Can Devan Make Me Down(ey) With UC Again?

Devan the dude

The last six months of 2K5 have brought dark days for me and UC, hoops-wise. My once emphatical passion for the Bob Huggins-coached Bearcats took a massive and possibly fatal hit when UC's stoopid, not-wise-decision-making, fairly new prez ousted the Huggy Bear.

Tangent: under Nancy Zimpher's relatively short time as UC President, she's managed to:

• change the epic C-Paw
• remove Bob Huggins
• pretty much single-handedly wreck UC basketball

Not a pretty picture in Clifton these days. I was certainly not happy. Cincinnati Bearcats basketball ranked as my all-time favorite sports team, easily surpassing Penn State football and the Philadelphia Eagles. I was hurt. I did not have the same emotion for UC. But looking across the college basketball horizon, I could not find a team that would get me to 1/10 the level I experienced with UC and Huggins (at least maybe until Huggins gets a new coaching gig).

Then along came this diminutive PG phenom out of South Carolina. I became familar with Devan Downey last year, when UC was hot on his recruiting trail. I liked what I heard - Downey seemed like a new-school, better version of East Tennessee State's Tim Smith. I couldn't wait for Downey to set foot on UC's campus. Now Downey's doing his bestest to get me back on the Cincinnati gravy train. In his first five games, dude's averaging about 13 points and 3 assists per. Against Vandy on Saturday, Downey went off for 18 and 4.


Stand back! There's a McGowan in the lane!

With Downey and a guy like Ced McGowan in the fold, and Eric Hicks back to being The Monster, things are starting to look up in my UC hoops vision. They will likely never re-create the significant buzz with me that they enjoyed with Huggins, but the team in black is still the one for me. Thanks in part to a little dude named Devan.