Bearcats coach Jamelle Elliott gives instructions to forward Kayla Cook Photo Credit: Mike Mitchell 

In today’s sports vernacular, when you hear the term “beast”, it’s not to be equated to some mythical fire-breathing behemoth; terrorizing lowly citizens in a small city. In truth, the term

is more a sign of respect—for a team, or a person, that dominates the game, competes to the end, and is essentially the best in their respective sport.

In what is arguably the most competitive conference in all of women’s college basketball, the sixteen team juggernaut, that makes-up the Big East, includes some of the nations most storied programs—Connecticut, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Georgetown and Louisville are just a few of the top teams in the conference. Factor in some of the legendary coaches that patrol the sidelines, like Geno Auriemma (Connecticut), Muffet McGraw (Notre Dame), and C. Vivian Stringer (Rutgers) and you have a collection of the game’s most elite leaders in collegiate women’s basketball today.

By the time you add-in other rising programs like St. John’s, DePaul and West Virginia the Big East conference leaves little room for error when it comes to top tier rankings. More often than not the remaining teams that make up the conference find themselves at the bottom tier (in ranking)—trying aggressively to compete and climb-up the proverbial hoop ladder.

For the Lady Bearcats of UC they have both an unfortunate, and fortunate, dilemma as part of the Big East Conference—where they currently find themselves scrambling among the bottom tier programs.

Unfortunately they were picked in the pre-season poll to finish 15^th overall and that’s just about where they stand to-date. At press time the Lady Bearcats were 14^th in the conference with a record of 2-7 (Big East), 11-11 (overall)—a path eerily similar to last season where they managed just one conference victory (over Marquette) the last game of the season. When asked about this year’s team and their struggles in the Big East, Bearcats head coach Jamelle Elliott replied, “You can make all the excuses in the world, but at the end of the day we need to produce. They (my players) came to Cincinnati to play in the best conference in the world and they should embrace that and feel confident they can have some success." That said, optimism for a better finish is already taking place for the Bearcats with recent wins over both Syracuse (55-54) and Marquette (64-52). Yet in order to truly have an impact in the conference, and move up in the rankings, they will have to solidify other key wins moving forward.

Fortunately for the Bearcats—when you’re down near the bottom, the only way out is up! It also helps that they have already played some of the more competitive teams in the conference—

leaving multiple opportunities to pull-off some key upsets as the season winds down. “My job as a coach is to make sure we put our guys in those situations in practice and make it as hard as possible and simulate what we might face night-in, night-out,” says Elliott.” “That way when we face these teams they can go out there and have confidence they can be successful.”

On the horizon for the Bearcats are battles with bottom tier teams #15 Pittsburgh (at home Feb. 11), and #16 Seton Hall (away Feb. 18). They close out the regular season versus mid-tier teams Marquette (at home Feb. 21), West Virginia (at home Feb. 25) and DePaul (away Feb. 27).