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By Bill Koch
GoBEARCATS.com
HARTFORD - The University of Cincinnati Bearcats understood they would live to play another day, but that didn't matter in the immediate aftermath of their dramatic loss to Connecticut on Friday night.
"It's a heartbreaker to lose like that because we definitely wanted to win the championship," said junior forward Shaq Thomas. "We fought hard and we competed hard. To lose on a buzzer-beater like that, for them to make that shot, it's a pretty tough loss."
The Bearcats had come here fully intending to win the school's first conference tournament championship since 2004, so after Connecticut's Ryan Boatright's 3-pointer with .2 of a second left gave the Huskies a 57-54 victory, eliminating them from the American Athletic Conference in the quarterfinals, they sat stunned in their XL Center locker room.
But it didn't take long for the Bearcats to begin to look ahead to next week's' NCAA Tournament.
"He threw one in tonight," sophomore forward Gary Clark said in the post-game press conference. "It's going to sit for awhile and then it's going to light a fire behind us to go into next week to be really ready no matter who we play. They should be worried."
No. 3 seed UC (22-10) saw a five-game winning streak come to an end and will await its expected NCAA Tournament berth on Sunday. No. 6 seed Connecticut, the defending national champion, improved to 19-13 and will play No. 2 seed Tulsa (22-9) at 5 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals.
The Bearcats, who trailed by five with 1:25 left, tied the score on a follow shot by Thomas with 13.5 seconds left. UConn coach Kevin Ollie then called timeout to set up the Huskies' final possession, but everyone among the crowd of 9,514 knew who would take the last shot.
Sure enough, the ball went to Boatright, the leading scorer in the AAC, who dribbled into the forecourt with UC's Kevin Johnson guarding him, came off a screen, and launched the game-winning shot.
"We switched the ball screen," Johnson said. "We just wanted to stay solid. It was a tie game. Honestly for him to take a deep, contested three was really the best option we could hope for. He just hit a tough shot tonight."
The officials checked the TV monitor and determined that there were .2 of a second left. The Bearcats passed the ball inbounds to Farad Cobb, who heaved a desperation shot toward the UC basket, but the officials signaled that the game was over as soon as Cobb touched the ball.
Boatright led all scorers with 18 points. Rodney Purvis added 17 for the Huskies. Troy Caupain scored 12 to lead UC, followed by Octavius Ellis with 11 and Thomas with 10. Clark added nine points and 11 rebounds.
"They didn't give in when they could have," said UC associate head coach Larry Davis, "when virtually everything went against them the last four minutes of play. These guys fought. They listened. They did everything I asked them to do and they gave themselves a chance to win."
In the end, it was UConn's 3-point shooting that made the difference. The Huskies shot just 38.2 percent from the field, they were out-rebounded, 37-27, and were outscored, 19-6, in second-chance points, but they made 11 of 30 from long range compared with five of 11 for the Bearcats.
At one point, the Huskies made five straight from beyond the arc to take a 42-39 lead with 9:20 left. It was 45-45 with 7:23 to play when both teams hit a wall offensively until UConn's Daniel Hamilton banked in a three as time expired on the shot clock with 3:01 to play. When Rodney Purvis followed with a layup, the Huskies had a 5-point lead.
"Coach told us, let's get a stop," Caupain said. "That's what we were focusing on and I'm sure their coach was saying the same thing. It was 45-45 for a long time. The ball just wasn't dropping in the basket on both sides."
UC didn't end its scoring drought until Cobb made two free throws with 1:59 left to cut the Huskies' lead to three, but a layup by Amida Brimah pushed UConn's lead back to five. That's when the Bearcats made their final push.
With 25 seconds left and UConn leading by two, Boatright went to the line to shoot the one-and-one, but the 84 percent free throw shooter missed the free throw, setting the stage for Thomas' follow shot. Thomas' elation was short-lived, though, when Boatright compensated for the missed free throw with his decisive 3-pointer.
"Once we got to the huddle, Coach kept us composed," Boatright said. "I told myself I'm not going out like that. We're going to take this last shot and I'm going to make it."
If he had to do it over again, Davis said, instead of switching he would "tell them to double (Boatright) no matter what and make somebody else beat us. Tay did a good job switching. He launched one up there and it went in."
The Bearcats will now wait for Sunday when they expect to find out where they'll go next week for their fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
"We've got to get past this quickly," Davis said. "We've got a week to recuperate, rest a little bit and get ready to play in the Big Dance, which is the one that matters the most."
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.