On more than one occasion during the America East championship game Saturday, scores of Boston University fans chanted in unison, “We want Duke! We want Duke!”
Their wishes may have been well-intentioned, caught up in the excitement of the Terriers’ NCAA Tournament berth, but the BU players and coach Dennis Wolff may not have been as fearless toward the defending national champs as their fans at The Roof.
Wolff said after the game that he, for one, did not want to play Duke University in the first round, a group so talented it’s practically a professional team in college uniforms. Wolff’s comment was accompanied by a smile, which may have been a nervous reaction to the prospect of playing Duke, a coach’s nightmare.
However, the Terriers did not draw No. 1-seeded Duke in Greenville, S.C., but No. 1-seeded University of Cincinnati in Pittsburgh, Pa.
It was reported following the announcement of the matchup that BU breathed a collective sigh of relief. But Cincinnati, with its bruising defense and possible NCAA Player of the Year in guard Steve Logan, may be as good as Duke minus the Cameron Crazies.
Consider this: Cincinnati has the top-ranked defense in the nation, giving up an average of only 58.4 points per game. It scores an average of more than 77 points per game.
Cincinnati also grabs 40 boards per game and shoots almost 47 percent from the field while committing just 11 turnovers — this, according to the stat sheet, is a normal game for the Bearcats. Is Cincy selfish? You can add more than 13 assists per game to its repertoire.
They may not be Duke, but the Bearcats are no pushovers either. Logan is certainly one of the top players in the nation right now, and he may have made his case for Player of the Year by leading Cincinnati on a romp through the Conference USA tournament.
Logan, who nets 22 points a game, has scored in double figures in every game this season but one and led his team in scoring an astonishing 25-of-33 games this season. Simply put, BU and the America East hardly ever see players of this caliber during the season — until March. Logan was the C-USA Player of the Year and was recently named a first team All-American by the Associated Press in addition to his earlier first team nominations by FOXSports.com and CNN/SI.
All this, and Cincinnati was unranked in the preseason.
So the Terriers, whose nine wins to end the regular season and convincing conference tournament run almost got them a No. 15 seed, must run on all cylinders Friday.
Make no bones about it: BU is David and Cincinnati Goliath. The Terriers will need an unprecedented effort to cut down the Bearcats, and while a 16-seed has yet to defeat a top seed in NCAA Tournament history, there’s a first for everything.
The Bearcats aren’t flawless, and they definitely aren’t invincible. The Rick Pitino-coached University of Louisville, a team that got a dance card only for the NIT, beat Cincinnati Feb. 27, 74-71, and held Logan to 7-of-22 from the floor.
BU has two players who averaged in double figures in scoring this season, freshman guard Chaz Carr (13.9) and senior forward Billy Collins (11.9), as does Cincinnati, with only guard Leonard Stokes (12) joining Logan in double figures.
And the Bearcats’ defense, though stifling, is prone to cheap fouls when its physical play goes over the line. If the Terriers can somehow frustrate the Bearcats early, it may set the tone for the game.
The key to a Terrier upset would have to be defense. BU ranks seventh nationally in field goal defense, forcing opponents this season to shoot less than 39 percent overall. Moreover, BU is 20-1 over the past two seasons when it gives up less than 60 points; even in a loss, holding Cincinnati close to 60 points Friday would be an accomplishment in itself.
And if BU needs a final note of encouragement before it heads to the Steel City, the last time Cincinnati was ranked as highly in the Tournament was in 1999 as a No. 2 seed. The Bearcats, led the entire season by Kenyon Martin, bowed out in the second round to Tulsa, 69-61, and were quickly forgotten.
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