Jan. 7, 2009

(9:44 p.m.): Mick came into the media room, suit jacket off, and got right to the root of the problem. You look at the stat sheet, and the Bearcats’ biggest worry is pretty clear: defense.

“It’s fairly obvious our defense was not up to par,” Mick said. “That said, Providence is a very tough team to defend. They’re veterans and they can shoot the basketball. They made tough shots. Those aren’t the backbreakers. The backbreakers are the hand-check (fouls) and that they shot 24 second-half free throws. Until we can get five guys that can defend … we’re going to continue to struggle. It’s like I tried to tell our team: everybody wants to be concerned about offense. All that does is demonstrate how inexperienced we are. We need to worry about defense. That’s all our message was.

“We won eight Big East games last year playing tremendous defense. Defense doesn’t take talent. It takes heart, focus, effort and energy. Right now, we’re struggling to get five guys on the same page defensively, partly because we’re playing too many young guys who aren’t ready to be playing. We have to find five guys who can get crucial stops to win big games.”

I asked Providence guard Weyinmi Efejuku, who led the way with 18 points (11 of 14 from the FT line), if there was some kind of hole the Friars were exploiting, or if it was just some crazy coincidence that the Bearcats have allowed their last two opponents to shoot 54 percent from the floor.

“No, we went out there and executed what we do,” he said. “They’re a tough team. They rebound the ball really well. Maybe they just had a couple tough nights defensively.”

That really was what consumed Mick tonight. Somebody asked about Mike Williams’ 20-point performance, and he replied: “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t want to answer your question, but I’m worried about defense. Geoff McDermott drives it at Mike a couple times and scores.”

What really concerned Mick was that the coaching staff focused so much on defense the past couple days. Especially after the debacle at Marquette. But, like he said, if you give up 87 points when you’re playing at home, you’re probably not going to win.

“You don’t understand: we work on defense every day,” Mick said. “It’s the concentration of every winning program. If you defend, you win. That is the focal point of what we constantly do.”

So, what do you do now?

“Continue to work on it,” he said. “Get better at it, point out mistakes, teach and coach.”

Mike Williams didn’t have much to say tonight. I asked him if the players-only meeting they had a few days ago actually helped. I wondered that because Deonta Vaughn talked tonight about how when Providence made a couple shots, the team began to feel demoralized once again.

“It helped,” he said. “It definitely helped.”

So, what about Providence, huh? With a new coach and a point guard who missed last season with an injury, the Friars are 3-0 in the Big East (of course, they have played DePaul, St. John’s and UC, not exactly the conference’s elite). They also knew UC was going to make a run at some point, and they wanted to be prepared for it.

“In the Big East at home, teams make runs,” Curry said. “It’s what we were going to do when they made that run. We showed a lot of experience and toughness by continuing to fight and holding onto the win.”