Before stepping foot on the campus of the University of Cincinnati (UC), I knew about the rivalry between Cincinnati and Xavier. I had heard of the Crosstown brawl and had seen the videos. I knew it was a strong rivalry, but that was the extent of it. Game day is  basically a city holiday where you can feel the buzz all around.

 

 

Now that I am a student at UC, I know a lot more about the history of our program and the history of the rivalry. I watched last year’s game that was at Xavier from my house on the TV – I couldn’t get my hands on a ticket. It was a good and intense game to watch, but watching games on the TV doesn’t even give half the experience of going to the game. From the second that they announced the date of the 2017 game on my campus, I had it circled on the calendar. I earned points attending student sporting events so I could get my coveted student ticket for the game.

Let me start off my account of my experience at the game with this: I have been to a Yankees-Red Sox game, watched countless UNC-Duke games, and grew up a Bears fan (boo Packers). I thought I knew what rivalry was. The fans that go to the Crosstown Classic take things to a whole new level. I mean, after the brawl in 2011, they had to move the game to a neutral site and had to rename the game the Crosstown Classic because the “Shootout” part was considered violent. Throughout the week on twitter, jabs were being thrown left and right between X fans and Bearcat fans. Xavier fans bragged about the recent success, Cincinnati fans bragged about their historical success. Xavier fans bragged about their Big East conference vs the American conference, Cincinnati fans bragged about the fact that they have actually been to the Final Four. Hell, the Cincinnati student group RallyCats had an event every night where they had people sleep outside by the Oscar Robertson statue just so Xavier fans didn’t vandalize it (X fans weren’t as crazy so their Musketeer had a pretty little C-paw on him). As I said, this rivalry is serious.

 

 

We camped outside the stadium starting around 4:15 pm for the doors to open at  5:00pm (multiple Natty Lights were harmed in the hours before we got in to line). Once the doors opened, the students trampled each other to get the best seats possible. I was seated in the second row to the right of the basket, right by the Xavier bench (yes, this was intentional). Whenever a Xavier fan walked down the aisles to sit in their seats, our whole student section booed them. When it was finally game time, Fifth Third Arena was packed to the brim with a record attendance of 13, 477. As soon as the game started, the crowd was electric. Baskets got cheered, refs got booed, and beer got consumed. Also, it should be mentioned that my friends and I got yelled at by Chris Mack for yelling at him to get off the court (let’s just say that if he took a shot from where he was, they’d have to review whether it was a two or a three).

Xavier jumped out to a lead and took a little energy out of the building, but UC ended up getting it back to a two point game with 5 minutes left in the half. By this point, it was obvious Trevon Bluiett decided he didn’t want to miss a shot the entire game and Cincinnati was allergic to making free throws. That continued into halftime with Xavier leading by seven.

When the second half started, it was more of the same. Bluiett made a three to pump up the Xavier crowd while UC fell behind by eight. Then the comeback came with sixteen minutes left. Down by seven, Cincinnati scored the next six points to bring the deficit to one. The crowd went CRAZY. Within two more minutes, Cincinnati had jumped out to a six point lead. I have never heard a stadium get so loud and rowdy. It quickly became tight again, with a four point UC lead with 2 minutes left. The energy and the nerves in the stadium were palpable. Xavier fans were jumping around biting their nails, Cincinnati fans were praying a divine presence would help the team make a damn free throw. The final dagger came with 56 seconds left.

Let me put a little bit of background into how big this dagger was. First off, it’s the Crosstown Classic. Until tournament time, there is no bigger stage for these players. Second, UC was on a three game losing streak in the series. This means that the seniors on UC had never beaten X. Those seniors are Kevin Johnson and the man, Troy Caupain. Had the Bearcats lost, those two would go down in history as the only UC players to never beat Xavier.

Back to the shot. With the shot clock winding down and cheers coming from everywhere, the Bearcats wanted to kill some clock. The shot clock was winding down and everyone knew Caupain wanted the shot. He took it with 3 seconds on the shot clock, hit the rim and it bounced straight into the air. I’m telling you, it felt like it was in slow motion from a movie. The crowd got silent and then the ball dropped through the net. The crowd went NUTS. That shot put UC up 84-77 and they never turned back winning the game 86-78. The city is ours again. After all, it isn’t called Xavier, Ohio!

For any college basketball fans or just fans of great sports atmospheres, I encourage you to attend a Crosstown Shootout game sometime. I can’t speak on the atmosphere at Cintas (though I hear it is a great place to see a game), but at UC, the Shootout is unbelievable. We will welcome you with open arms, that is, unless you’re a Xavier fan.

 

 

You can check out the highlights here.