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The biggest loser of the first game of the Big East Tournament (BET) was not Cincy. It was Providence. The Friars are a fringe bubble team. They need more than simply a deep run in the BET, they need quality wins to boost their computer numbers. Providence now gets DePaul and their 200+ RPI number tomorrow. Even if they win, they get little to show for it. On top of that, Providence swept Cincinnati. That Cincinnati loss to DePaul further drives down the value of those wins.

The only other winners are sportswriters who like DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright. Wainwright is popular because he's a good quote and media friendly. Now they can claim he is making progress and should get another year.

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If you caught any halftime show on ESPN or any college basketball segment on SportsCenter this weekend, there was always something about the NCAA tournament bubble and the projected last four in and last four out. Cinci kept showing up on the wrong side of the projections.

But the Bearcats don't have to worry about that drama anymore. Losing to South Florida on the road all but guarantees they won't be appearing anywhere in tournament projections.

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Cincinnati fans still have great affection for their Huggy Bear. The man who brought the Bearcats back to national prominence is still greatly loved in the Queen City. When West Virginia hired Bob Huggins in 2007, the Big East just happened to produce a schedule that only had Cincinnati visit West Virginia in the 2007-08 season, with no return trip. So tonight was his first trip to the Fifth Third Arena as the coach of the Mountaineers.

And Cincinnati responded in a way that made the coach a little misty.

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Media Days aren't the most important thing for conferences, but they do provide a convenient place for the media to meet all the coaches and likely top players. The media sources can conduct some early interviews, get some stock footage and generally let the schools and conferences know that there will be some coverage.

Cincinnati media, for the second straight year, has skipped the Big East Football Media Days. The Cinci Enquirer is using a freelance AP/MSNBC.com college basketball writer to supply some stories. The Cinci Post, just uses an AP story on the Big East. Now, the Post is folding at the end of the year so maybe they can be cut some slack, but the excuses by the Bearcat beat writer for the Post are weak.

If the Media Days are so unimportant and not worth the time, then why do (and will) they go to the Big East Basketball Media Days? There's little reason for that.

Just admit that the reason why there is no Cinci media outlet at the Big East Media Days is that there is still little interest by the general public in Bearcat football. The media outlets see little to justify spending $1000 or so on transportation and lodging of a reporter to go to it when people don't care.

One of the huge feel-good stories last season was Wake Forest. One of the tiniest Division 1-A schools won the ACC and got to the Orange Bowl. Not only that, but they did it despite the loss of their starting QB and RB at the very beginning of the season. Freshman QB Riley Skinner managed the offense very well and minimized mistakes to lead the Demon Deacons. There was no way he was losing his starting job.

So what of the injured QB, Ben Mauk? Well, Mauk, despite being a senior, had a year of eligibility left (possibly a second if the NCAA grants him a medical waiver for the 2006 season -- he was injured in the very first game of the season) and will graduate. The NCAA revoked the rule allowing players with a year of eligibility remaining, but who had graduated, essentially free agent status to go anywhere to grad school. Mauk, however, was grandfathered into the rule and will be battling for the starting job at Cincinnati this fall.

Ben Mauk is from Kenton, Ohio. That's about 140 miles north of Cinci. He starts grad school at Cinci in May. A couple weeks after he graduates from Wake Forest.

UC's internal investigation of that 8-on-1 sex tape thing has concluded. The results:

The University of Cincinnati suspended a football player for lying during an investigation into allegations of videotaped sex after they could prove no other wrongdoing in the case. The player - whom UC didn't name, citing privacy laws - came to UC officials' attention following a Feb. 14 anonymous letter to them. It claimed that four UC football players and four recruits engaged in sex acts with a former women's soccer player during a recruiting visit.

Let's leave aside the fairly obvious absurdity of suspending someone but refusing to mention exactly who won't be playing in UC's first three games of the season -- how ever will we know? -- and focus on a really amazingly unfortunate name:

The only thing the investigation could prove is that the football player lied during the investigation, a violation of UC's Student Code of Conduct. "(N)o other University rules or policies were violated," Daniel Cummins, UC's director of judicial affairs, wrote in a Friday memo.

No rules or policies were violated? Nice. (Marginally NSFW.)

While the University of Cincinnati continues to investigate the reports of sex, alcohol and videotape for a recruiting visit that was made public by way of an anonymous letter last week; rumors of the incident had been floating around for a couple weeks in the training-room.

University of Cincinnati athletic department officials were notified for the first time Feb. 8 of allegations that four UC football players and four recruits engaged in sex acts with a former women's soccer player during a recruiting visit.

"That was the first time anybody was officially notified that people felt like this was anything more than a training-room rumor," UC senior associate athletic director Mike Waddell said Monday.

According to Waddell, on that day, two student-athletes informed Maggie McKinley, director/compliance and student services, of rumors that there had been a party in a residence hall at which the incidents are alleged to have taken place.

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McKinley's first response was to phone the training room to verify the extent of the rumor. Later that afternoon, she met with Bob Arkeilpane, deputy director of athletics, to inform him of the allegations. Arkeilpane then met with football coach Brian Kelly and subsequently with UC athletic director Mike Thomas.

Following the meeting with Thomas, Arkeilpane, McKinley and Kelly met together to discuss the allegations. Kelly then called in some football players to ask them what they knew about the allegations.

