Cincinnati Basketball: Bearcats are the other Final Four threat in the AAC

Wichita State gets a lot of the hype in the AAC this season, but Cincinnati basketball has big aspirations too. The Bearcats have Final Four potential.

For those who love entertaining basketball, my apologies to those who watched Cincinnati take on Central Florida. The Golden Knights are a team looking to finish in the top-tier of the American Athletic Conference and posses one of the best defenses in college basketball. But the Bearcats are better, recently overtaking Texas Tech as the best in terms of defensive rating.

It was an ugly game, with UCF leading at halftime, 19-15. But led by junior Gary Clark, 17 points and 15 rebounds (which was about 80% of the total production in the game), Cincinnati scored 34 points in the final 20 minutes while keeping UCF to 19 again in the 49-38 defensive struggle.

That makes it nine straight wins for Mick Cronin’s team, who is 16-2 (5-0) on the season. And don’t think this team can’t put points on the board, as the Bearcats have scored at least 75 points in six of the last nine games.

The team is tied at the top of the AAC standings with Wichita State and is ranked No. 12 in the country. Yet for some reason, the Shockers have received twice the amount of attention. There was a point in early December where the Bearcats lost two in a row to ranked teams and have flown under the radar ever since.

Another reason is that while this team has potential All-AAC players, none average more than 14 ppg or receive much national attention. And let’s face it, the AAC doesn’t have many storylines, other than the top two teams (and Uconn struggling). We have to wait until mid-February before Wichita and Cincy face off, with a bunch of meaningless games and potential bad losses coming in between.

Next: Cincinnati's top players from the 2010-11 Big East season

This is a legitimately good team that could surprise people who aren’t paying attention to them. Now it’s just about keeping up with the Shockers for the next month until they get their chance to prove that they’re just as good, if not better.