Tuesday, February 1 Secret to Bearcats' success? Point to the perimeter By Pat Forde Special to ESPN.com

Kenyon Martin is scary. Pete Mickeal is relentless. Jermaine Tate and Ryan Fletcher are both 6-foot-9 and all business.

But if you want to know the biggest reason why these Cincinnati Bearcats bear scant resemblance to the February-giants-turned-March-flameouts of recent years, check the perimeter.

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SEC Arizona at LSU (Saturday) This would be an ideal time for a reappaearing act by the Tigers and star sophomore Stromile Swift. They've gone into hiding after that blazing November-December start, and need some serve-notice victories to re-establish their NCAA Tournament viability. What better place to start than at home against a depleted top-five opponent? Conference USA Cincinnati at Louisville (Thursday) This would appear to be one of the last chances for a C-USA team to knock off the bad, bad Bearcats -- until you put the matchup under the microscope. The Cardinals have lost five straight to CincinNasty, most of them lopsided. To make matters worse, the Cards have appeared flatly intimidated by Cincy's physical style of play. Without much interior muscle to combat Kenyon Martin and Co., Louisville will have to count on a sluggish Bearcats performance and a turbo-charged night from its press to have a prayer.

The frontcourt guys have been there before, while Cincy was losing NCAA Tournament second-round games to lower-seeded teams like Temple and West Virginia and Iowa State. But the play of the Bearcats' perimeter guys -- freshmen DerMarr Johnson and Kenny Satterfield, plus sophomore Steve Logan -- suggests that the early exits went out with the old guard.

For the first time since Nick Van Exel, Cincy's up-front strong men might have a backcourt they can be proud of.

Credit the freshmen, who might have walked into the best situation in the country this season. Recruited to fill specific needs, Johnson and Satterfield have been allowed to progress more or less at their own pace.

They were badly needed and thus given plenty of immediate playing time, but they were not required to load the team on their young backs. They can turn to studs like Martin and Mickeal when needed, but the ball is also in their hands a lot of the time.

"They're two really, really good players on a great team," UNC Charlotte coach Bobby Lutz said of Johnson and Satterfield. "The fact that they don't have to be the primary players on their team -- to play off of Martin and Tate and Pete Mickeal and Logan -- makes it a great situation for them."

"They're getting great guard play as well as good interior play," said Louisville coach Denny Crum, whose team takes on Cincinnati on Thursday night in Freedom Hall. "They've had good teams in the past that weren't as well balanced as this one."

Since Van Exel took his sunny demeanor to the NBA, Cincinnati has been pointless. Everyone who watched Bob Huggins' team closely during those years knew that it was operating with unskilled labor at the point.

The Bearcats' point guards in the three most recent NCAA losses combined to shoot 9-for-30 from the field and committed more turnovers (15) than assists (10). Didn't much matter what Danny Fortson and the rest of the Bearcats were doing up front when the backcourt was playing like that.

Enter the young guns.

The willowy Johnson, playing the shooting guard at 6-foot-9, is third on the team in scoring (12.6 points per game), fourth in minutes (26.9) and is shooting a respectable 47.7 percent from the field.

Satterfield is coming off the bench behind Logan but still is averaging 25.3 minutes per game, as the two often play together. The smooth-handling New Yorker's shooting has tailed off (40.9 percent on the year), but he leads Conference USA in assists at 5.3 per game.

Compare and contrast the Cincy situation with that in Gainesville. Florida coach Billy Donovan has pulled in an outrageous amount of talent the past two years, but parceling out roles has been a trifle difficult.

Specifically, the Gators need a reliable point guard to deliver the goods to a talented cast.

Teddy Dupay was the freshman in that role last year, and remains the starter. His assist numbers have risen after a slow start, (he didn't have a team-high assist total in a game until the sixth contest of the season). He's still only averaging 3.9 assists per game and shooting just 39.3 percent from the field.

The guy who was supposed to challenge him for the spot was freshman Brett Nelson, all-everything out of West Virginia, but he hasn't exactly been the second coming of Jason Williams yet. (Which, in terms of general citizenship, is a good thing.)

Nelson is averaging 6.4 points and 2.5 assists per game. He's turned it over more times (56) than he's dished it out (43). And if he's had a SportsCenter moment this year, it was an unfortunate one: flinging a no-hope 25-footer in double overtime against Tennessee at the end of a stagnant possession.

The first year has gone more smoothly for the star of the Florida class, Donnell Harvey. He's averaging 11.2 points and 7.5 rebounds, adding the inside ferocity the Gators were lacking last year. And he's doing it in only 20.4 minutes per game. (Fellow first-year guys Matt Bonner and Justin Hamilton have shot the ball appreciably better in SEC play, showing signs of coming on as well.)

It seems a bit much to talk about Florida in terms of what it's not doing, given where the program was prior to Donovan's arrival. But the ranking was there from Day One this year, and with it some large expectations for Team Teenager.

Florida is getting 71 percent of its scoring from freshmen and sophomores, and the current crop of rookies has had the luxury of coming along more slowly than last year's blue-chip class. That could translate well down the stretch, when last year's freshmen were starting to sag under the weight of big minutes in a frenetic system. This year, at least, the new guys have had a chance to catch their breath on occasion.

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