Memorable Bearcats: Immanuel McElroy

This week's Memorable Bearcat is the only one that I saw when I was walking around campus one day at UC. I was standing near some steps after I think writing class, and here comes Immanuel McElroy and a couple of his friends. We made eye contact and I said "Hey." He nodded. It was a magical moment for everyone involved. Immanuel McElroy was one of my favorite Bearcats. He wore 23, he threw down alley oops, he played tough defense, and he played on one of my favorite UC teams ever. Is it a coincidence UC hasn't done much in the NCAA tournament since he left? Probably, but he was on the sweet 16 club of 2000-01. Let's look in more detail at the career of Immanuel McElroy.

Immanuel McElroy was a junior college transfer. His first season at UC, he proved invaluable. He played in every game, and started 23, while playing 22 minutes per. He averaged 7 points on 55% shooting. Nearly all of them were from inside the arch, as he made 3 of 10 treys and 55% of his free throws. McElroy pulled down 3 boards and averaged 1.7 assists. He didn't score a ton his first month as a Bearcat, but then in a game against Clemson, he scored 12 points in 14 minutes on 6-7 shooting. It took him another month to have good statistical games. He had 8 and 8 against Louisville, and a big 14-8-6 assists in a close win over UAB. Here is a picture of him dunking against them.

McElroy came into his own in February. He had 14-7-4 in an overtime loss to Marquette, 14 in a win over St Louis, 12 in a win over Houston, 13-5 in a win over USF, and back to back 13 point games against UAB and Memphis victories in the Conference USA Tournament. He tailed off the rest of the season, scoring just 18 points. I think they were all dunks though. Kenny Satterfield loved throwing alley oops, and Immanuel McElroy loved slamming them home. Like this against Kent State, his only bucket of that win to send UC to the Sweet 16.

The biggest dunk of the season for McElroy would come in the next game against Stanford. Mac got a steal, and finished a 2 on 1 fast break with Satterfield with an alley oop on some dude's face. That gave UC the lead and caused me to wake up my parents with my yells. Remember, that game was late on a Thursday. It was a great moment.

McElroy was one of the leaders for the 2001-2002 season. He started every game, playing 31 minutes. He averaged 9.5 points, 5 rebounds and 2.7 assists. He shot 47% from the field. That number would have been higher if he didn't try and shoot threes. McElroy was 5 of 28 from deep that season. He would have fit in great on this year's squad. He got dramatically better at the free throw stripe, raising his percentage made to 71. He also averaged nearly a steal a game, and always guarded the best player on the other team. He was a ball hawk, who did things like this.

You really think dude on Boston has a chance of making that shot? He actually did and was fouled by McElroy, but let's pretend he didn't. I made that up. McElroy started the season off with a then career high 10 rebound performance against Oklahoma State. He scored 10 in the home opener against Wright St, but really got it going in December. Against Coppin St, he put up 10-6-6-3 steals. Toledo, 14-7. In the Crosstown Shootout, he scored 14 with 9 rebounds and 4 assists. He had another 3 game string of double digit scoring games, getting 12 against Mississippi State, 10-9 against Purdue and 15-6-4 in a win over Akron. McElroy didn't score a ton for a while, but had a 9 rebound game against Charlotte and a 6 assist game against Houston. He stayed consistent, but blew up for a career high 19, on 7-10 shooting,  in the 103-94 shootout at Wake Forest. After that, he got back to back 10 point games against Southern Miss in the Steve Logan game, and DePaul. He followed with a 9 rebound game against Marquette. He had 11 in the loss at Louisville, but followed with 16 and 8 in the regular season finale against Memphis. McElroy had a solid C-USA tournament, going for 8 against USF, 8-6-7 assists, a career high-2 steals against Charlotte, capped with 12 in the win over Marquette. McElroy made the Tournament team, but probably for his defense. He guarded USF 10 year player Altron Jackson, Charlotte's miserable Jobey Thomas, and some dude on Marquette named Dwyane Wade. McElroy had his best game in a Bearcat uniform in the opening round game in the NCAA tournament against Boston. Immanuel went off for 14 points on 7-11 shooting, a career high 11 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks. In his final UC game, he had 13 points and 8 rebounds. That game still bums me out all these years later.

