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CINCINNATI – An individual national championship in women's track and field, a seventh straight trip to the NCAA Tournament in men's basketball, new head coaches in both football and baseball, and the resumption of construction on Fifth Third Arena's $87-million renovation were some of the highlights of the year in athletics at the University of Cincinnati.
As the Bearcats prepare to close the books on 2016-17, here's a chronological look at what transpired during the past school year:
RETURN TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT: Led by American Athletic Conference Player of the Year Jordan Thompson and AAC Setter of the Year Jade Tingelhoff, the Bearcats finished 22-10 overall, 17-3 in the conference, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011, losing in the first round to 16th-ranked Florida State.
Thompson, only a sophomore, recorded 4.8 kills per game, which ranked sixth nationally, and reached the 1,000-kill milestone earlier than anyone in UC history.
"I've been telling them a lot over the last two years how you become recognized on a national level," said UC volleyball coach Molly Alvey, who was named the AAC Coach of the Year in her fifth season with the Bearcats. "I think them reaching this point is more buy-in to what we're trying to achieve."
FOOTBALL TEAM STUMBLES: UC's run of five straight winning seasons and nine in the last 10 years came to a painful end when the Bearcats lost their final five games of the season to finish 4-8 overall, 1-7 in the AAC.
UC, which finished in a three-way tie for last place, averaged only 19.3 points per game, which ranked seventh in the eight-team league. At one point, the Bearcats went 13 quarters without scoring a touchdown. They finished the season with a 40-37 overtime loss at Tulsa after they had built a 24-7 lead.
"Tonight we scored some points," said UC coach Tommy Tuberville after the game. "We weren't able to get the win, but it was a lot more satisfying to our players to have some fun. We hadn't had a whole lot of fun the last couple of months."
Tuberville became involved in a verbal altercation with a frustrated fan as he left the field following the Bearcats' 20-3 loss to BYU at Nippert Stadium on Nov. 5, then apologized for his outburst three days later at his weekly press conference.
"I hit the wall and I should never have done that," he said.
On Dec . 4, Tuberville stepped down after four years at UC with a 29-22 record, one AAC co-championship and three bowl appearances.
FICKELL THE OBVIOUS CHOICE: It took less than a week for UC Director of Athletics Mike Bohn to settle on Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell as the Bearcats' 42nd head football coach.
Fickell, a former standout nose tackle at Ohio State, was introduced as Tuberville's replacement on Dec. 10 after 15 years on the Buckeyes' coaching staff, including one year as the interim head coach in 2011. Although his background was on the defensive side of the ball, Fickell promised to run an entertaining offense.
"The very first question we asked him was, we know all about you defensively, but we want to talk about offense," Bohn said. "He was excited to talk about that. That excited us, that he understood he wanted to be up-tempo, spread."
As if to emphasize his commitment to offense, Fickell hired former UC quarterback Gino Guidugli, who holds most of UC's passing records, as the Bearcats' running backs coach. Guidugli was quick to accept the chance to return to his alma mater even though he was poised to become the offensive coordinator at Central Michigan.
During his first six months on the job, the 43-year-old Fickell has already succeeded in luring top local recruits to UC and securing verbal commitments that have the Bearcats' 2018 recruiting class ranked as the best in the league. He has returned a sense of optimism to the program among players and UC fans.
"I'm an emotional guy," Fickell said. "I wear it on my sleeve. I'm not gonna be Jim Tressel, but I'm not gonna be Urban Meyer (either). You can't be consistent being somebody you're not. You can't continue to not being who you are, so I'm gonna be Luke Fickell."
REACHING A MILESTONE: Before the 2016-17 season, only one men's basketball team in school history had ever won 30 games in a season. That was the 2001-02 team that went 31-4, led by All-American guard Steve Logan and Leonard Stokes.
The 2016-17 Bearcats joined that elite company by posting a 30-6 record. They also advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh straight season, one of only eight schools in the country that can claim that level of consistent success.
The Bearcats were led by senior point guard Troy Caupain, who set the school record for career assists with 515 while averaging 10.5 points per game; sophomore Jacob Evans (13.5 ppg), and juniors Kyle Washington (13.1 ppg, 6.8 reb.) and Gary Clark (10.8, 7.9). Freshman guard Jarron Cumberland (8.3 ppg) was named to the AAC's All-Rookie team, while Caupain and Washington both were named to the all-AAC second team.
