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By Bill Koch
Go.BEARCATS.com
CINCINNATI - University of Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin had a simple message for his players after the Bearcats' 10-point loss at then-No. 12 Xavier on Saturday.
"Coach kept talking about resilience," said sophomore forward Gary Clark (Clayton, N.C./Clayton High School). "When something's being pulled and tugged, it's going to come back to its normal form. He kept preaching that. After an emotional game like that, we had to come back and become one, focus on the next opponent. In practice he just kept preaching that we've got to get better as a team. We've got to care more for us to be that good team that we're supposed to be."
In the early going of No. 23 UC's 75-59 victory Tuesday over Norfolk State before 6,215 fans at Fifth Third Arena, it appeared as if Cronin's message had been received loud and clear. The Bearcats jumped out to a commanding 15-0 lead and were playing with the level of intensity that Cronin has been looking for.
But it didn't last. UC was outscored the rest of the half and led by only eight at halftime. The Bearcats had another good start in the second half, but again failed to sustain it.
"You could tell in our energy (at the start of the game) that we were really getting after it defensively," Clark said. "It kind of died down towards the end of the half and then we picked it back up. We've got to keep it on. When we're getting tired, we've got to come out and the next group's got to come in with the same energy. We've got to keep preaching to keep going - intensity, intensity, intensity. We've got to keep pouring it on."
Clark poured it on in the second half when he scored 15 of his 19 points. He made 9 of 11 shots overall, pulled down seven rebounds and blocked two shots.
"I thought he was extremely assertive," Cronin said. "That was really what I've been asking to see out of him."
The Bearcats also received a big scoring night from senior guard Farad Cobb (West Palm Beach, Fla./Northwest Fla. St. College), who scored 20 points and regained his elusive shooting touch by making five of eight shots from long range.
"I just always play with confidence," Cobb said. "Nothing really felt different. They just went in tonight. I stepped into my shots. That's pretty much it."
Cronin had a different theory.
"I used to tell this to Sean Kilpatrick all the time," he said. "If you just worry about defense, which is all we've talked about with Farad since the Xavier game. Just worry about defense, offense is easy. You've been shooting your whole life. That's easy for you.
"He gets eight deflections, which is his season high by far, and then he has his best offensive game. It's amazing how that happens in coaching when a guy just worries about hustle and defense and how the offensive end comes easy to him. It's just a mental thing. We call it getting lost in the game."
The Bearcats scored the first six points of the second half, then increased their lead to 20 on Cobb's 3-pointer with 12:25 left. At one point, the Spartans, who were picked to finish third in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, went 4:38 without scoring and missed eight straight shots as UC built a 26-point lead, its largest of the game, with 10:06 remaining.
UC outscored Norfolk State, 23-4, in second-chance points and 18-10 in points off turnovers. The Bearcats made 10 of 21 from 3-point range, including one from Clark, who's now 4-for-6 from long range this season. The Bearcats held the Spartans' Jeff Short, the MEAC pre-season player of the year, to three points on 1-of-10 shooting. Short entered the game averaging 17.2 points.
"We did some good things tonight," Cronin said. "We've still got to continue to work on playing for 40 minutes. We struggled with that in the Xavier game. We struggled with that in the Butler game. It's something that's an issue with our team. We're trying to get some guys to get nationally recognized and trying to get some guys to get people to respect them as players. The way to do that is they've got to play well all the time, play up to your potential all the time. That's just my biggest fight with this team."
UC will go back on the road this Saturday when it plays at Virginia Commonwealth, then comes home to play No. 5 Iowa State on Tuesday at Fifth Third.
"It's a long year," Cronin said. "You've just got to keep trying to get better. You've got to come closer as a team. My message to our guys is we'll have the kind of year that the players will allow us to have."
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.