TicketsBearcats Topple 49ers, 80-58
Maxiell, Williams lead UC comeback win
Contact: Brian Teter
1/19/2005
Jason Maxiell scored a game-high 23 points in UC's victory over Charlotte. photo by Mark Bealer |
CINCINNATI, Ohio---Seniors Jason Maxiell and Nick Williams led a furious second half comeback, propelling 18th ranked Cincinnati to an 80-58 win over Charlotte on Wednesday night at Fifth Third Arena. The win improves the Bearcats record to 4-1 in Conference USA play, moving UC back into a share of first place in the league standings. Cincinnati is 15-2 overall this season.
Trailing by four at halftime, the Bearcats shot a blistering .625 from the field in the second half to pull away from Charlotte, previously unbeaten in C-USA. Maxiell scored 21 of his game-high 23 points in the second half, while Williams totaled 19 of his career-best 22 after the break. The performance by Williams capped a solid two-game stretch for the senior, who scored a previous UC-best 18 in Saturday?s loss to Louisville.
?I am really proud of Nick,? stated UC head coach Bob Huggins. ?He struggled so much early and he has really worked at it. He has listened and he?s really tried to respond to what we asked him to do.?
Charlotte (12-3, 3-1 C-USA) was led by guard Brendan Plavich?s 22 points. The senior long-range specialist was plagued with foul trouble for much of the night, however, as he picked up his fourth foul with 11:59 remaining in the night?s contest. Eddie Basden and Curtis Withers also reached double figures with 13 and 10 respectively, but the duo combined to shoot just 7 of 25 from the field.
?This was a huge win for us,? Huggins continued. ?They are one of the biggest teams in the league and they are good. With all due respect to our guys, they played without their point guard (injured Mitchell Baldwin) and I don?t think their offense ran smoothly without him. They are very well coached.?
Both teams struggled out of the gates, as turnovers and poor shooting hurt both squads early on. Charlotte jumped to an early 9-3 lead on five quick points by Basden, only to see the Bearcats come back to tie the game with a 6-0 spurt. UC took its first lead on a three-pointer by Armein Kirkland, but back-to-back triples by Plavich and Withers allowed the 49ers to retake a 17-14 lead.
The teams traded the lead a couple more times, before a 7-0 49er run capped by Plavich?s second trey of the half pushed the visitors back in front. Kirkland hit a jumper with 1:03 to play before the half for UC?s only bucket of the final 3:46 of the first frame.
Both teams struggled offensively in the first half as Charlotte held an advantage of .345 to .258 shooting. UC held the rebounding edge by a 25-18 count, but had committed 10 turnovers to seven for Charlotte. Withers and Basden led all scorers with seven first half points apiece, while Jihad Muhammad paced the Bearcats with six.
The second half was a mirror opposite of the first as UC exploded for 56 points, the highest output of any half for the Bearcats this season. Cincinnati started on the comeback trail from the outset, as a 17-5 run gave UC a lead they would never relinquish. After starting the half getting inside points from Maxiell and Eric Hicks, UC then went deep, getting four treys from Williams in a 3:15 span to take a nine-point advantage at 41-33.
After another bomb by Plavich, Maxiell spearheaded an 8-0 Bearcat run with six points to push UC ahead by 13. From there, Cincinnati continued to pull away behind the inside play of Maxiell and the long-range shooting of Williams. The Bearcats put the home fans into an uproar near the three minute mark, as White sandwiched an acrobatic dunk around a pair of thunderous slams by Maxiell that pushed UC ahead, 78-55. The Bearcats reached their final winning margin of 22 on Erick Murray?s first career basket with 11 seconds left to play.
?The second half was quite a display of how good they can be,? said Charlotte head coach Bobby Lutz. ?We weren?t very good and we displayed that. The first half was good and the second half we didn?t come out with the sharpness and we tried to hang around and they didn?t let us.?
In addition to shooting 63 percent in the second half, the Bearcats also limited Charlotte to just 25 percent from the floor after the break. UC forced 10 more 49er turnovers in the second half and finished the night with a convincing 52-33 edge on the boards.
Maxiell?s 23 points move him into 15th place on the UC career scoring list, passing Damon Flint (1,316), Leonard Stokes (1,318), Levertis Robinson (1,320) and Derrick Dickey (1,328). He now has 1,336 points for his career.
The Bearcats will be back in action this Saturday when they host No. 3 Wake Forest. Tip-off from an already sold out Fifth Third Arena is set for 1 p.m.