Oh Say Did UC?

The time for Cincinnati Bearcats links has come. This might not be your favorite bit, but it should be because it's very informative and fun for everyone.

Brian Bennett at ESPN has written a spring recap of every Big East team, or is going to, and yesterday he hit on Cincinnati. His biggest questions circle around the defense, especially the secondary.

Bennett also wrote a piece about the Big East's star being ready to shine, shine, shine. I know he said burn bright, but you can't write burn bright three times.

The Bleacher report did a slide show about the upcoming Big East football season. They put a familiar face as one of the 3 Big East Heisman candidates.

The great Ivan Maisel wrote a huge spring football recap, and at the very bottom, he mentioned Cincinnati. He said UC looked to have what it takes for a three peat. I like those words.

Mark Schlabach put up a post spring top 25. Top 5, Alabama, Boise St, Ohio St, Texas and Virginia Tech. Pittsburgh was the highest rated Big East team at 13. Cincinnati was 18. Spoiler alert.

Bengals.com did a nice write up about Mike Windt, the Cincinnati long snapper who signed to the Bengals as a free agent.

Mardy Gilyard had a piece written about him Friday by St Louis Globe Democrat about how he was wearing the great Torry Holt's #81.

There is also a more recent piece by some St Louis paper after the weekend OTAs saying that Gilyard and Sam Bradford had a nice rapport.

Switching to football recruiting news, the Bearcats have offered junior Jamire Westbrook. It's his first offer. He's actually going into his junior year, and is 16. The whole thing is kinda creepy. Recruiting is seriously getting out of hand.

The Bearcats have also made an offer to Zach Mettenberger. Zach was released by Georgia after getting charged for sexual battery.  He was expected to fight for the Georgia starting job this season. He was the 14th ranked QB by Scout a couple years ago, he redshirted last season, and is said to be a stud. I'm iffy on going after guys dismissed from teams for big things like sexual battery. Maybe Zach has turned his life around after that dark incident. He also has an offer from Louisville, and other schools are said to be interested.

Switching gears completely, let's hit up some baseball. The Bearcats are tied for 7th in the Big East, with an 8-10 record as of yesterday when the News Record wrote this. 8 teams make the BET. The teams behind the Irish and Bearcats are 5-13. The Bearcats get a tough challenge this week, as the Big East leading Connecticut Huskies prance into town. Good luck to the Bearcats. Try to make a game if you can peeps. They are free or cheap if they aren't free. I've been to one in my life. I don't remember who UC played, or who won, but it was fun.

Speaking of fun, this interview with UC 1B/Pitcher Kevin Johnson is. He may not have dunked over Hakeem Olajuwon, but he was drafted by the Florida Marlins and chose to come back to UC.

Former UC pitched Dan Osterbrock threw a 7 inning no hitter his last outing. That's great news in of itself, but he was named the Twins Minor League Player of the Week, Midwest League Pitcher of the Week, and was promoted to High A. Congrats a ton to Dan.

Moving to hoops, Bill Koch wrote a pretty alright piece about Sean Kilpatrick. Sean has a lot of pressure to take the place of not only Lance Stephenson, but Deonta Vaughn. With his admitted flat three point shot, he'll fit right in with the rest of the returning bricklayers. I kid.

I don't know much about the Cincinnati Commandos, besides the fact they have former UC players, but they are undefeated. This is a nice refresher. They are QB'd by Ben Mauk.

Also on the team is Dominick Goodman, and this is an interview with him.

We'll end with a couple of Big East links. Our good friends at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician check to see if Doug Marrone losing 29 players since taking over at Syracuse has their program going in the right direction. And our best friends at Card Chronicle react about the news Samardo Samuels hiring an agent and turning pro.

Oh Say Did UC?

Hi there and welcome to the feature sweeping the nation, Oh Say Did UC? If you missed the electric first version, it's pretty much a gathering of Cincinnati Bearcats news put in one place. It's probably the greatest thing since chocolate milk. We've had a busy couple weeks with Bearcats playing in the Sugar Bowl last Friday, and the basketball team playing 5 games in 11 days. There will probably only be a Seton Hall result post Sunday, with a write up coming on Monday. Let's do the football news first, and the basketball news second. Alright? Alright.

