The Cincinnati Bearcats welcomed the 1-0 Georgia Bulldogs into Fifth Third Arena on Saturday night. An early test for Wes Miller and his brand new squad. The Wes Miller era got started on a great note as he won his first career game as Cincinnati head coach 65-43. The Bearcats would run out the same Starting 5 from Game 1 as it was David DeJulius, Mika Adams-Woods, John Newman III, Jeremiah Davenport and Abdul Ado. In an early test would the Bearcats be able to start their young season 2-0?
Cincinnati got off to a slow start to begin the game as they started the game 1-of-7 from the field and trailed Georgia 8-2 after 4 minutes of play. The Bearcats would go back and forth with Georgia for the next 8 minutes as Cincinnati cut the Georgia lead to 3 at 17-14. Cincinnati would then erupt after a Georgia bucket. Cincinnati would go on a 12-0 run to take a 26-19 lead. The defense came alive for the Bearcats as shot blockers Viktor Lakhin and Ody Oguama on top of the quick hands of Mikey Saunders, Jr., John Newman III and Mika Adams-Woods led the charge to give Cincinnati the momentum boost they needed. The Bearcats would ride the wave for the rest of the half as they finished the half on a 21-7 run to take a 35-26 run into halftime.
A needed adjustment from coach Miller and staff had the Bearcats up big going into the half. The leading scorer for the Bearcats was Mika Adams-Woods with seven points, a rebound and two assists to go along with it. Following behind Adams-Woods was John Newman III who had six points and was a big part of the momentum-changing 17-0 run. The only question was would the Bearcats be able to finish it off?
Cincinnati started off the second half attacking the paint early as they hit four layups quickly to extend the lead to double digits at 43-30. Cincinnati would then go on for the next couple of minutes of trading buckets back and forth with Georgia as both teams moved at a quick tempo to begin the half. Cincinnati would increase their lead to 16 after an easy Davenport layup. But Georgia would not go away easy as they traded a couple of buckets and got a big 3 from Dalen Ridgnal to cut the lead to 12 with 12 minutes to go. Tough defense became the key to the second half as teams were trading buckets, but weren’t finding nothing to gain traction on any runs. Lakhin played a big part in the Bearcats’ second half as he picked up a huge and 1 to get the lead back to double digits 58-46 with 9 minutes to go in the game. The game would go on a series of runs as Georgia would go on a 6-0 run followed by a Bearcats 5-0 run finished with a Georgia 7-0 run to cut the lead to 4 with 3 minutes to go in the game. The Bearcats would get a huge 3 from Hayden Koval and a driving lineup from Davenport to get the lead back up to 9 with a minute left in the game. Georgia would make this a game though cutting the lead to 3 after Saunders, Jr. missed an 1 and 1 opportunity. It would become a game of free throws as the Bearcats had this locked down if they made their free throws. DeJulius missed the 1 and 1, but a huge offensive rebound by Koval kept the possession alive and allowed Adams-Woods to drill his free throws to extend the lead to 5. The Bearcats would win the free throw and move to 2-0 on the year with a 73-68 win over Georgia.
Bearcats were able to get a ton of contributions from multiple players on the team. The teams leading scorers we’re Jeremiah Davenport and Mika Adams-Woods with 11 points followed by David DeJulius with 10 points.
The Bearcats improved to 2-0 on the year and will be at home again on Tuesday when the Bearcats welcome Alabama A&M for a showdown.