In addition, Caupain became the 50th member of UC's 1,000-point club and finished his career with 1,317 points, which ties him for 22nd in school history. The Bearcats knocked off Xavier, 86-78, to end a three-game losing streak in the Crosstown Shootout; and finished the season with a 26-game home winning streak. They won 15 consecutive games from Dec. 13 to Feb. 12, the third-longest winning streak in the country at the time, and were undefeated at home with an 18-0 record, just the fourth UC team to post an unbeaten home record since Fifth Third Arena opened in 1989. They tied the school record for conference wins in a season with 16 and were ranked as high as No. 11 nationally on Feb. 6 after beginning the season unranked.
The season came to an end on March 19 when the sixth-seeded Bearcats lost to No. 3 seed UCLA, 79-67, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Sacramento after they had beaten Kansas State, 75-61, in the first round.
"It's probably the first time in my life I've ever been depressed when the season ended," said UC coach Mick Cronin, who won his 300th career game with an 80-60 win over Tulsa on Feb. 18, "not because of the loss, but because our season was over. We had such an unselfish group that loved playing together."
BEST IN THE NATION: Annette Echikunwoke became the fifth individual athlete in UC history to win a national title when she won the weight throw in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 11 in College Station, Texas.
She joined swimmer Josh Schneider (2010 men's freestyle ), Becky Ruehl (1996 platform diving), Pat Evans (1989 3-meter diving) and swimmer Charles Keating (1946 200 butterfly) among UC's individual national champions. The Bearcats also won two national titles in men's basketball (1961 and 1962).
Echikunwoke's first throw went 21.87 meters (71 feet, nine inches). She fouled on her second and third throws, then threw 21.81 meters in the fourth round. Before her throw in the sixth round, she had already been announced as the national champion.
"It was very surreal," she said. "I was like, I can't believe I just did this, that it actually happened."
Her sixth and final throw was her best at 22.42 meters. It was the seventh time during the season that she had exceeded 22 meters.
Echikunwoke, a junior from Pickerington, Ohio, also is an All-American in the outdoor shot put and the outdoor hammer throw.
CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES: On March 3, the day after the Bearcats ended their home season with a a 65-47 win over Houston, the second – and most extensive - phase of construction began on the $87-million renovation of Fifth Third Arena that UC officials say will be transformed into one of the top on-campus arenas in the country.
The first phase, which included work on the 600 level suites, began in the fall of 2016.
The original configuration will be replaced by a 360-degree seating bowl designed to improve sight lines. The refurbished arena will feature a new upper level concourse loaded with fan amenities, and the seating capacity will be reduced from 13,176 to 11,500.
Construction is expected to be finished in time for the Bearcats to open the 2018-19 season in their upgraded home. In the meantime, they'll play their home games during the 2017-18 season at Northern Kentucky University's 9,400-seat BB&T Arena in Highlands Heights, Kentucky.
Bohn, who had also considered U.S. Bank Arena downtown as the Bearcats' temporary home, made the announcement on Feb. 10.
"We want our fans to continue to create the environment that's allowing us to recruit well, to generate a home court advantage," Bohn said. "That's exactly what we're going to have to do consistently across the river so that we can continue to maintain a program that we're all so proud of."
The Bearcats have gone 385-79 in Fifth Third, which opened as Shoemaker Center in 1989.
NCAA TOURNAMENT APPEARANCE FOR GOLFER SQUIRES: Sophomore Austin Squires became the first UC golfer since David Tepe in 2013 and the fifth in school history to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
UC's other three NCAA qualifiers are George McManis (1965), Geoff Hensley (1969) and Jon Nichols (1974).
Squires, from Ryle High School in Northern Kentucky, was named the AAC Player of the Year and set a school record with a season stroke average of 71.71, an improvement of four strokes over his freshman average of 76.
He credited UC golf coach Doug Martin, who played eight years on the PGA Tour, for his improvement.
"I've always been a pretty good ball striker," Squires said, "but the way I played golf courses put a lot of stress on my ball-striking, so I'd have to strike it very well to play well. Last year after finishing (the season), we figured out that my putting had really been hindering me to play well every week. Over the past year Coach Martin and I worked on my putting and short game and decision making. That allowed me to be more consistent no matter how I strike the ball."
Squires shot 223 – seven over par - over three days at the NCAA Regional at West Lafayette, Ind., from May 15-17 to finish in a tie for 21st place, the best finish ever for a UC golfer.
SECOND STRAIGHT LEAGUE TITLE FOR WOMEN'S TRACK: Not only did the Bearcats win the team title at the AAC Outdoor Track and Field Championship for the second straight year, they won it by a wider margin than they did the previous year.
