Disappointing

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The title of this post says it all about the Bearcats performance against Notre Dame tonight. The game just ended and so did the Big East Tournament for the University of Cincinnati. UC didn't bring their A game tonight, obviously. It was embarrassing and the biggest margin of victory ever in the Big East Tournament.

I honestly thought that UC was going to win the game tonight. Not just blind optimism for my favorite team either. The Bearcats have been playing as well as about anyone in the nation lately. Their defense had been smothering up until tonight. Where did it all go? The defense was non-existent. They didn't play with any kind of confidence on the offensive end. Notre Dame was making every shot and UC's players kind of got down about it and just gave up. Once they started pulling away the Cats started playing with no intelligence and making stupid mistakes that they wouldn't ordinarily make. That just made things easier for the Irish and they started getting wide open looks right under the basket. Players just started doing there own thing out there and they quit playing as a team, which is what had them playing so well as of late. Notre Dame isn't that much better than the Cats, and we just handed them the game once they got up by double digits. There was no fight, grit, scrapyness in this team tonight.

I just hope this doesn't cause them to free fall as far as their seed goes in the NCAA Tournament. The consensus had been that they were a six seed going into tonight. I thought a win tonight would get them to a five, a win tomorrow that would've put them in the championship game would have gotten them a four, and if they won the Big East Tournament they would have earned a three seed in the NCAA Tournament. I still think they should get a five or six seed. If they fall a seven or eight seed that is wrong. There's no way they should make one off night more important than the body of work.

ESPN has them at a six while Xavier and Georgetown are five seeds and UC beat both of them by over 20 points. That is laughable. I am not a Xavier hater, but it's no coincidence that they start every season 10-6 and then go on a 14-2 run the last half of the year. They play in the Atlantic 10 which isn't a very tough conference. Xavier and Temple are the only teams in the A10 that are good with any consistency. The Cats are a better team than Xavier and beat them by 20 points. While I do think Xavier is a good team, you have to look at the opponents and not just the fact that they won more games the second half of the year. There's no way that Xavier should be seeded ahead of Cincinnati.

If any positives can be taken from tonight's game against the Irish it's that maybe it gives them the mentality that they still have a ton of work to do to get where they want to get and this helps them refocus and get ready for the NCAA Tournament. They also won't go into next week after playing four games in four days and have that wear and tear on their body. It'll give them a couple extra days to get back to Cincinnati and get to practice and work on the things that need fixed. Also they got some exposure on national television and played in the biggest and best conference tournament in the nation and made it to the third day of that tournament, getting their name out there more and more.

Okay it's now NCAA Tournament time and the Bearcats we know will be in come selection Sunday. As UC fans we should all be excited that the Cats are back in the tournament and the rebuilding process has come to an end and now it's time for the building and winning process. The Cats aren't quite back to the elite of college basketball that they were not that long ago, but they aren't that far away either. This team is definitely capable of winning some games in this Tournament next week and hopefully a game the following week. I doubt this team is ready to make a final four run, but they are ready for a sweet sixteen run and depending on the draw possibly an elite eight. So lets all get ready for Sunday and hope the tournament committee doesn't screw the Cats based on what happened at Madison Square Garden tonight against the Irish.