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By Bill Koch
GoBEARCATS.com
CINCINNATI - Despite owning a 13-point lead at halftime, University of Cincinnati associate head coach Larry Davis was prepared to give his players a tongue-lashing when he looked at the stat sheet and saw that they had managed only two offensive rebounds.
Then he glanced at the stat sheet again and changed his mind when he saw that the Bearcats had shot a sizzling 78.3 percent.
"I was getting ready to get really mad at halftime because I had no idea we shot the ball that well," Davis said. "It just doesn't register with me. I'm looking that we've only got two offensive rebounds. I'm getting ready to go blow them out and then I realized we only missed five shots. Then I realized that's 40 percent. That's pretty good."
It was that kind of night for the Bearcats on Wednesday, a rare night when the offense flowed and the points piled up in an 83-60 blowout of Central Florida before 9,825 fans at Fifth Third Arena.
Led by Octavius Ellis' career-high 20 points and eight rebounds, the Bearcats placed five players in double figures. Their 64.7 percent shooting accuracy was the fourth-highest in school history and for most of the night it appeared as if they would break the record of 67.2 percent set against Eastern Michigan during the 1996-97 season.
They also made 6 of 8 from 3-point range for 75 percent, the second-best mark in school history in games in which the Bearcats made at least five shots from long range. Their 83 points were exceeded this season only by the 84 they scored against Temple on Jan. 17.
"It felt good for us," said junior guard Farad Cobb, who scored 11 points. "We've been in some tough games. For us to get out early and kind of like coast through it and our offense was going really well so it felt a lot better today."
UC (19-9 overall, 10-5 in the American Athletic Conference) has won two straight after dropping three in a row - two of those by a total of three points. UCF, which entered the game with three wins in its last four games, fell to 12-15, 5-11. The Knights were led by Brandon Goodwin, who scored 12 points.
At practice Tuesday, Ellis talked about the need for the Bearcats to get off to a fast start so they could avoid having to stage a second-half comeback as they've been forced to do in recent games.
"That's exactly what happened today," Ellis said. "We came out with a lot of energy today (like we usually do in the second half)."
The Bearcats scored the first four points and led, 16-4, just over five minutes into the game. UCF got within three points with 5:58 left in the half, but UC scored nine straight points to spread the lead to back to 12 and led 43-30 at halftime, having produced its highest first-half point total of the season.
The Knights made another run at the start of the second half when they made five of their first six shots, but again UC was up to the challenge, this time scoring eight straight points to make it 58-41 with 12:28 to play. UCF never got the lead under 10 points again. UC led by as many as 25 with 34 seconds left.
Junior forward Shaq Thomas was a key factor in UC's fast start, scoring nine of his 13 points in the first 10 minutes. It was his second straight double-figure scoring game. He has averaged 13.0 points over his last three games.
"It was probably just playing together as a team more," Thomas said. "We just tried to get out in transition and in the half-court we just tried to pass the ball more and get everybody involved."
Davis' two areas of emphasis for this game were to push the ball in transition and to avoid the flurry of early-game turnovers that have plagued the Bearcats this season. They worked on transition in practice by putting 11 seconds on the clock and trying get off a shot before time expired.
The stat sheet said they managed only eight fast-break points against UCF, but it seemed like more than that because of the flow of the game.
"Even when we didn't get a layup we moved the ball before they could get set and we were in attack mode," Davis said, "which moving forward this team needs to do in order to be a better offensive team."
Davis eventually found some things to be upset about. The Bearcats allowed 17 offensive rebounds and made only 11 of 20 free throws, prompting him to promise that his players would be required to shoot 100 free throws in practice Thursday.
Overall, though, this was a night for savoring an outstanding offensive performance and trying to bottle the way it was achieved for use the rest of the season. It would help if the Bearcats could get a similar performance from Ellis every night.
"I had a talk with him today," Davis said, "and said, 'Tay, look, you've got to play, man. You've got come out and from the minute you walk into shoot-around today you've got to be focused. You've got to be a team leader. They've got to look at you and say Tay's locked in.' He did and he played well.
"We've got to have that out of him the rest of the way. I don't expect him to get 20 every night but I expect him to play well every night."
Bill Koch covered UC Athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBEARCATS.com in January, 2015 as featured columnist. Follow him on Twitter @bkoch.
The Bearcats play their home finale on Saturday, March 8, when Memphis visits for a Noon tipoff. For tickets to that contest or the 2015 American Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Championships (March 12-15 in Hartford, Connecticut), call 877-CATS-TIX or visit BearcatsBasketball.com.