It would appear that the timeline runs in this way: the athletic department started a series of meetings that included the athletic director (AD) and to discuss the rumors -- presumably with issues of investigation, verification, punishment and contatinment. That led to Coach Brian Kelly calling in some of the football players. Almost immediately after these meetings the letter (PDF) was sent to the University president and the local papers that made this public that cast the meetings in quite a different light.

The story by the athletic department is that as soon as they got wind of the hint of a problem they began investigating the situation. They met to figure out who might be involved, and what steps should be taken to investigate, including talking to some of the football players and trying to establish the truth or otherwise of the stories.

The other view is that the athletic department, as soon as they heard about it, began meeting and planning on how to cover up the incident. That the conspiracy reaches through the compliance director, the Deputy AD, the AD himself, and of course, the football coach. The football coach then called in some of his players and put them on notice to seek and destroy any and all evidence.

It's been a rough start to 2007 for Cinci. The football team is under a big cloud of suspicion for allegations of sex, alcohol and recruiting. The basketball team is one game away from the season being mercifully over with a 1-15 conference record. On the bright side, there is the Bearcat winning hearts and accolades.

The University of Cincinnati's Bearcat mascot brought home the first place trophy from the Cheerleaders of America (COA) Midwest Open National Championships last weekend. The competition was held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center Friday, Feb. 16 through Sunday, Feb. 18.

The competition, the largest Open Nationals hosted by the COA, attracts cheerleading squads, dance teams, and mascots from the surrounding region.

"This competition was an opportunity for us to generate exposure for the University of Cincinnati," said head cheerleading coach Tabby Fagan. "I am really proud of the Bearcat. Thanks to his crowd-pleasing performance, I think the University of Cincinnati has a few more fans."

Perhaps this is the springboard needed to get into the Capitol One Bowl Mascot Challenge thing. Actually the fact that the cheerleading coach for the Bearcats is named "Tabby" kind of makes it difficult to top.

I guess the University of Cincinnati is serious about becoming a legitimate BCS school. They have a sex and recruiting scandal brewing.

An anonymous letter alleging that four University of Cincinnati football players and four football recruits engaged in sex with a former UC soccer player at a party has touched off a university investigation.

The letter dated Feb. 14, 2007, and signed "A Concerned Athletic Department Employee," also alleges that "alcohol was involved in the 'party,' which took place during a recent football recruiting weekend."

The letter writer continued, "Evidently, someone videotaped these sex acts and tapes of the sex session have been distributed around the dormitories. A number of our student-athletes have viewed the tapes and validated the rumor."

Plus video. This is stepping up to the BCS level.

The letter can be seen here (PDF). According to the letter, the football team members are under orders to destroy any and all tapes they can locate. Like this hasn't been stuck on various hard drive if the tapes actually exist.

The university is investigating.

If the allegations are true, [University of Cincinnati spokesperson Gregory] Hand said, the student-athletes involved would have violated the university code of conduct and possibly regulations involving residence halls, as well as athletic department policies regarding on-campus recruiting visits.

At this point, there are no allegations of criminal conduct.

"We just don't know what we have," Hand said. "The facts are that there are anonymous allegations, and we're trying to find answers."

[Emphasis added.]

Were toaster ovens involved?

There were four recruiting weekends since Brian Kelly took the job in December. He claims not to be concerned about what it means to the football program he took over 10 weeks ago. Only that it be investigated and if true dealt with accordingly.

If anything of the nature described in the allegations did occur, Kelly said, "It's absolutely inappropriate behavior, period. End of discussion. ... That is pretty standard relative to student conduct or even appropriate human-being conduct."

Kelly can't say it, but he has to be worried about this for the program and himself. To go from hot, rising coach to being the next Gary Barnett without even having a chance to coach a football game. If these allegations are true, and even if he was not involved -- and you have to assume at the very least he never suggested video evidence -- he's still got big problems.

Cinci football is enough of an uphill battle. If the program has to be penalized with more oversight and reduced scholarships on top of that, this job could become Kelly's coaching grave.

Oh, they tried to give it away. They tried really, really hard. Cinci, though, said, "No, we're the guests we can't repay the hospitality by winning the game." There were points where you really wondered who wanted it less.

Providence literally kept giving the ball away with 19 turnovers to only 9 for Cinci. If that wasn't enough, the big men for Providence couldn't stay out of foul trouble, with Herbert Hill and Geoff McDermott sitting with 4 fouls. Hill at least was able to play with his. McDermott sat a lot more than usual.

Cinci responded to the gifts by shooting an almost impossible 4-14 from the free throw line. How? It wasn't like one player shot 1-9 or something. The worst was 1-5. No, it was a team effort to suck from the charity stripe as six players missed at least one free throw.

That pure ineptitude at the free throw line gave Providence the chance to get the win. Down 8 with 1:34 left, the Friars could score and foul. Check that, Sharaud Curry could score. Curry went on a 9-0 run on Cinci. The Bearcats missed two front ends of one-and-one free throws in that period.

In the final score, Curry got a jumper to go after the ball nearly was turned over -- again -- and was fouled inexplicably from behind by Deonta Vaughn. Curry made his free throw to give Providence the 71-70 lead with 14.2 seconds left.

So Cinci had a chance. They took it down the court. Got it inside to Williamson -- who aside from shooting 1-5 at the charity stripe -- had shot 7-10 because he slipped inside and got the easy layins an putbacks. He got a good shot right there and the ball literally rolled around the rim and out to Hill for the rebound as the clock expired.

The win was vital for keeping Providence somewhere on the bubble for a NCAA Tournament bid as they go to 5-4 in the Big East. Cinci blew another chance to get out of the Big East basement.