Tickets Box Score | USATSI Photo Gallery 
By Bill Koch
Go.BEARCATS.com
TAMPA - Associate head coach Larry Davis walked out of the University of Cincinnati locker room after the game, smiled and said, "We'll take it."
Indeed, the Bearcats were thrilled to leave the Sun Dome on Sunday afternoon with a 54-51 victory over South Florida before an announced crowd of 3,062. To get a win while scoring only one point over the final 10:07 and missing your last 10 field goal attempts (plus the front end of two bonus situations in the last 18 seconds) is cause for celebration, especially for a team that had lost three of its previous four games.
"It's hard to believe," said UC coach Mick Cronin.
The Bearcats blew all but three points of a 15-point lead and held on to win only because USF's Nehemias Morillo missed a 3-point shot from the corner just before time expired.
"When the shot went up, it was a minor defensive mistake," said UC point guard Troy Caupain, "and we just hoped that it wasn't going to go in. Dude was open when he shot it."
Caupain led the Bearcats (12-5 overall, 2-2 in the American Athletic Conference) with 14 points. Octavius Ellis - who made UC's last field goal of the game - scored 10, along with Shaq wThomas, who sparked UC to its second-half lead. Gary Clark pulled down 11 rebounds for UC, giving him three straight games with double-figure rebounds. The Bearcats shot a season-low 30.9 percent from the field.
Freshman guard Jahmal McMurray scored 16 to lead USF (3-14, 0-4). The Bulls lost their sixth straight game and ninth in their last 10.
The final 10 minutes must have been excruciating to watch for UC fans fearful of another late-game meltdown the day after the Cincinnati Bengals self-destructed in their NFL playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cronin, while he surely would have preferred more breathing room in the closing minutes, nonetheless declared them "a thing of beauty for a coach."
"It's everything you preach," Cronin said. "You get every timeout and you tell your guys just keep defending and you've got to keep boxing them out. We did a great job keeping them off the glass. That's by far our best defensive rebounding effort of the season."
UC out-rebounded USF, 35-30. The Bearcats allowed only four offensive rebounds that resulted in three second-chance points for the Bulls. Even though USF shot 51.1 percent from the field and made 23 field goals to 17 for UC, the Bearcats outscored the Bulls, 21-6 off 18 USF turnovers, and 15-3 in second-chance points and at the free throw line.
"Our press was very effective today," Cronin said. "To win a game on the road when you shoot 31 percent is something I'm extremely proud of. It's everything that I stand for."
UC led, 53-38, after Ellis' basket with just over 10 minutes remaining despite producing a season-low six field goals while shooting 26 percent in the first half. The Bearcats outscored USF, 27-12, to start the second half, but went cold for the rest of the game. They missed some easy shots and some not so easy. They turned the ball over at inopportune times and missed those two free throws in the closing seconds after making 15 of their first 17.
Their only point during the final 10 minutes was a free throw by Clark with five minutes left, which gave UC an eight-point lead. As the Bearcats' offensive woes continued, the Bulls kept chipping away. They cut UC's lead to four on McMurray's layup and to three on Jaleel Cousins' free throw with seven seconds to play after he had missed his first attempt. When UC's Clark missed the front end of the bonus with six seconds remaining, USF had a chance to tie, only to see Morillo's shot roll off the rim before Caupain rebounded it.
The Bearcats have blown leads in the final five minutes in losses to Butler, Iowa State, Temple and SMU.
"If we finish games, I think we'd be a top 10 team," Thomas said.
Caupain said he had no theories to explain what has become a recurring problem.
"It's something we've got to work on, getting that last rebound or that last stop," he said. "It's something we've got to dig deep for. It starts here in your heart. I wouldn't say we lack heart, but everybody thinks that the game is over and it's not over until the clock says double zero. We've just got to be ready to get stops on defense and that's what we did even though they got back into the game when we were up."
But when Cronin was asked about his team's tendency to allow leads to slip away late in games, he was quick to point out that the Bearcats had prevailed, so in this case they did successfully close out the game.
"What I would tell you is that we closed it out with defense," Cronin said.
Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of Go.Bearcats.com in January, 2015. He has written a new book, a memoir titled, "I Can't Believe I Got Paid For This." The book is available on-line only at CrateSpace and Amazon.com.