Going into Wednesday night’s game against (9-5, 1-0) Tulsa at home, the Bearcats sat at 8-6 overall and 1-1 in the conference, after falling 71-76 at Tulane last week. The Bearcats started Keith Williams, Mika Adams-Woods, Tre Scott, Chris Vogt, and Jarron Cumberland. Vogt has had a great season so far, he averaged 20 points last week and he is ranked 4th nationally, 1st in the conference in shooting from the field (69.9%). Vogt, along with Williams and both Cumberland’s are among the top 30 scorers in the league. This game was really a must win for the Bearcats, they lead the overall series 17-2 and have won the last six.
The game started slow and neither team was able to pull away with a big lead. The largest lead for the first half was four by UC. The starting five stayed in for the first 10 minutes of the half, and then all five were subbed out and Chris McNeal, Jeremiah Davenport, Mamoudou Diarra, Jay Sorolla, and Jaevin Cumberland came in. From that point on, Brennan subbed continuously, but made sure mostly starters stayed on the floor. Almost everyone who came on the floor scored at least one point, but Jarron Cumberland really carried the team. He had 10 points and the next closest point scorers were Vogt and Scott, who each had four. Scott lead in first half steals, accounting for four of the six UC had. UC took a 26-22 lead into halftime.
The second half had much more energy than the first. Not much happened in the first and it was really anyone’s game, but in the second half that changed. The Bearcats came out firing and took a commanding lead early. They went on long, high scoring runs and didn’t allow Tulsa to retaliate. Jar. Cumberland continued to stay dominate, accounting for most of the team’s points. Scott also started to step it up in scoring, with the help of Jar. Cumberland, he got two turnovers and then assisted Scott on back to back amazing plays, that really got the crowd into the game. The second half had many different lineups on the floor, partially due to foul trouble. Once the Bearcats got going, they didn’t take their foot off the gas, they just kept adding to their big lead. As the second half progressed, more Bearcats made their way into double figure scoring, by the end of the game Scott, Vogt, and both Cumberland’s had at least 10. With about 5 minutes left, the Cumberland’s went back and forth, scoring four in a row, three of those being 3’s. Jarron Cumberland led the team in points with 22 and Jaevin came in second with 16, Vogt led the team in rebounds with 11, and Jarron also led the team in assists with eight. The Bearcats won 75-44, moving them to 9-6 and 2-1 in the conference.
UC is off until Saturday as they will go to Orlando, Florida to face the UCF Knights as noon.
