Cincinnati Bearcats


The Cincinnati Bearcats are the athletic teams that represent the University of Cincinnati. The teams compete in the NCAA's Division I and the Football Bowl Subdivision as members of the Big 12 Conference. The Bearcats were previously members of the Big East and the American Athletic Conference. Prior to that, they were in Conference USA, of which they were a founding member. The creation of Conference USA in 1995 was the result of a merger between the Great Midwest Conference and the Metro Conference. Other collegiate athletic conferences of which the school has been a member include the Missouri Valley Conference, 1957–1969; the Mid-American Conference, 1947–1952; the Buckeye Athletic Association, 1925–1935; and the Ohio Athletic Conference, 1910–1924.

The Bearcat

The Bearcat became the UC mascot on October 31, 1914, in a football game against the UK Wildcats. The key players in the birth of the Bearcat were a star UC player named Baehr, a creative cheerleader, and a talented cartoonist. During the second half of that hard-fought football game, UC cheerleader Norman "Pat" Lyon, building on the efforts of fullback Leonard K. "Teddy" Baehr, created the chant: "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side."
The crowd took up the cry: "Come on, Baehr-cat!" Cincinnati prevailed, 14–7, and the victory was memorialized in a cartoon published on the front page of the student newspaper, the weekly University News, on November 3. The cartoon, by John "Paddy" Reece, depicted a bedraggled Kentucky Wildcat being chased by a creature labeled "Cincinnati Bear Cat".
The name stuck, but not immediately. Following Teddy Baehr's graduation in 1916, the name dropped out of use, at least in print, for a few years. On November 15, 1919, Cincinnati played at Tennessee. The Cincinnati Enquirer writer Jack Ryder's dispatch on the game was the first time that the major media called UC's teams "Bearcats." From then on, the university's teams were regularly called Bearcats.
In 2008 the Cincinnati Zoo adopted a three-month-old binturong or "bearcat". The zoo had a public naming contest where they decided on the name "Lucy." Lucy was a prominent figure at the University of Cincinnati often to be found on Sheakley Lawn before home football games. On August 30, 2019, it was announced that "Lucy", the Cincinnati Zoo's binturong would be retiring from her duties as Mascot.

Varsity sports

The University of Cincinnati sponsors teams in eight men's and 10 women's NCAA-sanctioned sports, all of which compete in the Big 12 Conference. When UC joined the Big 12, the conference did not sponsor women's lacrosse, and the Bearcats played the spring 2024 season in their former full-time home of the American Athletic Conference as a single-sport member. Women's lacrosse moved to the Big 12 when the conference added the sport in 2024–25.

Baseball

Men's basketball

squads have been a perennial bracket team in the NCAA tournament. A prolific era in Bearcats basketball was during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the Bearcats posted five consecutive Final Four appearances. Unanimous three-time All American guard Oscar Robertson led the nation in scoring during the 1957–58, 1958–59, and 1959–60 seasons and posted a career average of 33.8 points per game, which ranks as the third all-time best in Division I.
Cincinnati has won two national championships in 1961 and 1962. The 1961 and 1962 titles were won under rookie coach Ed Jucker.
Cincinnati fell out of prominence during the early 1970s. After a brief resurgence in the mid-1970s, the program fell on hard times in the 1980s, but was revitalized under head coach Bob Huggins following his hiring in 1989. Under Huggins, the Bearcats compiled a 399–127 record in sixteen seasons, and posted fourteen straight NCAA tournament appearances. The most notable of the teams from the Huggins era was the 1991–1992 team, which lost to the Michigan Wolverines in the Final Four. In addition, Huggins was responsible for recruiting several future NBA players including Kenyon Martin, Corie Blount, Ruben Patterson, Nick Van Exel and DerMarr Johnson. Huggins would eventually resign in 2005 after a power struggle with UC president Nancy Zimpher following the coach's DUI and arrest, with the resulting coaching vacuum leading to a dip in fortunes for the Bearcats. However, Zimpher's hiring of alumnus Mick Cronin in 2006 would restore UC to national prominence, reaching the NCAA Tournament nine straight years until Cronin left to coach at UCLA.
'''Postseason tournaments'''

Women's basketball

Football

Men's soccer

The men's soccer program was discontinued effectively immediately on April 14, 2020.

