Tonight the Cincinnati Bearcats traveled to Morgantown, West Virginia to reignite their rivalry against the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Bearcats would get back their big man Viktor Lakhin who missed the UCF game due to illness. Would the Bearcat be able to get back to .500 in the conference?
The Bearcats started out on a 7-2 run, which John Newman hit a 3 to get the road team on the board. West Virginia went on a run to take a 17-13 lead. While it wasn’t pretty the Bearcats went on the take a 27-23 lead into the half. Something they haven’t done since they played Stetson.
The Bearcats had six turnovers in the first half, but had 22 rebounds while shooting 35.5% from the field, 10.0% from three and 66.7% from the line. Newman led the way with five points.
In the second half West Virginia took the lead after Newman fouled Raequan Battle on a 3 point attempt, Battle knocked all three down taking a 35-32 lead. After Jamille Reynolds gave the Bearcats a 44-42 on a nice bucket in the post, he received a technical foul that led to two Kerr Kriisa free throws and a Quinn Slazinski jumper gives West Virginia the lead. After a buckets from Newman, Lukosius, Thomas and Skillings the Bearcats pushed the lead to 10, 60-50. Jesse Edwards lead the charge with back to back buckets, next thing you know West Virginia ties the game up at 60 with 3:26 left in the second half. Edwards made another bucket, but Lukosius knocked down a 3 to give the Bearcats a one point lead. Battle hit a huge three to give West Virginia the lead, Thomas had a turnover and West Virginia never looked back to a 69-65 win.
John Newman hurt his hip late in the game he didn’t play after West Virginia took the 62-60 lead. Skillings led the way with 15 points and five rebounds, but shot 6-of-19 from the field. Lukosius finished with 13 points and six rebounds. Thomas had 12 points, four assists, but three turnovers and shot 4-of-13 from the field. Edwards led the way for West Virginia with 25 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks.
Now the Bearcats 14-7 overall and 3-5 in the Big 12. This was a bad loss especially being up 10 points with less than seven minutes left in the half now next up is Texas Tech on Saturday at 6 pm.
