring games back to back. The previously mentioned Lipscomb and Winthrop, Bakersfield and Seton Hall, and Syracuse and UConn. Odd isn't it? The 3 point games I mentioned in the first paragraph were West Virginia for the 2-2, and Notre Dame, Syracuse and UConn for the 3-7.

Rebounding

Ibby averaged 5.28 rebounds per game, a career best. Thomas had 148 total. Ibrahima pulled in 1.821 offensive boards a game, 11% of UC's o boards, and 3.6 defensive rebounds, 22%. Thomas had a career best rebounding game in the Big East Tournament win over Rutgers, pulling home 13. That bested his previous career high, 11 in the road win at UConn. That was his only double double of the season, and his best game statistically. Thomas pulled home 10 rebounds in 19 minutes in the win over DePaul. Thomas had 9 rebounds twice, in the home win over UConn, and the NIT loss to Dayton.

Thomas had some disappointing rebounding games. He had only 2 against Marquette, not taking advantage of his size. He had but 4 in the destructions at Notre Dame and Georgetown. But other than that, he hit his averages in the minutes that he got. It's hard to come down harshly on games he didn't score or rebound well in, because Mick came down harshly and didn't play him. Thomas had some solid games down the stretch, 8-9 against Dayton, 8-8 against Louisville, 9-5 against Weber St.

Other things

Thomas had 7 assists this season, which is pretty horrible. He was basically a black hole inside, or outside, when he touched the ball. Or, people bricked shots after he passed them the ball. Thomas had 4 steals against Georgetown before that game turned into a rout. Thomas also blocked 3 shots in that game, a season high. Thomas got himself into too much foul trouble this season. He fouled out of 3 games, Dayton, Villanova, West Virginia. The Villanova game has to be his most disappointing game, as he played but 12 minutes. You can't talk about Ibrahima Thomas and not mention the pull apart he was involved in against Xavier. It was his first game and he nearly got into a fight. That's dedication.

Overall

I would dare say that overall, Ibrahima Thomas had a good first season. He played hard once he got his sea legs, and was a part of the best line ups that UC had. He may have committed silly fouls, and shot poorly, but you couldn't question his effort. Especially when it was clear that he has less talent than Yancy Gates, but played with a much higher motor. Thomas needs to work on his shot this summer, that's a no duh. If he's going to be a big help to the team, he needs to develop some more muscle and a shot around the basket. I think he's going to have a very solid senior season.

Friday Random Stuff

Double shot of Friday Random things. The great Trey Kerby of Ball Don't Lie, and the Blowtorch, and other NBA related things, posted a link to this youtube video from Tremendous News. I love Lost, and am looking forward to the finale very much on Sunday night, and this video is a great recap of the series. It's very funny and you should all check it out. And it's got cats.

Flight of the Conchords Friday

Today's Friday Random Thing is another Flight of the Conchords video. It's probably my favorite songs by them, Carol Brown. Hope you have a great weekend everybody. We'll get back to the normal routine next week. Thanks for reading.

Questions and Answers

Bearcats Blog apologizes for the lack of Memorable Bearcats and Games posts this week. We'll get back to that next week. Today, we'll do questions and answers, starring myself.

What Big East coach picked St John's to win the Big East?

Rick Pitino did. He said he would have picked UC to win, but didn't want to put that pressure on Mick. I don't know what's happened to Rick Pitino the past year. Well, we all know what's happened to Rick Pitino in the past year, but I meant more basketball wise. Louisville never seemed to get the right mix going last season, after the disappointing loss to Michigan State in the Elite 8. The Cards have a couple of big recruiting classes coming in the next few seasons, so we'll see if Pitino still has the magic.

What Bearcats Blog first team Big East player was booted from his team?

