The UC Bearcats came from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Hawaii 29-24 and finish off an amazing 11-2 regular season. Receiver Mardy Gilyard, who graces the cover of this week's CityBeat, caught the winning touchdown pass.

UC will confirm its BCS bowl game — likely the Orange Bowl against Virginia Tech — this evening. [UPDATE: UC-Virginia Tech is official.]

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Though few people in Cincinnati could watch the game on TV, those of us who dug out the old Walkman tape deck to listen to the radio broadcast were treated to a well-played ballgame by the Bearcats last night. In beating Georgetown, the ‘Cats have overcome their first major obstacle to earning consideration for an NCAA tournament berth this year.

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The year 2000 seems like only yesterday — everyone all hunched up in our bomb shelters assuming the bank was going to turn our life savings into some kind of repeating decimal instead of the hundreds of dollars we had in there, all because a computer doesn't know how to count above 1999.

Once we made it to the Millennium, many Cincinnatians' concerns shifted from ultimate survival to how awesome it was going to be when Kenyon Martin and the UC Bearcats won the National Title. We're not here to recap how much it sucked to witness Kenyon's broken ankle in the stupid Conference USA tournament or to apologize to the girlfriend at the time who walked in the room during the injury and expected some semblance of reason to be demonstrated despite the fatal blow to the 'Cats' chances. (She says she forgave me, but her recent marriage to a hockey player in California speaks otherwise...)

Before the conference tournament there was the Bearcats' second-to-last regular season game, a contest against future pro Quintin Richardson and the DePaul Blue Demons on March 2, 2000. UC had four of its own players who would be drafted following the 1999-00 season: Martin (1st overall pick in 2000), DerMarr Johnson (6th pick in 2000), Kenny Satterfield (53rd in 2001) and Steve Logan (30th in 2002).

Witness, via the beauty of the Internet, the final 3:46 of gametime, the No. 2 Bearcats trailing 60-50 and Dick Vitale in the house to go off about how awesome Kenyon was.

With Opening Day fast approaching, you now have 225 million reasons to go watch the Reds this year. Bob Castellini opened up the checkbook and Walt Jocketty busted out his best persuasive vocabulary and Joey Votto accepted; to the tune of a 10-year, $225 million contract extension — the fourth largest in major league history.

Reds ownership — unlike our dear friend, Mike Brown — has embraced the recent successes of their young nucleus of talented players and has spared no expense to keep the "Little Big Red Machine" well-oiled. Votto joins fellow all-star Jay Bruce, who signed a six-year, $51 million deal after the 2010 season. It’s nice to see a professional sports owner in Cincinnati who actually loves the sport and is in it for the right reasons.

The Reds will have plenty of offensive talent this year, something that really has not been a problem over the past couple of seasons. Any lingering doubt has to relate to the recent injuries that have plagued the bullpen. Ryan Madson is out for the year after Tommy John surgery while Nick Masset will start the season on the DL with shoulder cuff inflammation. This means that Aroldis Chapman will start in the bullpen even though most Reds fans — and manager, Dusty Baker — know his services would be better used as a starter. Sean Marshall will step in to the closer role until the Reds have more depth in the bullpen; he isn’t a bad option and has consistently kept a low ERA in a relief role.

One thing hasn’t changed, the Reds still play in Great American Ballpark and they have an abundance of young, strong bats in the lineup. Between Votto, Bruce, Todd Frazier and Chris Heisey, expect the Reds to be amongst the league-leaders in home runs. Drew Stubbs will hit some too, but if he could take a little constructive criticism to heart: Please, learn to bunt. This will be a key in the Reds venture for success this year.

If Stubbs can get on base, he is going to steal — there are very few players in the majors that have his kind of speed. If the bats behind Stubbs perform up to expectations, the Reds will score more than enough runs to support the pitching staff. And the single most important key to success this year is battling through injuries; if the young guys can step in and compete there is no reason the Reds won’t win the division — after all, we do have the best first baseman, if not player, in the National League.

The Reds will open their season against the Miami Marlins at 4:05 p.m. on Thursday following the Findlay Market Opening Day Parade. For more celebration of Opening Day, check out C. Trent Rosecrans' column from this week's CityBeat here.

It happened again. This time it didn’t include cat chasing or yelling in the streets at 3 a.m., but Brian Kelly’s outrageous head coaching decisions yesterday threatened to ruin a perfectly good Friday night, just like they did last Saturday.

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We’re still a few weeks away from the Major League Baseball All-Star break and the NFL’s training camps don’t begin until after that, but it’s never too early to start thinking about how much smack we get to type to our friends during the fall. Those of us too old, bitter and uncoordinated busy to participate in the recreational sports leagues of our youth find excitement in the all-day changing of numbers and the friendly competition of fantasy football (which is much better than fantasy baseball).

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Mick Cronin’s overhaul of the University of Cincinnati basketball program was destined to be a multi-year effort. No one could be expected to take over a program with one scholarship player and only the summer to recruit his first class and then immediately compete in the Big East. UC’s first two seasons under Cronin were going to suck because of the talent level available — even at the JUCO level — at that point in the game, and starting that late with such a sketchy group affected Cronin’s first full year of recruiting as well.

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In yet another episode of "I'm a Real Person and McCain Is a Phony," Barack Obama yesterday told ESPN's Chris Berman that if he could change one thing about sports that it would be to eliminate the current college football championship format in favor of an eight-team playoff.

The exchange was a pre-taped segment that aired during halftime of Monday Night Football. McCain was asked the same question, and his response was that he would do everything he can to eliminate performance enhancing drugs because they threaten the integrity of the game. What an asshole.

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A sparse crowd arrives early on Center Court for the first match of Day Three (Aug. 16), which features one of the more intriguing players on the WTA roster thus far in 2011: Li Na, who reached the finals of the Australian Open and became the first native-born Asian player to capture a Grand Slam title when she won the French Open. Kicking things off here, the tournament was proud to recognize a group of young girls from the Mountain Flowers Chinese Youth Tennis Academy in attendance. Although light, the crowd warmly greeted Li during the player introductions; a sign that the dedicated fans of the game wanted an up close look at her.

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