In December 2001, my parents told me that my dad had maybe a
month to live. He’d been fighting a
battle with large mouth throat cancer for nearly 5 years. The battle had some ups and surely a lot of
downs, but my dad did his best to hide the latter from my sister and me.
Christmas came and went, not much
seemed to change. My dad wasn’t working
anymore, but I was still able to spend time with him and he seemed fine all
things considered. To my parents’ credit
they made life as normal as it could be for my sister and me. We’d be out with friends often, living our
lives like everyone else. We entered
February, the conversation about my dad having maybe a month to live drifted to
the back of my mind.
Time is a funny thing. It’s been twenty years since I lost my
dad. I remember so much about him. I remember how he made me feel, what he cared
about, how much he loved our family. I
remember his love of song lyrics, the way he laughed and joked with his best
friend and his love of the ocean. So
many things, so easily come to mind, but conversations, few of those
remain. How do you remember individual
conversations?
Sunday,
February 10, 2002 was the last conversation I had with my dad. It was in his room, where he spent much of
his time late in life. I had no idea it
would be our last conversation.
Truthfully, it felt like any other... but I remember it, nonetheless. I remember because the 2002 Bearcats were at
the center of it.
#
The
Cincinnati Bearcats lost a road game at Oklahoma State to open the 2001-2002
season then proceeded to run off 20 straight wins. In those 20 games they accumulated 10 wins
over kenpom top 100 teams, including a 22 point win over #42 Dayton, a 34 point
win over #26 Mississippi State, a 23 point win over #40 Charlotte, and a 20
point win at the Cintas Center against #23 Xavier (still the last Bearcat win
at Cintas). But the streak ended against
Dwyane Wade at Marquette.
The
Bearcats had a difficult schedule still ahead of them and with CUSA probably at
its talent and coaching peak, winning the conference was suddenly a more
daunting proposition. The Marquette loss
was the first of a 3-game road trip against NCAA tournament teams. Cincinnati recovered nicely at Charlotte
winning by 19 in an arena where they always seemed to struggle. Then they went to play a rare, late season
nonconference game against Wake Forest.
Wake
Forest was coached by Skip Process and led by future NBA starter Josh Howard
and Darius Songaila. This would be a
great test for a team fighting for high seed in the tournament. At the time Wake was ranked 16th
in the country coming off a 90-66 win over UNC (completing their first sweep of
North Carolina in 32 years). It was a
big game.
And the
Bearcats were up for it. While Huggins’
teams were known for their defense, this Cincinnati team could be incredibly
explosive. Steve Logan scored 30 and had
7 assists, while the Bearcats put up 61 second half points in beating Wake
Forest 103 to 94. It was an up and down,
thrilling basketball game (one that I’d love to watch again if anyone can find
it). After watching the game, I remember
thinking, damn this Bearcat team is for real and hoping that maybe, just
maybe…this would be their year.
#
My dad
wasn’t so sure. He never was. And of course, looking back at history he was
right. I don’t remember where I was that
Saturday night, surely, I was at some friend’s house, but Sunday night I went
into my dad’s room to talk and the one part of the conversation I remember to
this day was about the Bearcats. We
talked about how well they played. I was
optimistic they could win the league again and get a high seed. I raved about Logan and Imac. My dad didn’t think they quite had enough and
figured something would go wrong.
I laugh thinking about it, because
the conversation was so true to the often-pessimistic way he watched (and
listened) to games (he was a worrier, one of the few traits I managed not to
inherit from him). I remember coming
home from somewhere during the UC at Wyoming game in 1994. UC was down 9 with like a minute and a half
to play. We were almost home, but my dad
couldn’t listen for one more second. He
turned off the radio over my vocal, 9-year-old, objections. As soon as we pulled into the driveway I
burst out of the car, ran into the house and turned on the TV. I was just in time to see The Gunslinger get
fouled shooting a 3 and hit the winning free throws. I missed his crazy run of points to put them
in position to win.
8 years later we were in his room
talking about another Bearcat basketball team.
My optimism about the team contrasting with his worried thoughts about
what could go wrong for them. I know we
talked about other things that night, but the Bearcats is what I remember. It was such a normal conversation, but
probably for that reason, such a special memory.
#
The
2002 Bearcats are my favorite UC team of my lifetime. I know the 2000 team was more dominant
(though fans probably don’t appreciate how dominant the 2002 was…we’ll get to
this), but I loved the way this team played basketball. And I think it’s special to me in another
way…a deeply personal way.
My dad passed away on February 14,
2002. He was 52 years old. February 14 was a Thursday, but everything
turned on a Monday. From the time I was
told my dad may have a month to live until Monday February 11, nothing really
changed. Then I came home from school
and my mom told me that my dad’s body was breaking down. He could pass away any day.
My dad rested in his room,
unconscious, unable to respond the next three days. His brother came up from North Carolina to be
with the family. My dad seemed at peace,
but there was no hope of him coming back around. We all knew this was it.