UC won seven of the 21 events to total 138 points and posted the largest margin of victory in the four-year history of the event, which was held May 12-15 in Houston.
"Last year some people were really overwhelmed at the prospect of winning our first title," said Susan Seaton, UC's director of track and field and cross country. "Some people got a little nervous. I think this year we knew that if we just keep doing what we've done and get personal bests, we will pull this off. I think they had more confidence this year and they had more experience on how to win a title.
"Last year we were the big favorites and then we were nervous. Some people performed out of their minds, but some of the favorites couldn't get it together and we kind of messed up a little bit. But we still pulled it off because we were just really that good."
The Bearcats were favored again this year had little trouble living up to expectations, getting individual titles from Loretta Blake (high jump), Echikunwoke (hammer and shot put), Bryana Robinson (400-meter dash), and Naomi Urbano (hepathlon). They also won the 4x100 relay and the 4x400 relay.
"We had one of those meets where almost everything goes right," Seaton said. "That's very rare."
GOOGINS LEAVES XAVIER TO TAKE OVER UC'S BASEBALL PROGRAM: When Ty Neal resigned on May 23 just before the AAC Tournament, Bohn had only to look across town to rival Xavier to find his replacement in Scott Googins.
The 49-year-old Googins thought enough of UC's potential to leave Xavier, where in 12 years he led the Musketeers to 341 victories – the most in school history – and four NCAA Tournament appearances, including regional final appearances in each of the last two seasons.
He'll begin at UC with a state-of-the-art 3,085-seat stadium that he didn't have at Xavier, and what he considers a strong base of talent left by his predecessor. Neal posted a 91-132-1 record in four years..
"We've got a lot of things in place here to be successful, not only the facilities, but the players," Googins said after he was introduced as UC's 28th head baseball coach. "We've got quality student-athletes. We played them quite a bit this year (at Xavier). They're a great group of young men. Coach Neal did a great job in bringing in the right guys. I'm excited to coach them."
Googins' Musketeers were 34-27 in 2016-17, won their second straight Big East Conference tournament title, and lost to seventh-ranked Louisville, 8-7, in the NCAA regional final at Louisville.
He'll try to stop the Bearcats' string of 43 years without an NCAA Tournament appearance. Since 1974, when the Bearcats made their last appearance under Glenn Sample, they've had six different coaches.
Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years – 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer – before joining the staff of GoBearcats.com in January, 2015.
As the Bearcats prepare to close the books on 2016-17, here's a chronological look at what transpired during the past school year:
RETURN TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT: Led by American Athletic Conference Player of the Year Jordan Thompson and AAC Setter of the Year Jade Tingelhoff, the Bearcats finished 22-10 overall, 17-3 in the conference, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011, losing in the first round to 16th-ranked Florida State.
Thompson, only a sophomore, recorded 4.8 kills per game, which ranked sixth nationally, and reached the 1,000-kill milestone earlier than anyone in UC history.
"I've been telling them a lot over the last two years how you become recognized on a national level," said UC volleyball coach Molly Alvey, who was named the AAC Coach of the Year in her fifth season with the Bearcats. "I think them reaching this point is more buy-in to what we're trying to achieve."
FOOTBALL TEAM STUMBLES: UC's run of five straight winning seasons and nine in the last 10 years came to a painful end when the Bearcats lost their final five games of the season to finish 4-8 overall, 1-7 in the AAC.
UC, which finished in a three-way tie for last place, averaged only 19.3 points per game, which ranked seventh in the eight-team league. At one point, the Bearcats went 13 quarters without scoring a touchdown. They finished the season with a 40-37 overtime loss at Tulsa after they had built a 24-7 lead.
"Tonight we scored some points," said UC coach Tommy Tuberville after the game. "We weren't able to get the win, but it was a lot more satisfying to our players to have some fun. We hadn't had a whole lot of fun the last couple of months."
Tuberville became involved in a verbal altercation with a frustrated fan as he left the field following the Bearcats' 20-3 loss to BYU at Nippert Stadium on Nov. 5, then apologized for his outburst three days later at his weekly press conference.
"I hit the wall and I should never have done that," he said.
On Dec . 4, Tuberville stepped down after four years at UC with a 29-22 record, one AAC co-championship and three bowl appearances.
FICKELL THE OBVIOUS CHOICE: It took less than a week for UC Director of Athletics Mike Bohn to settle on Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell as the Bearcats' 42nd head football coach.