Immanuel McElroy currently plays in Europe. He's doing quite well over there, and is probably slamming down alley oops all over dude's heads. McElroy was in many ways a quintessential Huggins era Bearcat. He played tough defense. He rebounded like hell. Most importantly, he couldn't shoot, a Bob Huggins guard staple. Immanuel McElroy was the man overshadowed by Steve Logan while at UC, but to us, he's a Memorable Bearcat.

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 Bearcats: Pete Mickeal

After the post about the 2000 Bearcats win over DePaul, it made me think about that team. One of my favorite players was Pete Mickeal. I could end up doing a Memorable Bearcats post about everyone on that team, and maybe I will, but Mickeal was a star on that team. In fact, he was an Honorable Mention All American. Pete was a big part of those Cincinnati teams in 1998-1999 and 1999-2000. Let's see how big a part.

Pete Mickeal was a junior college transfer from Indian Hills Community College. He was the Ju-co player of the year for his 2 seasons there, and led the team to back to back championships. Pete came right into the starting line up, starting all 33 games his junior year, and 31 his senior year. He missed the DePaul game due to suspension and I don't believe started the game after that, but he was always there for UC. And he was really always there, seeing 33.8 minutes of action and 31.3 minutes of action his two seasons. He played 84% , and 76% of the minutes for UC his career. If it weren't for blowouts, he would have played every minute of every game. Kenyon Martin was the star of those UC teams, but Mickeal was the glue that held everything together.

Mickeal was a great offensive weapon at UC, even though he was known mostly for his tenacious defense. He would guard the best player on the opposing team every time out. And most of the time, he shut them down. He averaged 1.5 and 1.4 steals a season. Mickeal's offensive rating his junior year at UC was a superb 120, which was 41st nationally and 2nd in the conference. His numbers dipped a little the next year, but he still had 111.9 rating, which was 7th in C-USA. Pete averaged 14.9 points his junior season, and 13.5 his senior year. That seems like a big dip, and it is, but remember that UC had Martin, Johnson, Logan, Satterfield, Tate and even Ryan Fletcher. UC was deep. Mickeal was still second in scoring on that club, and he would have lead UC in scoring this season. His 14.5 points did lead the team. Pete also rebounded very well. He averaged 7.2 and 6.3 at UC. The hit is a board a game, but UC had 4 players average 4 boards, and 5 who averaged 3. Pete averaged nearly 2 assists a game at UC. He also was a pretty good foul shooter, shooting 70% and 72%.

Pete's best scoring games came his junior season. He put up a career high 28 twice. The first time was against Louisville in a 13 point win, where Pete had 28 on 10-15, 7-9 free throws and had 9 rebounds. His best game as a Bearcat was his other 28 point outing, in the C-USA conference tournament against South Florida. Pete was 13-15, 2-2 at the stripe, 9 rebounds, 5 offensive, 5 assists and 3 steals. Mickeal had another monster game against Charlotte, with 23 points on 8-12 shooting, 7-9 at the line, with a career high 15 rebounds. Against UNLV he had 23 on 8-12, going 7-10 at the line. He had 22 on another 8-12, 6-7 fts win against Memphis where he played 39 minutes. It was a 25 point blowout, don't know if that was smart. Pete put up 22-12 against Tulane, and 20-9-5 steals against Houston. Mickeal also had double doubles in wins against Rhode Island (15-10), Oklahoma (17-10), and Louisville (18-10). UC won every game when Pete Mickeal scored 15 points, which he did 15 times. The problem is that he would disappear in losses. He scored 6 in 35 minutes in a loss to St Louis, 8 on 4 shots in the second round loss to Temple, 9 on 3-8 in a loss to DePaul, 9 in foul trouble in the Crosstown Shootout loss to Xavier, and 9 on 2-8 shooting against Charlotte.