Club sports

The university has a diverse number of intercollegiate club sports teams. Notable teams include alpine skiing, men's baseball, rowing, lacrosse, men's soccer, and the men's ice hockey team. The Tennis Club competes in the USTA Tennis on Campus and the Great Lakes Tennis Conference. The Waterski Team were 2008 DII National Champions. The University of Cincinnati Rugby Football Club was established in 1971 and competes in Division 1 college rugby in the MAC conference. The University of Cincinnati Women's Rugby Football Club was founded in 2012 and competes in Division 2 in the Ohio Valley Conference. In 2014 and 2015 UCWRFC competed in the Women's College Division 2 Fall Championship; advancing to the round of 8 in 2015. The UC Disc golf team have won the team national championship in 2023 and 2025, along with players earning individual championships in 2017 and 2023.
Club sports at Cincinnati operate in a tier system. The top tier are the Tier 5 sports, which are classified as semi-varsity. These clubs operate at a level similar to a varsity team in sports for which Cincinnati lacks varsity representation, and the tier reflects the commitment these students dedicate to their club. The four Tier 5 semi-varsity sports as of 2013 are equestrian, men's ice hockey, men's and women's rowing, and men's and women's waterski.
In 2024, Cincinnati started an Australian rules football club team at the university, the first current collegiate Aussie Rules team in North America. In 2025, the team ended the season as the #1 ranked college team in the nation, making them the 2025 national champions for collegiate Aussie rules.

Championships

NCAA team championships

Cincinnati has won 2 NCAA team national championships.
  • Men's
  • *Basketball : 1961, 1962
  • see also:
  • *American Athletic Conference NCAA team championships
  • *List of NCAA schools with the most NCAA Division I championships

    Other national team championships

Below are 8 national team titles that were not bestowed by the NCAA:
  • Men’s
  • *Australian rules football : 2025
  • Women's
  • *Dance : 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2015
  • Mixed
  • *Disc golf : 2023, 2025
The Bearcats won the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1961 and 1962, both times against Ohio State. The UC Dance Team has won 5 National Championships from 2004 through 2006, 2009 and again in 2015. They are the first team in UC history to ever capture three consecutive national titles. They remain one of the top dance programs in the country and are the winningest team in University of Cincinnati history. In 2009 the dance team was also selected to represent the United States of America in the first ever world dance championships where they won the gold medal in all three dance categories. The dance team was asked back to the world competition in 2015.
  • see also:
  • *List of NCAA schools with the most Division I national championships

    National individual championships

won the 1946 200m butterfly national title for UC as a member of the men's swimming team and most recently, Josh Schneider did the same in the freestyle in 2010. In men's diving, Pat Evans and women's diving Becky Ruehl have brought home titles for the Bearcats. Annette Echikunwoke won the NCAA National title in the women's weight throw in 2017.

Rivalries

Miami (OH)

Cincinnati's oldest football rivalry, begun in 1888, is with Miami University, located in Oxford, Ohio about 40 miles to the northwest. The Victory Bell awarded to the winner of each contest. Cincinnati currently holds the bell with the longest winning streak in the rivalry's long history at 15 games
The teams take each other on annual in many other sports. After a decade hiatus from 2011-2020, the Men's basketball teams faced each other in Oxford with the Bearcats winning by a narrow 59-58 score.

West Virginia

The teams met 20 times between 1921 and 2011, every year from 2005 to 2011, as conference foes and members of the Big East Conference. The schools have competed as Big 12 Conference opponents since 2023, after Cincinnati's invite into the conference. West Virginia leads Cincinnati in the series 17-3-1 since 2011.

Louisville

Cincinnati and the University of Louisville battled annually for the Keg of Nails. This rivalry dated back to 1929, but ended when Louisville joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014.
The men's basketball teams of both schools have also participated in a fierce rivalry historically, with Louisville leading the all time series 53–44.
The schools continue to play in other sports, primarily an annual game in baseball.

Memphis

The rivalry between these two schools dates to their first men's college football game in 1966, and has continued across all sports, with the basketball series gaining attention as well, having started in 1968.
Interest in the series was renewed with both teams reuniting in the American Athletic Conference and Memphis's basketball reemergence. Football has also intensified, with both teams playing in the 2019 American Athletic Conference Football Championship Game. The series is expected to go into hiatus upon Cincinnati's move to the Big 12 conference in July 2023.