Today the Bearcats traveled to Wichita, Kansas to play the Wichita State Shockers. Where they fell just short 82-76 and split the two game series on the road after Thursdays win versus SMU.
The Bearcats jumped out to a quick 9-2 lead when freshman Tari Eason scored a quick six points along with a Keith Williams three pointer. Then would go on a roughly five minute scoring drought that allowed the Shockers to go up as many as seven points. The Bearcats continued the small starting lineup with Jeremiah Davenport starting over Chris Vogt. They got into some foul trouble in the first half with Vogt getting two fouls within 55 seconds, as well as Williams, Davenport and Zach Harvey all picked up two fouls in the first half. The story of the first half was Harvey the sophomore guard off the bench continued to come out hot and aggressive as we’ve seen in the last three games. Harvey shot 5-of-6 from the field and 2-of-2 from deep for 12 points in the first half. The Bearcats gave up 26 points off layups and turnovers in the first half which is crazy considering the Shockers had 30 points total. They held the Shockers leading scorer Tyson Etienne to just two points there in the first half which was a key for the Bearcats to get back in the game on a late end of the half run. The Bearcats ended the first half on a 7-0 run as well to gain momentum going into the break.
The Bearcats trailed 30-29 to start the second half. As coach Brannen has said all year it was a game of runs and today was exactly that. The Bearcats went ice cold in the second half for about eight minutes as the Shockers then went on a 17-5 run to pull ahead. In that stretch the Bearcats shot 2-of-12 and had a drought of going 0-of-9 at one point. They trailed by as much as 11 at one point, but they got hot following some big shots for Harvey who has been getting very hot as of late in the last three games. Harvey finished today with career high 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 from three. The second half the Bearcats saw some light from Vogt who has been struggling as of recent, but he sure found some confidence today as he was making a lot of plays on the offensive side. Including a nice effort from the 7 footer on a loose ball to save the possession for the Bearcats as well as scoring seven points with six rebounds. He did pick up two quick fouls in the first half which limited his minutes, but he did show a lot of energy when he played in the second half. Coach Brannen said, “they’d have continue to use Vogt since the inside game was working, but they had to press so it was very difficult since they were looking to make that last minute push.” The Bearcats struggle to shoot the deep ball again as the shot 6-of-21 from three and four of those threes came from Zach Harvey. The Bearcats did a great job stopping the AAC’S leading scorer Tyson Etienne in the first half just holding him to two points, but he got going in the second half rattling off 14 second half points to finish with 16 on the day. Ricky Council also gave the Bearcats some trouble as he was entering today just averaging 6.6 points per game before he scored 23 on the Bearcats. The Bearcats allowed 52 points in the second half which is going to be hard to flip the momentum if they keep allowing that. Outside the Bearcats struggling to keep the ball under their control again as they committed 15 turnovers which led to the Shockers scoring 28 points off those turnovers in todays contest. They Bearcats look to get some consistency going here during these next few games and get into a rhythm with this very young bearcats offense. Besides Zach Harvey with 19 points which was a career high, the other Bearcats leading scorers were Keith Williams with 14 points, David DeJulius also scored 12 points with six rebounds and seven assists as well. The Bearcats are a young team, but they’ve shown flashes of what this team could be when it’s clicking. There is still plenty of season and time to turns this around, but the Bearcats look to do that here and come out on top in their next three games as the play ECU, Tulane and Temple. They won’t travel on the road until they play Temple in Philadelphia on the 23rd. This can build some energy after a long road trip as the Bearcats look to bounce back at home.
The Bearcats welcome the ECU Pirates to Fifth Third Arena this Wednesday at 5 pm where they will look to bounce back after falling to 3-7 (1-4 AAC). The game will broadcast this game live on ESPN+ for people to check in and watch. Hopefully they can get back in the win column on Wednesday.