The senior campaign for Pete Mickeal was also incredibly solid. He started off well, but had a few no shows sprinkled in as well, 8 points against Gonzaga, 4 against Oklahoma, but things held steady until mid February. He hit a little slump from the field, bottoming out with a 2-11 5 point outing against Louisville, which saw him pulled from the game. He went 2-7, 4-10, 0-9, 3-4, and 4-9 leading up to it. Whatever was the problem didn't matter, as Pete bounced back. Pete had 5 20 point games that year, and 15 games where he scored 15 points. Unfortunately, UC lost 2 of them. But going 28-2 when you score 15 points is pretty good. Pete's best game was the Humanitarian Bowl make up game at Boise State. He had 23 on 9-12, with 14 rebounds and 3 steals. The 14 was a season high, and the 23 tied his season high. That game came against Marquette, where he had 8 rebounds and shot 7-10, 7-9 at the line. Pete had 21 on 6-9, 9-10, and 5 steals against St Louis, 21-5-4 assists against North Carolina and 20 against Charlotte. Pete had 18-10-3 blocks in a win over Southern Miss. He had 16-11 in the loss to Tulsa in the NCAA Tournament. He also had double doubles in wins over South Florida (16-10) and St Louis (13-10). He had 12 rebounds in a game against Mississippi Valley State, and a very solid 16-8-5 assists-3 blocks-2 steals game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Pete is still playing today. He was drafted by Dallas, but never played, signed by New York, but never played, and went on to the ABA. He won the MVP in 2002, with 35 points a game. He moved over to Europe ever since. He most recently played with Barcelona, where he had 12-5 in Euro League play, and 10.2-3.8-1.2 assists in the Spanish League. His team recently won the championship. You can read it in his blog here. He plays with NBA draft pick and Spanish phenom Ricky Rubio.

Pete Mickeal was a very solid player in junior college, a very solid player at UC, and is still a very solid player in Spain. Pete Mickeal was one of the best players in probably the best time to be a Bearcat basketball fan, besides never making it out of the second round, but that doesn't count because we are talking about the regular season because that's the only thing that matters, see look at our C-USA banners!!! Anyway, Pete Mickeal was a hell of a player and one of my favorites and that's why he's a Memorable Bearcat.

Memorable Bearcats: Cheryl Cook

In this late edition of Memorable Bearcats, sorry real life got in the way, we tackle an unknown subject to most. I'm just going ahead and guessing that this person is an unknown, even though we've all seen their accomplishments. I'll stop with the mystery, and tell you who this person is. It's Cincinnati Hall of Famer Cheryl Cook. She has one of the 4 retired numbers at 5/3 Arena. I knew that she was great, but have never known anything about her besides she could ball. I am banking on the fact that none of you have googled her and you all are curious to know about her exploits like this guy is. Let's take a look at the career of Cheryl Cook.

Cheryl Cook started lighting people up in high school. She's an Indiana high school legend at Indianapolis Washington High. In her award winning senior season, she put in 29.7 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists. She was Miss Indiana Basketball. Literally 4 days ago she was inducted in the Indiana State Basketball Hall of Fame. That's quite the accomplishment for anyone. Congrats to her on that. Cook came to Cincinnati in 1981. She wasted no time in dropping points on women's faces. She was known for her great passing. She continued her high school rebounding prowess as well. We'll get into her UC career down low, but let's talk about her after non-UC life. She was a member of the 1983 Pan Am Gold medal team, and the 1983 World Champions. She had an injury that caused her to not make the 1984 Olympic team. After she left UC, she would play in Spain and Italy. In Spain, He averaged 38.9 points a game. I'll say that again, 38.9! It doesn't matter if women can't play basketball, that's a ton. In Italy, she put up 25.7. She was a machine.

Cookie Monster as her friends, and I, call her scored an amazing 2,367 points in her Cincinnati career. That ranks first all time for the UC women, and at the time, it was good for 7th all time in women's NCAA. Cook was a rebounding machine. She is 7th all time at UC in that category with 688. Cook also set the record for assists, with 360. She's currently 5th place in that stat.

Let's break down more of her spectacular stats. First in her career, and then we'll look at season stats. She's played the 4th most minutes in UC history, is 2nd in points a game with 20.8 (Linda Norwell averaged 21.2 in the 70s), first by far in field goals made with 962 (2nd has 731), first in field goals attempted with 2,158 (2nd is 1,707), second in free throws made and attempted, and fourth in steals. Cook was a 2 time Metro Conference Player of the Year, 2 time All Conference and 3 time All Tournament Team. She was a 2nd team All American American in 1985 and Honorable Mention in 1984.

