After a 25 day layoff Cincinnati traveled to Philadelphia to knock off Temple on Thursday. Now on Super Bowl Sunday they traveled to New Orleans to take on Tulane to see if they could make it two games in a row. They would be without Mamoudou Diarra and Zach Harvey again, but this time they both were able to travel with the team. The starting lineup was David DeJulius, Mike Saunders, Jr., Keith Williams, Chris Vogt and Jeremiah Davenport.
Cincinnati played scrappy in the first half led by DeJulius and Williams. Williams had nine points and hit the 1,000 points mark in the first half and DeJulius had seven points. They had seven point lead, but turnovers started to bite them in the backside. They finished the half with 13 turnovers and a 31-29 lead. With how bad the turnovers were, they did a great job on the glass winning that battle 18-13.
Tulane started the second half with a 4-0 run, behind Cincinnati turnovers. Jordan Walker scored all of his 13 points in the second half and he did a good job of imposing his will. Williams went on a personal 7-0 run to tie the game at 50. When it looked like it was going to be danger zone time for Cincinnati, Williams came through to stem the tide. Tulane pushed the lead to 53-50 after some made free throws and they had a shot to push it to five, but a huge steal followed by a big time finish by Williams cut the lead down to one. Mika Adams-Woods made a huge three to give Cincinnati a two point lead. Tulane went on to take the lead 57-55, but then freshman guard Mason Madsen hit a big time three to give Cincinnati a one point lead (58-57). Tari Eason made two huge buckets late in game to give Cincinnati an one point lead (62-61) with 43 seconds left. Eason also got a steal late in the game, but lost control dribbling if up the court, Williams almost retrieved it, but it was lost out of bounds. On the next play Cincinnati forced a tough shot by Walker and on the rebound a Tulane player had a chance to get a clean put back, but DeJulius made a big time play to come down with the rebound and knocked down the game icing free throws. Cincinnati won 64-61 and improved to 5-7 overall and 3-4 in the AAC.
Williams led the way with a game high 20 points, three rebounds and two steals. Eason had 13 points, nine rebounds and two steals. DeJulius had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists. I also want to give props to Sam Martin and Rob Banks who both played valuable minutes for Cincinnati.
They will be on the road again on Thursday at Memphis on ESPN2 or ESPNU at 7 pm.
