The Cincinnati Bearcats have started off the basketball season on fire. They came into today 4-0 in the Wes Miller era and had a ton of momentum going into a tough matchup against No. 14 ranked Illinois. Illinois was on the heels of good news as one of their best players and huge big man Kofi Cockburn was going to make his season debut today against the Bearcats. Wes Miller and company knew they had a tough matchup and it was the question of if the Bearcats would be able to control the big man and steal one against one of the top teas in the nation.
The starting lineup was David DeJulius, Mika Adams-Woods, John Newman III, Jeremiah Davenport and Abdul Ado.
The Bearcats got in an early 6-0 hole as Kofi Cockburn made his way with the Bearcats defense early. The Bearcats got into early foul trouble which did not help them as Abdul Ado picked up two fouls in the first 2 minutes. Cincinnati would have to go to their bench early with the foul trouble as Mike Saunders, Jr., Ody Oguama and Viktor Lakhin we’re going to have to play a major role if the Bearcats were going to stay in this. Cincinnati would get a couple of buckets, but after that Illinois would go back to work and follow with a 10-0 run. Illinois led Cincinnati 19-4 and Wes Miller had to call a timeout to figure out how to stop the Illinois big men and interior offense. Cincinnati after the timeout seems to finally get locked in. Miller focused on attacking Kofi Cockburn and at points had three or four white jerseys around him. This was able to help Cincinnati chip away the lead. Cincinnati would go on a 14-1 run in the time frame after a couple of great plays from the liking of Saunders, Jr. being very active on both sides of the ball and Lakhin continuing his dominant play to cut the Illinois lead 24-22 with 6 minutes to go in the half. Cincinnati would give up a couple of baskets down low and find themselves trailing 28-22. Cincinnati would once again fire back though as Saunders, Jr. played a huge role in the half after a Jeremiah Davenport free-throw, Mike Saunders would hit a 3 to cut the lead to 1 again. But shortly after would be called for a tech that seemed to get retaliated on the Illinois side later in the half. Cincinnati would fight all the way back to take a 34-31 lead heading into the half.