Cook holds the top 2 ladies scoring seasons, going for 771 and 767 in 84-85 and 83-84 respectively. She averaged 27.5 and 27.4 a game in those seasons, which is second and third behind Norwell's 28. Cook made 315 field goals in both seasons. She is 3rd and 5th in free throws made in a season, and 3rd and 6th in attempted. She had 131 assists in 82-83, which ranks 9th now, but was 2nd then. Cook also is tied for 10th with 69 steals in a season.

In single games, Cook is tied for second in points in a game, scoring 41 twice. She made 19 shots in a game which is first, 16 which is tied for 2nd, and 15 twice which is tied for 4th. She took 35 shots in a game, a game that was not any of the ones listed, and that's the UC high. She also holds second with 33 (the 19 shots game and one of her 41 point games), third with 32 and fourth with 30 twice. One of the 30 shot games was her other 41 point game. Cook is tied for 2nd in free throws made in a game with 14. Her 12-12 performance is the most without a miss in UC history. Cook also has a 20 rebound game to her credit.

As you can see, Cheryl Cook was sensational. She more than earned her spot in the rafters. We see her name and number every game, and now we can all recognize what she did for UC women's basketball. Cheryl Cook was awesome.

(Note: I used the history from Go Bearcats, so if it's really wrong, blame them for faulty info.)

Memorable Bearcats: D'Juan Baker

The second installment of Memorable Bearcats focuses on a basketball player. His heroics have been overshadowed, but this man was clutch. This Bearcat is D'Juan Baker.

D'Juan Baker was a 2 year player at Cincinnati, but he was a solid one. As you can see, he was the captain of the 1997-98 Bearcats. That team won 27 games, and was a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament. His career numbers are kind of underwhelming because he didn't play a whole lot his junior year. He averaged 8.6 on 45% shooting, 37.8% from 3 and 83.6% at the line. He grabbed 1.8 boards a game. His junior year he had 4.2 and 1.1 rebounds. He put buckets on people's faces when he got in the line up, mainly in blowouts. He had 14 in a 40 point win over Rutgers, 15 in a 44 point win over Howard, and 19 in a 29 point win over DePaul. He had one of his highest rebounding games of his career against Rutgers, with 6.

Baker took off his senior year. He started 27 of the 30 games. He had 13.4 points a game, which was third on the team. He hit 37% of threes, and 86.7% of his free throws. He also pulled down 2.6 rebounds per game. When Baker sucked, UC lost. In 4 of his 5 games of 3 points or less, UC went down. They lost 6 times that season. Baker had some big time games to counter the bad ones. He had a career high 34 in a win over Alcorn State. He had 33 in a win over Morehead State. Baker scored 26 with 5 threes in a win over UAB. He also had 26 in a loss to Arizona State, and a win over Wright State. He scored 25 in the loss to West Virginia, and 20 in a win over Tulane. Baker matched his career high 6 rebounds in the Arizona State game, and the Morehead win. He had 5 assists in a dominating win over DePaul.

Baker's heroics that season came when it mattered most, the NCAA Tournament. Cincinnati rolled into the Tournament having won 9 games in a row. They got a 2 seed as mentioned, and travelled all the way out to Boise, Idaho. Their first round match up was with Northern Arizona. The Bearcats admittedly took NAU lightly, allowing the Lumberjacks to shoot 50% in the first half. They were Lumberjacks, and they were ok. They pushed the Bearcats all the way down to the wire. NAU lead by 6 with 9 minutes left, and 3 with 6 minutes left. Baker helped the UC deficit. He forced up a terrible shot, and had a silly turnover late. The Bearcats had a 2 point lead however, with 24 seconds left. Bobby Brannen missed 1 of 2 free throws, allowing Michael McNair to drill a 24 footer with 8 seconds left to tie. Cincinnati didn't panic. They had been in a couple late game close ones a couple weeks back. In the game that gave UC the outright Conference USA championship, D'Juan Baker drilled a shot from the corner to give UC a 2 point lead over St Louis. The Bearcats won that game by 3. Fast forward to this one. Shawn Myrick couldn't get the ball inside to Bobby Brannen. Baker came off a Kenyon Martin screen, and did this.

