University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Men Set To Test Unbeaten Cincinnati
December 8, 1999 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 8, 1999
CHICAGO -- Cincinnati has carried the No. 1 spot for most of the young college basketball season and now gets the chance to justify it to the rest of the nation as it battles seventh-ranked North Carolina in the Great Eight at the United Center in Chicago.
The Bearcats (5-0) ripped through the Big Island Invitational in Hawaii but faced their first real challenge at the Rock-N-Roll Shootout in Cleveland on Saturday. They opened a 20-point halftime lead against No. 24 Gonzaga but nearly blew it in recording a 75-68 win over the Bulldogs.
Cleveland native Steve Logan had 21 points and Kenyon Martin added 16 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots. But that did not prevent coach Bob Huggins from blasting his talented team following the game.
"If I could read what's in their little pea brains I could make a lot of money," the surly coach said. "I'm embarrassed. I've never had a team play that lackadaisical. How many times did they take the ball right out of our hands? It was a lack of mental toughness, and that's very disturbing. We won because we're talented. But I want to win games when we compete, we work and we execute. And we're not doing it."
Martin leads the team in scoring at 16.8 points per game, with Logan close behind at 16.2 per contest. Freshman shooting guard DerMarr Johnson is averaging 13.8 points but has made just 6-of-22 shots from 3-point range. Logan is 14-for-22 from beyond the arc while freshman Kenny Satterfield is 7-for-12. He is averaging 9.2 points and 6.4 assists.
After a first-half scare, North Carolina (6-1) beat Buffalo, 91-67 on Tuesday. Buffalo led by as many as 12 points in the first half and led by five points at halftime. The Tar Heels missed 12 of their first 13 shots in the game before waking up and outscoring Buffalo 56-27 in the second half.
"I'm proud of the way our kids came back in the second half," coach Bill Guthridge said. "We executed when we had to."
Freshman Jason Forte continued his impressive play with 19 points. Sophomore Jason Capel added 13 points and 12 rebounds.
The Tar Heels have won all seven games against Cincinnati, most recently a 96-76 rout in the 1994 Tournament of Champions at Charlotte. North Carolina also defeated the Bearcats in the East Region final of the NCAA tournament en route to winning the title in 1993.
After losses by fifth-ranked Kansas and second-ranked Arizona on Tuesday, Cincinnati joins Stanford as the only undefeated teams ranked in the top ten of the Associated Press Top 25 college basketball poll.