• The final polls of the season came out last night after Alabama beat Texas to win the BCS National Championship. There should be a playoff or a plus 1, because after watching last night, teams like Boise State could absolutely hang. But if there were a plus 1, they probably would have been left out because they were #5. Anyway, the Broncos somehow finished 4th which is bullshit by the coaches and AP. Get your heads out of your asses. They went undefeated and you have them behind Florida? Behind Texas? McCoy didn't play, but Texas still lost and Boise didn't. End rant.
• The Bearcats finished 8th in the AP Top 25 and 9th in the Coaches' Poll behind Penn State. Florida was 3rd.
• Former Bearcats defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, and passing game coordinator and receiver coach Charley Molnar are leaving the school to go to Notre Dame. This isn't surprising in the least. The Bearcats already announced new coordinators. Also going to Notre Dame are defensive line/assistant head coach Mike Elston and running backs coach and recruting coordinator Tim Hinton. Everyone else but Kerry Coombs is going to Buffalo. Most of the UC coaching staff next year will be from Central Michigan. Typical coaching change stuff. 
• Butch Jones was interviewed at halftime of the Cal State Bakersfield game. He didn't say anything really important. He said Zach Collaros will be the point guard of the offense, and the team will still attack. He said the defense at Central Michigan was good this year, and it will be at UC next year. I think he was freaked out by Michael Reghi's hair. Just go gray dude.
• Brian Bennett had these 2 nuggets of information about next year. First, he says don't be that worried about next season. He is critical of the team in the Sugar Bowl, so you can skim past the first couple of questions.
• BB also has a list of who's returning next season for the Big East so far. The Cats have 12 starters coming back, 7 offense, 5 defense. The offense also has USC transfer Vidal Hazelton to look forward to next year. 
• Someone not returning is South Florida coach Jim Leavitt. South Florida corroborated reports that he grabbed by the throat, and smacked player Joel Miller at halftime during a game with Louisville. On top of that, Leavitt lied during the investigation numerous times. Leavitt was the only coach in USF history and raised the program from the ground. He also was a gaping asshole apparently. 
• 3 Bearcats were invited to the Senior Bowl. Quarterback Tony Pike, Wide Receiver Mardy Gilyard and Long Snapper Mike Windt. The first 2 were locks, but what about Mike? Congrats big man. Don't throw one over the punter or holders head with the pro coaches watching. 
• Here is a great piece by Andy Staples that you should read about last nights game. 
• Despite the football teams success and 18,000 fans buying tickets for the Sugar Bowl, Cincinnati is facing a big deficit. The Enquirer reports the school will need $11 million a year to support being in the Big East. There is some doubt that the practice fields and bubble and basically everything Brian Kelly wanted, will be financially do-able. 

Now let's hit the basketball side of things.

• The game tomorrow will be on Fox Sports Ohio and ESPN 360.com at 6. If you are watching the Bengals game and don't have a dvr, I hope you can see it on 360. It will probably not work in Cincinnati or whatever city is unfortunate to have Seton Hall. 
• The great, great, great Basketball Prospectus ranked the Top 25 Freshmen of the year. Cincinnati's own Lance Stephenson finished 8th. It's a great list, check it out. 
• Here are where some great sites have the Bearcats ranked. Basketball State: 49. Team Rankings: 43. Real Time RPI: 52. Cal State Bakersfield killed our RPI there. Sagarin: 50 
• Basketball Prospectus has former Cat Tony Bobbitt as one of the top players in the NBDL who could get called up by the NBA soon. 
• CollegeHoops.net has a list of the top 100 players of January. The list has 2 Cats, 47 Lance Stephenson and 91 Yancy Gates. 
• Finally, let's cap the day off with some way too early bracket predictions that someone guessed. CollegeHoops.net has UC as a 11, SI a 12, playing Washington. I wish that was real. And finally ESPN's Bracketology has UC an 8 playing Texas Tech with Kentucky in the second round. 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting the blog. If you have any links that you want to send, shoot an email or leave a comment. If you want me to link your blog in the blogroll, simply shoot me a link and I'll add you. The Seton Hall preview will be up either tonight, or tomorrow morning.