Of course, that shot went down. An NAU prayer actually hit rim, but luckily for all of us, UC avoided the dreaded 15 over 2 upset. Baker had 13 in that game.

Baker's heroics weren't done with his game winner over NAU. Cincinnati ended up playing West Virginia in the next round. The teams went back and forth. UC had a 55-51 lead late, but turned the ball over on 4 of the next 6 possessions, half by Daniel Horton. WVU turned that into a 4 point lead of their own with 1:27 left. That's when D'Juan Baker took over. Baker drilled a 3 pointer to cut the lead to 1. Punk ass Jarrod West bricked a shot, leading into UC's next possession. The Bearcats worked the clock down to 7 seconds. They ran the same play that they did against NAU. Just like that game, Baker did this.

Those are great pictures, you can see the score and time and everything. Of course, West would race down and hit a freak bank 3 to break our hearts. Baker had 25 on 8-14 shooting, including 5-8 from 3. He did all he could.

D'Juan Baker didn't have the greatest career at Cincinnati. He was one of my favorites though, mainly because he wore #5. Baker came through when it mattered most for the Bearcats. Had the team advanced to the Sweet 16, D'Juan Baker would have taken on a 'legend' status. Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be. That's why we have this though.

Memorable Bearcats: DeJuan Gossett

UPDATED WITH DAYNE FUMBLE QUESTION

This was originally going to be a companion piece to the Wisconsin Memorable Games piece, but the answers of the questions that I asked were so good, that they deserve a stand alone post. Since this was a person that I was a big fan of, this was even easier to make it's own post. The first Memorable Bearcat is DeJuan Gossett.

The picture is of DeJuan doing what he did best while at Cincinnati, tackle. When you look at the list of tackles made in a UC career, you'll see his name. In 1999, Gossett had 82 solo tackles. That's good for 9th place all time. In total tackles, he ranks 9th all time in UC history with 327. He's second all time at UC with 222 solo tackles. He was a tackling machine. He was also a free saftey, which makes his accomplishments that much better. Oh, and he did all of that after blowing out his knee his freshman year. He part of a killer secondary. Blue Adams patrolled the same secondary, and he's UC's leader in interceptions. Shawn Ferguson also was a DB back then. He's 6th on UC's all time interception yards list, and first in INTS for TDS with 3. That's probably all because of DeJuan. I'm not the only one who was a big fan of #22. The Conference USA coaches, or whoever voted for All-Team C-USA, voted him second team Conference USA in 1999 and 2000. DeJuan was assigned by the Giants to NFL Europe in 2002. He blew out his knee for the second time, unfortunately, and that ended his playing days. But, that doesn't change the facts that DeJuan Gossett was a great Bearcat. He's a great guy for answering my questions. Let's get on to his answers.

Bearcats Blog:  What was the team's mindset going into the (Wisconsin) game?

DeJuan Gossett: The teams mind set going into that game was pretty loose.  We had just lost a game to Troy State that we thought we should have won minus a couple of big plays.  We may not have had the talent that you see now in all positions but we were kinda mean in certain phases...Our defense flew around and hit in all position so we werent really scared of the running attack or anything  or the speedy reciever.  Our coaches on defense were so good that they instilled in us that we could beat anyone and we kinda carried that swagger.  We knew that Robert Cooper would run well and as long as Deontay controlled the game and we didnt have turnovers we would have a shot.  We didnt get on TV a lot back in those days so that was a big lift also...guys had parents watching for the first time....and the stadium had a good size crowd...It was probably like a bowl game for us after playing in front of 10,000 the week before. 

BB: Tinker Keck has an awesome name. What were you thinking when he had the punt hit his face and Wisconsin recovered?

DG: Yeah..that name has done him well.  When that play happened it was pretty deflating in that we had just had a big stop and it changed momentum but we had made plays all day so we were pretty confident that we could atleast hold them to a field goal.  Its definitely a tough thing that late in the game heading to the gatorade to have to turn around and bow your neck again. 

BB: How good a player was Ron Dayne? Was he the best back you played against in college?

