The 2-Year Plan : Coach Used Junior College Transfers to End Cincinnati’s Final Four Drought

After building the Shoemaker Center, a $32-million state-of-the-art arena replete with 16 luxury suites, a restaurant, a $1.5-million scoreboard, plush coaching offices, and a locker room filled with video games, the University of Cincinnati needed a good basketball team to fill the 13,176-seat on-campus arena that opened in 1989.

Cincinnati hired Coach Bob Huggins, who had rebuilt the program at Akron, leading the Zips to four consecutive 20-victory seasons, to restore the once-proud program at Cincinnati, which produced Oscar Robertson and made five consecutive Final Four appearances from 1959-63, winning back-to-back NCAA titles in 1961-62.

Deciding that it would take too long to build with high school recruits, Huggins opted to recruit junior college players and sent assistant Steve Moeller, once a door-to-door Bible salesman, to sell junior college players on Cincinnati.

The strategy produced immediate results. Cincinnati, which has 10 transfers, including eight from junior colleges, unexpectedly reached the Final Four for the first time in 29 years.

“I’m sure if you had asked 1 million people at the beginning of the year if Cincinnati was going to the Final Four, I’m sure 1 million people would have said ‘no,’ ” said reserve guard Erik Martin, a transfer from Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana.

While the rosters of the other teams in the Final Four are filled with players who were high school All-Americans, Cincinnati’s roster is stocked with JC All-Americans, including the 1990 and 1991 JC players of the year.

Center Corie Blount, who played at Monrovia High, was named the 1991 player of the year in California after leading Rancho Santiago to a 35-2 record and the state championship, and forward Herb Jones was named the 1990 national player of the year after averaging 27 points and 11.5 rebounds at Butler (Kan.) Community College.

Two other players are transfers from Division I schools. Guard Anthony Buford led Akron in scoring, steals and assists as a junior in 1989-90 before following Huggins to Cincinnati. Center Jeff Scott, who started the first 14 games before asking to be taken out of the starting lineup because he wasn’t playing well, played at Miami (Ohio) and UC Santa Barbara before transferring to Cincinnati.

Forward Terry Nelson, a transfer from Long Beach City College, almost went to USC but selected Cincinnati after the Trojans stopped recruiting him because they thought they were going to get forward Lester Neal of Ventura College. But they lost both as Neal signed with Arizona State.

“I thought (USC) was going to sign me,” Nelson said. “They should be where we are now, but unfortunately they didn’t make it, and I’m happy to be here.”

The Bearcats, who have four newcomers in the starting lineup, took time to develop.

After a season-opening exhibition loss to Athletes In Action, Cincinnati held a players-only meeting and established its goals for the season.

The first goal was to work hard every day. Their second was a 23-4 regular-season record. Other goals were winning the Great Midwest Conference and the conference tournament. Then, they set their sights on the final eight in the NCAA tournament.

After the Bearcats advanced to the Final Four by defeating Memphis State for the fourth time this season in last week’s NCAA Midwest Regional, they once again have heightened their expectations.

In order to keep the dream alive, Cincinnati (29-4) must defeat Michigan (24-8) in a semifinal game Saturday at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

While Michigan’s five freshmen were expected to achieve the extraordinary, Cincinnati’s transfers have been somewhat of a surprise.

“At this point, I don’t care what people think of us,” forward Jones said. “We’re in the Final Four, and they can’t take that from us. They know who we are now.”

Really?

--Do they know that Nelson, a starting forward, is a stand-up comedian who has appeared at several comedy clubs in the Southland and keeps his teammates in stitches with his impersonation of Huggins?

--Do they know that Blount, the starting center, gave up basketball after graduating from high school to work at a Kmart?

--Do they know that Jones, the leading scorer, unwinds by feeding goldfish to his pet piranhas?

THE COMEDIAN

Nelson, who never met a camera he didn’t like, is sharpening his one-liners for the national media at the Final Four.

Nelson borrowed a microphone from a sportscaster and interviewed his teammates for a Kansas City TV station after the Bearcats won the Midwest Regional.

“Terry chases a TV camera like this dog in my neighborhood chases cars,” Huggins said.

Nelson, who hopes to become a stand-up comedian, keeps the Bearcats loose.

During a recent team dinner, Nelson had his teammates in stitches as he attacked them with one liners.

Huggins is not spared.