That would be Jamine Peterson of Providence. It hasn't been said what made Keno Davis boot him off the team, but the leading scorer and rebounder won't be back. I don't know if it's going to be such a terrible thing for the Friars. Peterson earned the nickname of Greedy from the Friar faithful. Maybe that's just a cool nickname, but it also means he was a black hole once he touched the ball. Peterson didn't care as much about defense as Friar fans would have liked, but who really played defense on Providence last season? I think the answer was no one. I like watching Providence play because their brand of basketball is exciting. I would rip my hair out if I were a Providence fan though. Especially after the disaster against South Florida. Looking back on it, both the South Florida games were disasters for Providence. The first meeting saw the Friars blow a 12 point lead with 2 minutes left and a 5 point lead with 11 seconds left. They would lose in OT. In the second meeting, they gave up a 7 point lead with 5 minutes left, took a late lead, but gave up a lay up to Dominque Jones, who was fouled by Curry, who got hit with a technical. Providence probably doesn't want to see them on the schedule twice next season.

I heard from Brian Bennett that Phil Steele's list of All America teams came out. Were any Big East players on it?

Yes. On the second team were Pitt Panther stars Dion Lewis, Jonathan Baldwin and Greg Romeus, and Mountaineer Robert Sands. The fourth team featured WVU back Noel Devine and UConn LB Lawrence Wilson.

What about Steele's Big East team?

What about it? Get off Phil Steele already. No one cares.

Is there talk of the Big East getting rid of the double bye in the Big East Tournament?

Yes there is. I'm a big fan of getting rid of the double bye. It was stupid from the get go. For one, it punished every team who had to play on Tuesday. It also punished the teams who received the double bye, not counting Louisville, who won the whole thing. The first year, Pitt and UConn lost. Last season, everyone lost but West Virginia, and they almost lost their first game. They are speculating about a pure 16 team bracket, with 4 games on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, and the quarter finals starting on Thursday. That seems about fair. I think the top 4 play on Tuesday. That seems to be the most fair way to do things. I mean, if you play well enough to earn a top 4 seed in the ridiculous Big East, than I think you deserve a day off in the tournament. And if you lose, you deserve the shame an extra day.

Let's get back to Brian Bennett. Would he like to see Cincinnati in a non-conference rivalry game every year?

Glad you asked. The answer is yes. He, like every Bearcat fan and none of the spineless Buckeye fans, would love to see Cincinnati and Ohio State play every season. Ohio State would much rather play Akron and Toledo and other MAC schools before playing the other major conference team from Ohio. That's because Ohio State is scared of losing Ohio. The teams play again in 2014. I'm predicting a Cincinnati victory on this date.

Is there a New Jersey blog Big East ranking for next season? I have a need to see one. It's my crack.

Great question, and yes there is. It's right here. Thank you New Jersey Hoops Haven for putting out such a list today. I'll run down the top 5 for you if you are too lazy to click. Villanova, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virgnia, Georgetown. That's rather vanilla. They pick Cincinnati 12. Shockingly, they have DePaul in last place.

Speaking of Big East talk, is it true that you are participating in something for the East Coast Bias in the next couple of weeks? 

Yes. I'll tell you when things get posted over there and you can check them out. It's a roundtable deal, with things from Orange 44, Voodoo 5, Eye of a Panther, The Nova Blog, Pitt Blather, and lots of other email address I don't recognize. Pretty much every blog listed is involved. It should be awesome.

NBE Basketball says in their latest Big East roundup that UC might be better with this roster. Thoughts?

I agree. The person who wrote that said that it was clear that the players hated each other last season, and it would be addition by subtraction. Believe me, there are a ton of people who think that UC was better off losing one player in particular this season. I think it should help UC. I've written about it this issue myself. What, with rumors that Bishop and Lance hated each other, Bishop hating Mick (getting kicked off the team didn't help that not be true), and Vaughn and Lance playing horribly along side each other all season. I think UC has a nucleus of players that genuinely like each other. At least they follow each other on twitter.

After that seemingly awkward answer, how does Brian Bennett rank the Big East running backs?

I should link Brian at least once, so there that is. He, like everyone else with eyes, ranks Pittsburgh first, and West Virginia second. He has UC 4th, behind UConn. That seems about fair. He looks for big things from Isaiah Pead, and so do I. I'm really pumped about my boy Darrin Williams getting touches this year. I think he's going to be a home run threat on kick returns, and getting handoffs and screens.

Can we get one last reminder about UC baseball?

This weekend, UC plays host to Georgetown. The Bearcats need to win to guarantee they make the Big East tournament. Georgetown kinda sucks, 5 Big East wins, but spoilers are everywhere. Show up and root the Bearcats onward and upward.