SAN DIEGO (AP) – First, Bob Huggins screamed at his players.
Later, after Cincinnati ran Kent State and a second-round jinx into
the ground, he hugged them.
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Saturday, March 17
The Bearcats move onto the Sweet 16 in Anaheim. The reason? Good inside play. In the first round, B.J. Grove stepped up big. On Saturday, it was Jamaal Davis, who went 8-for-9 from the field and had 10 rebounds to go with his 16 points.
We know about the Bearcats' solid backcourt play of Kenny Satterfield and Steve Logan. They have been the catalysts all year for Cincinnati. To win 25 games, those two have had to be outstanding. But now the backcourt seems to be getting help from their baseline. And offensively, they have been dynamite.
The Bearcats shut down Kent State's offense and closed out Trevor Huffman. Although he had 24 points in the first game of the tournament, Huffman was only 2-for-11 from the field against the dynamite defensive backcourt of Satterfield and Logan.
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Cincinnati beat the Golden Flashes 66-43 Saturday in the NCAA
West Regional to advance to the final 16 for just the second time
in seven years.
"I'm really happy for them," said Huggins, who earned his
300th coaching victory in the first round against Brigham Young.
"We had so many new guys. We struggled early and they took some
criticism. They've come a long way and worked hard."
The fifth-seeded Bearcats had endured four consecutive years of
losing to lower-seeded teams in the second round. Guard Steve Logan
was around for two of those defeats.
"We were tired of everybody saying we couldn't get past the
second round," said Logan, who had 13 points. "It was real
personal and emotional for me to get this win. I wanted this win
real bad."
Instead of Logan and backcourt mate Kenny Satterfield carrying
the load, Jamaal Davis led the way, tying his career-high with 16
points, while his 10 rebounds were a career high.
"Coach looked at me and told me I needed a big game today and I
responded," Davis said.
Cincinnati (25-9) won the battle of Ohio with a transition game
that left its neighbors 240 miles to the north in the dust.
"They shut us down on everything we did," Kent State coach
Gary Waters said. "There some times I thought we could get through
it, but the ball was not falling."
The 13th-seeded Golden Flashes couldn't shoot and couldn't
rebound against Cincinnati's frontline of 6-foot-11 B.J. Grove, 6-9
Davis and 6-4 Immanuel McElroy. The Bearcats had a 43-22 rebounding
advantage.
|  | | Immanuel McElroy and Cincy's frontcourt was too much for Kent State. |
"That size hurt us," Waters said. "If we could rebound with
them, we could stay in the game and we did not."
The Bearcats will play top-seeded Stanford on Thursday night in
the West Regional semifinals in Anaheim. The Cardinal held off St.
Joseph's 90-83.
Kent State ended its season with a school-record 24 victories
and 10 losses, but the Flashes hardly looked like the team that
upset fourth-seeded Indiana 77-73 in the first round.
Trevor Huffman was held to seven points – his second-lowest
season total – while the Flashes' 27 percent shooting was their
worst of the season and the lowest allowed by the Bearcats.
"They're just tough defenders," Huffman said. "That's the way
to play it, take the ball out of my hands and make somebody else do
the work."
Cincinnati led 30-22 at halftime, then built a double-digit lead
it never relinquished over the final 20 minutes. The Bearcats'
biggest lead was the 23-point final margin, after they scored 13 of
the game's final 15 points.
Satterfield added 10 points and seven assists, making the
Bearcats 19-2 when Logan and Satterfield both reach double figures.
Cincinnati opened with a 23-12 run that provided its largest
lead of the first half. Logan capped the spurt with a 3-pointer as
the Bearcats shot 51 percent and held a 20-12 rebounding advantage.
Kent State missed 16 of its first 19 shots, and Huffman scored
just three points in the half.
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ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard
Kent State Clubhouse
Cincinnati Clubhouse
AUDIO/VIDEO
 After all the high expectations, coach Bob Huggins was happy for his players (Courtesy: NCAA Productions).
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