Despite
five years of knowing it could happen and despite the warning three months
prior that he might not make it through the year, the sudden impact of the loss
of your father is impossible for me to describe. In the days after my dad passed, I did my
best to go on living my life. I was out
with friends; I went to work that weekend and I attended two of my all-time
favorite Bearcat basketball games.
#
The
Bearcats hosted Dwyane Wade’s Marquette team knowing a conference championship
could be at stake. The game took place
on a Friday night. I went with one of my
best friends to this day. Our seats
ended up being behind a row of Marquette fans.
The Bearcats came out white hot early, building a 20-4 lead. But that lead evaporated just as quickly with
Marquette tying it at 24. Cincinnati expanded
the lead to 10 before the half but again Marquette responded taking the lead
early in the second half.
It was
a battle throughout the second half.
Every possession intense. The
Shoe was rocking. The lead changed back
and forth, but with 1:16 to play the Bearcats found themselves on the brink of
defeat down 4 points. Logan responded,
like he did all season, hitting a pull up 2.
Marquette answered right back with a two of their own. UC again found themselves down 4, this time
with 30 seconds left. But Logan pushed
the ball up court, crossing his man up (with the slightest Jordan shove) to the
point his man fell on his ass and Logan knocked down a 3. 24 seconds left and the lead was one.
UC
fouled Wade, who missed the front end of the one and one with a raucous
Shoemaker Center doing everything it could to will the miss. From the upper deck I was ready for some more
Steve Logan magic. He’d been a force at
the end of games the last 2 seasons.
There was nobody I trusted more.
Huggins
let the possession play out. No timeout
was called. But with 10 seconds left,
Logan gave the ball up. Now Immanuel
McCelroy had it. Imac was a defensive
stalwart, who also had a knack for huge plays.
He dribbled it from the corner to the top of key and then tried to
attack. Marquette defenders
converged. He passed.
With 6
seconds left the ball found the hands of Donald Little, 18 feet from the
basket. He was wide open, but he wasn’t
exactly the guy you wanted taking the huge shot. Little squared. Little elevated. Little released……………………………………………….Splash!
And the
Shoe went ballistic. Little had been
huge early in the game and came through with his biggest shot as a
Bearcat. The Bearcats now had 3 seconds
to finish it. Cincinnati didn’t guard
the inbounds, Marquette threw it to Henry who back rimmed a 40-footer at the
buzzer. I turned to celebrate with my
friend who was already running down to fake high five the row of Marquette fans
below us as they left. Cincinnati was now a game ahead of Marquette in the
conference.
#
At some
point in 2002 the West Virginia job opened.
Everyone knew they were going after Huggins and there were a lot of
rumors that he was going to take it.
Amidst that backdrop, the 2002 Bearcats hosted Memphis, trying to close
out another outright Conference USA Championship. A talented, but underachieving Calipari
coached team gave the Bearcats everything they could handle all afternoon.
Dejaun
Wagner and Steve Logan went back and forth.
Memphis built an 8-point lead, but Logan just wouldn’t let it get beyond
that. The Bearcats missed all 16 of
their threes, but Logan’s mid-range game could be fierce. Again, the Bearcats found themselves trailing
late, needing some heroics to pull off another win.
I sat
in baseline/courtside seating for this game.
At that time UC had desk seats behind the baseline on both sides of the
basket right next to where the cheerleaders sat. Down 2 late, UC needed to go the length of
the court. They inbounded to Logan, and
he did just that. He ran toward me,
pulled up from around the foul line and buried it to force OT. I cheered with the friend I took to the game,
then ran behind my seats giving high fives to the front row of students. The place was as loud as I have ever heard
it.
Let’s talk about just how damn
great Steve Logan was in 2002. You’ve
read about some of his enormous shots in those two games, but Logan had the
best offensive season in modern Bearcat history. He was a consensus first team all-American,
and frankly should have been National Player of the Year. He had a 29.4% usage rate and took 30.7% of
his team’s shots when he was on the floor.
Despite carrying that kind of offensive load, he had a ridiculous 60%
True Shooting Percentage, just bonkers for a guard, particularly for one his
stature. Taking 229 threes, many off the
dribble, he made 38% of them. He was 87%
from the line and perhaps most impressively 52% from 2. Everything was a good shot for Steve
Logan. But he wasn’t just asked to
score, he facilitated everything. He had
a 32% assist rate (with only a 14.3% turnover rate). He rarely fouled, constantly got fouled and
played nearly 85% of the minutes. He did
it all and a Bearcat offense with merely decent offensive talent outside of
Steve Logan was elite because of it.
And he and his Bearcats found a way
to win in overtime against Memphis, clinching another conference championship
and keeping the dream of a 1 seed alive.
Nobody wanted to leave. We didn’t
know if this would be Huggins’ last home game.
And as the Shoe went bonkers after the game, Huggins made it clear it
wouldn’t, coming back on the floor and telling the crowd he would be back. The place went bonkers.
