The Cincinnati Bearcats traveled to Orlando, Florida to face AAC nemesis UCF Knights for the second time this season. The Bearcats beat the Knights at Fifth Third Arena 73-64, February 4th. Big man Viktor Lakhin warmed up before the game, but didn’t play for the third game in a row, so Kalu Ezikpe got his third consecutive start in a row. The positive it is seems that Lakhin should be read sooner than later. Would the Bearcats be able to fend off their road woes?
In the first half the Bearcats went back and forth with the Knights, but their gritty play had them with a 3 point lead at the half. They were up 33-30 at the half. They played like a totally different team from the team we saw against ECU, winning the glass 15-13, led by Jeremiah Davenport with four. Landers Nolley had nine points (three rebounds), followed by David DeJulius with eight points and three assists.
The Bearcats played sturdy all second half holding a 5 point lead with 1:20 left in the game, would they be able to hold on to the lead? Would they crumble like they have the last three road games? Well it looked rough as UCF started to pressure the Bearcats and caused multiple turnovers leading to a tie game 27 seconds left. Wes Miller called a timeout with 10 seconds left to set up an isolation play to DeJulius, the graduate guard danced around the top of the key before driving down the middle of the lane to hit a floater with less than a second left to win the game for the Bearcats, 73-71. With a huge quadrant one win on the road, the Cats broke their three game road losing streak for their 18 win of the season.
The Bearcats didn’t turnover UCF 25 times this time, but they won the glass 31-24, which was huge. DeJulius finished with 16 points, five rebounds, eight assists and a steal. Nolley finished with 18 points and four rebounds. Ody Oguama finished with 16 points, four rebounds and two steals. Ezikpe had his best game as a Bearcat with 12 points and six rebounds. Mika Adams-Woods had a solid game with 10 points and hitting two 3’s. The road team only got two points from the bench, but every who started had double digits.
Now sitting at 18-10 overall (9-6 in the AAC), the Bearcats will face Temple on Wednesday at Fifth Third Arena at 7 pm on ESPN2.