DG: Ron Dayne was good and had surprisingly quick feet to go with his size.  I think the thing that helped him as well was the size of that offensive line...They were huge and he was compact so you couldnt really see him and then all of a sudden you have this big bowling bowl rumbling down the field.  The plan definitely wasnt to give him that many yards but we kept him out of the end zone just enough.  I left that game with respect for him for sure but though that he was a little overrated ...but if they would have won that could have been different.  The best back I played against had to be Edgerrin James the year before.  He isnt as big as Dayne but it took serious gang tackling to get this guy down.  He would twist and spin and had a low base where you took a lot of the impact as the tackler. 

BB: You were guarding Nick Davis on the final play weren't you? Do you remember what you were thinking when the pass went over his head?

DG: I wasnt one on one but we had a bracket coverage where I pretty much had the inside routes with a corner covering the quick stuff and the outside routes.  It was pretty stressful because I had broke on a play I think two plays earlier where I would have had the Int but Isaac Thomas got a hand on it in the air.  Anytime a team that good has a couple chances anything can happen.  We knew they were going to him and we had him covered well....I saw the ball come out pretty high so I was nervous that I had left too much room in the back of the end zone while cutting off the qb's angle for a pass.  When it was overthrown I was kinda in shock for awhile and then there was just mayhem.  That was the first time that I had seen the stadium like that ever and Im glad that it was just a precursor for what the guys are doing now.  I dont think I stopped smiling for atleast 2 days but then it was time to focus for Ohio State.

BB: You were pretty awesome while at UC. You have the 9th best solo tackling season of all time, are 9th all time in tackles, and 2nd in solo tackles, and 2 time 2nd team CUSA. What are a handful of your best memories while at Cincinnati? 

DG: My best memory was being able to play again....Two days before the Conference USA inaugural game I tore my ACL, MCL, PCL, and both meniscus in my left knee.  I was going to start at Nickel back that game as a true freshman with some great players....Sam Garnes, Artrell Hawkins, Chris Hewitt.  I was devastated and the prognosis wasn't good...they said I would be lucky to walk without a limp and that I would be able to play again.  God, Pat Graman, and Mick Marotti had a different thought and I was able to start all 4 years which gave me an opportunity to produce some of those numbers.

I had the opportunity to play with great coaches....Rex Ryan, Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Rick Smith, Greg Hudson, etc...Just learning and seeing the passion that those guys had for the game was special. 

I was kinda the first local guy to pick UC and I took pride and had hoped to make it a special place where others would do the same.  We started building that slowly...we had good years when I was there my Freshman year....going to the first bowl in like 50+ years thanks to Huggins and the basketball team.  and then my senior year even though we lost to Marshall.....We didnt do everything that I had hoped but I thought that we were in a good direction and its just a honor to have played at UC....there is nothing like having the opportunity to represent your hometown community and I know that coach Coombs and the staff will continue to build through Cincinnati and allow others to experience the same. 

BB:  I can't believe I didn't ask you about the Dayne fumble. If you don't mind real quick, do you remember what you were doing as that play unfolded? Was that the moment you knew you guys would win?

DG:  The fumble was crazy.....At the time I lived with Bobby Fuller and Jeff Burrows.  Bobby caused it and Jeff recovered it so it was awesome all around. 

The play started and I remember being close to the line of scrimmage...I think Dayne cut it inside and I thought he had a touchdown for sure.  Would have killed us after being ahead and playing well to have that turnover lead to the touchdown.  I see Bobby go to hit him and honestly I didnt think he was going to win that battle...then boom...the ball is loose...it was like a inhaler to a asthma victim because we would have been out of breaths or atleast in a bad spot.  When Jeff jumped on that ball I had a feeling that this might be our day.  The year before we had so many breaks go the other so it was refreshing...we just couldn't do any wrong. 

I need to get that game on video.  Do you have it?


Thank you for the opportunity.  It was good to relive some great Bearcat moments.  I appreciate the exposure that you are giving to the program. 

No DeJuan Gossett, thank you. Thank you for not only answering my questions so vividly, but thanks for being a great Bearcat and a better guy. 

I know I didn't ask him about the Dayne fumble. I stupidly didn't include it when I asked the other questions. I shot him an email asking about it, and if he answers, I'll update this with that. It's updated. If you have a video of the game, shoot an email or comment here, or on twitter. Or, twitter to to DeJuan Gossett himself.