The Bearcats would roll through the
conference tournament, dump trucking South Florida (73 kenpom) 79-57, then
beating Charlotte and Marquette (both tournament teams) by 16 and 14,
respectively. This earned them a one
seed.
#
In the
second round of the NCAA tournament UC drew an underachieving UCLA team that
was one of the most talented in the country.
UCLA had future NBA players, Matt Barnes, Jason Kapono, Dan Gadzuric and
Cedric Bozeman. They had several WTF
losses, but also had 9 wins over kenpom top 40 teams including a 1 seed
(Kansas), two 2 seeds (Oregon and Alabama) a 3 seed (Arizona) and a 4 seed
(Southern Cal). And good UCLA showed up
that day.
Frankly,
as talented as UCLA was (and they were the more talented team), Cincinnati was
the better team throughout. But it
seemed like every damn break went against them to keep UCLA in it. Whether it was Knight’s banked in 3 from the
corner or the late shot clock airball falling into Kapono’s lap, UC couldn’t
quite finish UCLA. The game went to 2
OTs with UC having chances to win the game at the end of regulation and the
first OT, before UCLA pulled it out. A
painful end, to an incredible season, made more so because it truly was one of
the only tournament losses I left the game thinking, “wow, we played a damn
good basketball game…and they still somehow beat us.”
What
sucks about it, is that Bearcat team was absolutely positioned to have a chance
to win the National Championship. They
were viewed as the 4th best one seed going into the tournament and
the 2 seed in their region (Kelvin Sampson’s Oklahoma team) was viewed
basically as their equal, but the kenpom numbers actually suggest they were the
second-best team (ahead of the Maryland team that won it). They were balanced, 7th in adjust
offensive efficiency and 3rd in adjusted defensive efficiency. On offense they did everything well (64th
in EFG%, 12th in Turnover rate, 53rd in OFF Reb Rt, 92 in
FTA/FGA). They shot well from 3, from 2
and from the foul line. On defense they
did everything well except forcing turnovers (where they were just
average). They were first in EFG% D, 59th
in DefRebRt and 40th in FTA/FGA.
They didn’t give up many threes and were the best team in the country
defending from 2. This was a team that in
retrospect was even better than we realized.
Still my favorite Bearcat team of my lifetime.
#
And
after the loss to UCLA, I remembered my dad was right. Something went wrong, it always did. I still think I was right that they were good
enough to win the title, but good enough doesn’t always get you there, as
Bearcat basketball fans have learned over the years. But not only was that a great team, it was a
team that brought me pure joy during one of the hardest times of my life.
Growing up I would go to UC
football and basketball games with my dad.
We only had UC basketball season tickets a couple years (Wingfield’s
Freshman year then Fortson’s freshman year), but it was always a favorite
memory of mine. My dad worked at
UC. My mom, my sister and I would drive
to Kenwood mall to meet my dad then he and I would drive back down to Clifton
for the game. I’d usually grab some
Chick-fil-a or Sbbaro before we headed down.
After my dad passed, that 2002 team
was the perfect escape, their brilliance capturing my attention game after
game. Since then, Bearcat sports often
make me think of my dad, giving me a connection to him, long after I lost him. He went to grad school at UC, he worked at
UC, we attended games together at UC. He
struggled with the after affects of his surgery in 1997 and many different
forms of treatment those last 5 years, but in those spurts where he felt good enough,
he still went back to work at UC. During
his Eulogy, his best friend noted that when he went back to work at the College
of Business his friends and colleagues stood by him as he struggled with the
debilitating side effects of his cancer.
Just another aspect of the university and its people I’ll always
love.
The university has continued to
mean a ton to me. The Bearcat football
and Bearcat programs, especially so.
This 2002 team above them all.
It’s been 20 years since I lost my
dad. My son now shares his name. The world needed another Gary Raines. You never know what moments will stand out in
your mind when someone is gone. I think
about what I’ll tell me kids about their grandfather they will never get to
meet. I want to tell them everything,
but I dread telling them too soon. I
worry about the questions that may come when I tell them about losing my
father.
I think about him often, this time
of year more than most. I think of him
on holidays. I think of him at the
beach. I think of him when my kids do
something new, when I listen to a song with just the right lyrics, or when I’m
around his friends. I miss him. I wish my wife and children knew him. But I’m grateful for the near 18 years we had
together. I’m thankful for the things he
taught me and the things we shared. I’m
thankful that during the most trying of circumstances he and my mom kept my
life as normal as possible.
And I’m thankful we had that one last
conversation, without knowing what the next days would bring. I wish he’d been wrong, and the 2002 Bearcats
had gone the distance, but it’s probably appropriate he was right. How else could things have gone? Memories are all I have left of my dad, but I
know the impact he made on me and continues to make on the family I am
raising. And though we’ll never actually
talk again, that one last conversation, will always be there too.
