In the weeks leading up to this game at the Fifth Third Arena with the statue of Oscar Robertson out front, DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright repeatedly said that his Blue Demons probably didn’t know the difference between one of the basketball’s greatest basketball players and Oscar Mayer.
After DePaul lost to the Bearcats 82-60 Wednesday night in the schools’ inaugural Big East game, the question was: Does Oscar Mayer make mincemeat?
Brand new league, same old story.
The Bearcats won their 14th straight home game against DePaul, and with conference season-opening results so similar to the last two years it was like the instant replay of the instant replay. It was Conference USA, now it’s the Big East, but it was the same old nightmare.
There should be a State Department advisory written specially for DePaul warning the Blue Demons not to enter the city. The Bearcats (12-2) outrebounded the Blue Demons 53-35 and outscored DePaul 52-30 inside. On Jan.10, 2004, Cincinnati creamed DePaul 90-65.
On Jan. 6, 2005, Cincinnati creamed DePaul 83-54. Both years the Blue Demons won later at home, but there is no home-and-home this year.
“The same old DePaul-Cincinnati,” Blue Demons junior guard Sammy Mejia said of how the event didn’t feel like a Big East first. “We don’t get them the second time. I guess they get the last laugh.”
A deep-throated hyena laugh.
Still, there were a few differences. Longtime Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins is gone, fired before the season and replaced by interim coach Andy Kennedy. Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese accepted a ceremonial ball from Kennedy and Wainwright, and the words “Big East” were stenciled in the foul lanes.
Kennedy called it “ironic” the schools met in their Big East debuts.
Bearcats senior forward James White, who scored 17 points, said of DePaul and Marquette (the Bearcats’ next foe): “We know they’re Big East teams, even though they feel like Conference USA.”
The Blue Demons (7-5) kept it close for a while, but by intermission the Bearcats were up 35-23 and quickly pushed the lead to 23 points in the second half. DePaul briefly cut the margin to 13 with 10:04 to go, but Jihad Muhammad scored 10 of his 20 points in the next 4 1/2 minutes and that was it.
“Their record is no fluke,” Wainwright said. “Obviously, we got beat up on the boards. They manhandled us in the lane.”
Mejia led DePaul with 20 points, freshman Wilson Chandler, who didn’t start because his bus was late returning to Chicago after New Year’s, added 17 and guard Draelon Burns 16.
“I was coming with a vengeance,” Burns said thinking of last year. “They got us again.”
The Bearcats received monster rebounding games from forward Cedric McGowan, who grabbed 20, and 6-foot-6-inch senior Eric Hicks (20 points, 15 rebounds), who destroyed the Blue Demons inside.
“A lot of Hicks,” Burns said.
The way Hicks played, Cincinnati might contemplate raising a statute of him right next to Robertson’s.
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lfreedman@tribune.com