Fickell, a former standout nose tackle at Ohio State, was introduced as Tuberville's replacement on Dec. 10 after 15 years on the Buckeyes' coaching staff, including one year as the interim head coach in 2011. Although his background was on the defensive side of the ball, Fickell promised to run an entertaining offense.
"The very first question we asked him was, we know all about you defensively, but we want to talk about offense," Bohn said. "He was excited to talk about that. That excited us, that he understood he wanted to be up-tempo, spread."
As if to emphasize his commitment to offense, Fickell hired former UC quarterback Gino Guidugli, who holds most of UC's passing records, as the Bearcats' running backs coach. Guidugli was quick to accept the chance to return to his alma mater even though he was poised to become the offensive coordinator at Central Michigan.
During his first six months on the job, the 43-year-old Fickell has already succeeded in luring top local recruits to UC and securing verbal commitments that have the Bearcats' 2018 recruiting class ranked as the best in the league. He has returned a sense of optimism to the program among players and UC fans.
"I'm an emotional guy," Fickell said. "I wear it on my sleeve. I'm not gonna be Jim Tressel, but I'm not gonna be Urban Meyer (either). You can't be consistent being somebody you're not. You can't continue to not being who you are, so I'm gonna be Luke Fickell."
REACHING A MILESTONE: Before the 2016-17 season, only one men's basketball team in school history had ever won 30 games in a season. That was the 2001-02 team that went 31-4, led by All-American guard Steve Logan and Leonard Stokes.
The 2016-17 Bearcats joined that elite company by posting a 30-6 record. They also advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh straight season, one of only eight schools in the country that can claim that level of consistent success.
The Bearcats were led by senior point guard Troy Caupain, who set the school record for career assists with 515 while averaging 10.5 points per game; sophomore Jacob Evans (13.5 ppg), and juniors Kyle Washington (13.1 ppg, 6.8 reb.) and Gary Clark (10.8, 7.9). Freshman guard Jarron Cumberland (8.3 ppg) was named to the AAC's All-Rookie team, while Caupain and Washington both were named to the all-AAC second team.
In addition, Caupain became the 50th member of UC's 1,000-point club and finished his career with 1,317 points, which ties him for 22nd in school history. The Bearcats knocked off Xavier, 86-78, to end a three-game losing streak in the Crosstown Shootout; and finished the season with a 26-game home winning streak. They won 15 consecutive games from Dec. 13 to Feb. 12, the third-longest winning streak in the country at the time, and were undefeated at home with an 18-0 record, just the fourth UC team to post an unbeaten home record since Fifth Third Arena opened in 1989. They tied the school record for conference wins in a season with 16 and were ranked as high as No. 11 nationally on Feb. 6 after beginning the season unranked.
The season came to an end on March 19 when the sixth-seeded Bearcats lost to No. 3 seed UCLA, 79-67, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Sacramento after they had beaten Kansas State, 75-61, in the first round.
"It's probably the first time in my life I've ever been depressed when the season ended," said UC coach Mick Cronin, who won his 300th career game with an 80-60 win over Tulsa on Feb. 18, "not because of the loss, but because our season was over. We had such an unselfish group that loved playing together."
BEST IN THE NATION: Annette Echikunwoke became the fifth individual athlete in UC history to win a national title when she won the weight throw in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 11 in College Station, Texas.
She joined swimmer Josh Schneider (2010 men's freestyle ), Becky Ruehl (1996 platform diving), Pat Evans (1989 3-meter diving) and swimmer Charles Keating (1946 200 butterfly) among UC's individual national champions. The Bearcats also won two national titles in men's basketball (1961 and 1962).
Echikunwoke's first throw went 21.87 meters (71 feet, nine inches). She fouled on her second and third throws, then threw 21.81 meters in the fourth round. Before her throw in the sixth round, she had already been announced as the national champion.
"It was very surreal," she said. "I was like, I can't believe I just did this, that it actually happened."
Her sixth and final throw was her best at 22.42 meters. It was the seventh time during the season that she had exceeded 22 meters.
Echikunwoke, a junior from Pickerington, Ohio, also is an All-American in the outdoor shot put and the outdoor hammer throw.
CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES: On March 3, the day after the Bearcats ended their home season with a a 65-47 win over Houston, the second – and most extensive - phase of construction began on the $87-million renovation of Fifth Third Arena that UC officials say will be transformed into one of the top on-campus arenas in the country.
The first phase, which included work on the 600 level suites, began in the fall of 2016.
The original configuration will be replaced by a 360-degree seating bowl designed to improve sight lines. The refurbished arena will feature a new upper level concourse loaded with fan amenities, and the seating capacity will be reduced from 13,176 to 11,500.
