The Rodney Dangerfield Effect

by Teenage_Mustache on Feb 24, 2026 10:50 PM EST

Hello Matt, et al.

Long time listener, first time caller.

As a long suffering Cincinnati sports fan/UC grad I have been skeptical of this Bearcats basketball squad from the start. However, the Xavier win is now undeniable, the Louisville and @Georgetown wins are enormous (and hopefully momentum-building heading toward the tournament), and the "no bad loses" section of the Bearcats dance card is looking better every day. One more win and a bye in the Big East Tournament seems likely.

And yet this team is still being "Bungalized" by the National Media. For example, I was watching the Marquette-UCONN game and they labelled the Golden Eagle's remaining schedule at "easy." I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Marquette still needs to play our Bearcats. One of the annoucers said something to the effect of "Cincinnati is actually good though." The Cats have better Conference and overall records than two ranked teams, and yet apparently Cincinnati still isn't legitimate?

It seems like every big win Cincinnati gets is excused by our friends at ESPN. We only beat Georgetown because their point guard broke his hand (we were winning well before this happened). We only beat Louisville because Cronin was an assistant coach there. We only beat Xavier because they didn't feel like winning that day. I don't know how ESPN explains the Bearcats winning at Madision Square Garden where #1 Duke (among many others) have lost this season.

I hope like hell Cronin is playing the Rodney Dangerfield "We Don't Get No Respect" card every practice. UC should be a lock for the NCAA tourny with just one more win. I hope the National Media figures out the difference between the Bengals and the Bearcats Men's Basketeball team soon.

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Comments

+1

I agree with everything said here.

But you have to realize that this is a team that hasn’t made the tournament 5 seasons in a row. A real national power who has fallen from graces. No media wants to admit that we are back. They’d rather talk about mid-majors and all the other overrated teams… BYU, SDSU, TAMU, the entire Big Ten. That’s what viewers want to see.

No one admits that UC has by far one of the best defenses in the Nation. They just love to hold that out of conference schedule over our heads like it’s a shameful thing. The thing is no one admits that we didn’t lost any of those games. Other teams played strong teams and got their asses handed to them (ex. Mich St). Plus every week we play a top 50 rpi conference game. But the media still hates us.

Heck even Doug Gottlieb said, “UC beat Xavier when everyone was beating Xavier”. Yeah sure dude, Xavier gets to hide in the A-10 every week. A-10 is garbage. We stomped their best team and one of their better teams during our “weak” part of our schedule. XU isn’t even listed as a quality win for UC anymore. Which is really quite funny.

by BigStein on Feb 25, 2026 7:46 PM EST reply actions