“I do a great Huggins,” Nelson said. “He sits there and says, ‘Is that me?’ But the guys on the team have asked me to stop doing it because they don’t want people to get the wrong impression when I do the Huggins impersonation and think he’s just a raving bat out of hell. We don’t want to scare (recruits) off.”

Huggins has worn the same brown suit during Cincinnati’s 10-game winning streak, and Nelson threatened to clean it for him by giving him a Gatorade shower after the Bearcats won the Midwest Regional.

“I’ll get him after the championship game,” Nelson said. “He can buy a more expensive suit after his new contract negotiations are over.”

Nelson is looking forward to trading barbs with Michigan, if the officials allow.

“The refs in the NCAA think something is wrong with talking,” Nelson said. “Talking is a part of athletics. You see in the pros they (permit) talking. The people who make these rules are sitting in some ninth-floor hotel suite drinking dry martinis. They should go out to the streets of Brooklyn and just hang around there and see what basketball is really like before they make these rules.”

Though Nelson loves to have fun, he is serious on the court.

After averaging 16.5 points and 10.7 rebounds last season at Long Beach City College, Nelson, a 6-5 junior, became a defensive specialist for Cincinnati, which has forced an average of 18.75 turnovers in four NCAA tournament games.

THE SALESMAN

Blount quit playing basketball after graduating from Monrovia High and got a job selling sporting goods at Kmart because he didn’t believe he was good enough to play in college.

But after spurting five inches to 6-10, Blount enrolled at Rancho Santiago, where he blossomed, averaging 19.5 points and nine rebounds last season.

Asked to concentrate on rebounding, Blount has averaged 8.4 points and 6.5 rebounds and had a season-high 15 points and 12 rebounds in a 21-point loss to Indiana.

“I heard Dennis Rodman say that he tells himself before every game that he’s going to get the ball, and that’s the kind of attitude I try to have,” Blount said.

THE LEADING SCORER

The first thing Jones did when he returned home after the Bearcats won the Midwest Regional was to visit the pet store and buy goldfish.

“I love aggressive fish,” Jones told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Jones, a 6-4 senior, is nearly as aggressive on the court, averaging a team-high 17.8 points and seven rebounds. Cincinnati’s most accurate shooter, he also leads the team in dunks.

“I don’t consider myself a star,” Jones said. “Stars are in the sky. I’m not on an ego trip.”

Jones is perhaps the most businesslike player on a team full of hard workers.

He was even businesslike when being recruited by Cincinnati.

“I came for my visit on a weekday, and they thought I was a nerd,” Jones said. “Usually (recruits) come on a Friday so they can party. But I just walked around the campus and asked to be taken back to the hotel.”

THE FLOOR GENERAL

Huggins says he tried to talk Buford out of transferring from Akron to Cincinnati, but Buford followed Huggins, who recruited him out of high school.

“Coach Huggins was the reason I went to Akron,” Buford said. “I was very unhappy when he left. I didn’t have any place else to go when he left. Either I was going to come to Cincinnati and play my last year under Coach Huggins or I was going to give up the game, period. I was that unhappy.”

Buford, a 6-3 senior guard averaging 15.2 points, has played a vital role for Cincinnati.

“He’s our coach on the floor,” Nelson said of Buford. “When Coach Huggins is sitting there yelling at you and you’ve got 13,000 fans on the road yelling at you, Anthony is the guy who pulls us together. Anthony knows the program just like any other assistant coach here, except he’s not on the payroll.”

Buford has such a good relationship with Huggins that Buford told Huggins to be quiet during a timeout late in the Bearcats’ two-point victory over Texas El Paso in a Midwest Regional semifinal game, and Buford then designed an inbounds play that resulted in a basket.

THE BABY FACE

Although guard Nick Van Exel looks as if he should still be in high school, he has played a major role in the Bearcats’ success.

A 6-1 junior, Buford has been the hottest Bearcat in postseason play, averaging 15.7 points and shooting 67.4% in two conference tournament games and four NCAA tournament games.

A transfer from Trinity (Tex.) JC, where he averaged 20.4 points and seven assists, he was ranked among the top 10 point guards before coming to Cincinnati.

Inserted into the starting lineup after a nine-point loss to DePaul, Van Exel has led Cincinnati to an 18-1 record since he began directing the Bearcats’ motion offense.