Construction is expected to be finished in time for the Bearcats to open the 2018-19 season in their upgraded home. In the meantime, they'll play their home games during the 2017-18 season at Northern Kentucky University's 9,400-seat BB&T Arena in Highlands Heights, Kentucky.
Bohn, who had also considered U.S. Bank Arena downtown as the Bearcats' temporary home, made the announcement on Feb. 10.
"We want our fans to continue to create the environment that's allowing us to recruit well, to generate a home court advantage," Bohn said. "That's exactly what we're going to have to do consistently across the river so that we can continue to maintain a program that we're all so proud of."
The Bearcats have gone 385-79 in Fifth Third, which opened as Shoemaker Center in 1989.
NCAA TOURNAMENT APPEARANCE FOR GOLFER SQUIRES: Sophomore Austin Squires became the first UC golfer since David Tepe in 2013 and the fifth in school history to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
UC's other three NCAA qualifiers are George McManis (1965), Geoff Hensley (1969) and Jon Nichols (1974).
Squires, from Ryle High School in Northern Kentucky, was named the AAC Player of the Year and set a school record with a season stroke average of 71.71, an improvement of four strokes over his freshman average of 76.
He credited UC golf coach Doug Martin, who played eight years on the PGA Tour, for his improvement.
"I've always been a pretty good ball striker," Squires said, "but the way I played golf courses put a lot of stress on my ball-striking, so I'd have to strike it very well to play well. Last year after finishing (the season), we figured out that my putting had really been hindering me to play well every week. Over the past year Coach Martin and I worked on my putting and short game and decision making. That allowed me to be more consistent no matter how I strike the ball."
Squires shot 223 – seven over par - over three days at the NCAA Regional at West Lafayette, Ind., from May 15-17 to finish in a tie for 21st place, the best finish ever for a UC golfer.
SECOND STRAIGHT LEAGUE TITLE FOR WOMEN'S TRACK: Not only did the Bearcats win the team title at the AAC Outdoor Track and Field Championship for the second straight year, they won it by a wider margin than they did the previous year.
UC won seven of the 21 events to total 138 points and posted the largest margin of victory in the four-year history of the event, which was held May 12-15 in Houston.
"Last year some people were really overwhelmed at the prospect of winning our first title," said Susan Seaton, UC's director of track and field and cross country. "Some people got a little nervous. I think this year we knew that if we just keep doing what we've done and get personal bests, we will pull this off. I think they had more confidence this year and they had more experience on how to win a title.
"Last year we were the big favorites and then we were nervous. Some people performed out of their minds, but some of the favorites couldn't get it together and we kind of messed up a little bit. But we still pulled it off because we were just really that good."
The Bearcats were favored again this year had little trouble living up to expectations, getting individual titles from Loretta Blake (high jump), Echikunwoke (hammer and shot put), Bryana Robinson (400-meter dash), and Naomi Urbano (hepathlon). They also won the 4x100 relay and the 4x400 relay.
"We had one of those meets where almost everything goes right," Seaton said. "That's very rare."
GOOGINS LEAVES XAVIER TO TAKE OVER UC'S BASEBALL PROGRAM: When Ty Neal resigned on May 23 just before the AAC Tournament, Bohn had only to look across town to rival Xavier to find his replacement in Scott Googins.
The 49-year-old Googins thought enough of UC's potential to leave Xavier, where in 12 years he led the Musketeers to 341 victories – the most in school history – and four NCAA Tournament appearances, including regional final appearances in each of the last two seasons.
He'll begin at UC with a state-of-the-art 3,085-seat stadium that he didn't have at Xavier, and what he considers a strong base of talent left by his predecessor. Neal posted a 91-132-1 record in four years..
"We've got a lot of things in place here to be successful, not only the facilities, but the players," Googins said after he was introduced as UC's 28th head baseball coach. "We've got quality student-athletes. We played them quite a bit this year (at Xavier). They're a great group of young men. Coach Neal did a great job in bringing in the right guys. I'm excited to coach them."
Googins' Musketeers were 34-27 in 2016-17, won their second straight Big East Conference tournament title, and lost to seventh-ranked Louisville, 8-7, in the NCAA regional final at Louisville.
He'll try to stop the Bearcats' string of 43 years without an NCAA Tournament appearance. Since 1974, when the Bearcats made their last appearance under Glenn Sample, they've had six different coaches.
Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years – 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer – before joining the staff of GoBearcats.com in January, 2015.