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By Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI - Fearing the possibility of a letdown after Thursday's stirring overtime victory at No. 19 Iowa State, University of Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin made sure he showed up at practice Saturday afternoon in a bad mood. And again during shoot-around Sunday. And also during the first few minutes of Sunday night's game against Bowling Green.
But despite all those sour moods, the Bearcats still started out flat against the Falcons, missing their first six shots and falling behind, 5-1.
Enter sophomore guard Justin Jenifer, who promptly made a field goal, followed by a 3-pointer to shake UC out of its early offensive doldrums and send the Bearcats on their way to an 85-56 victory before 7,162 fans at Fifth Third Arena.
"It was huge for him to give us the lift that he gave us because we came out flat," Cronin said of Jenifer. "He was a big injection of life into our team early in the game."
Jenifer finished with a career-high 14 points, making five of eight shots from the floor, including four of five from 3-point range. He scored 11 of those points in the first half when the Bearcats needed them the most. And he did it on his 21st birthday.
"Coach tells me every day I need to come in and bring energy to the team and when I come in make sure I'm focused on defense, make sure I'm pressuring the guards and that I cause turnovers," said Jenifer. "That's what he needs me to do and that's what I'm gonna do when I come into the game."
But this time he provided some bonus scoring.
"It felt good," said Jenifer, who closed the first half with a buzzer-beater 3-pointer from several feet inside the mid-court stripe. "I know it's not my role right now, but he says shoot when you're open. It was probably good that it was my birthday. Everything was falling into place. But mostly I was coming in giving everybody energy."
UC (7-1) placed three players in double figures, led by Kyle Washington, who scored a career-high 24 points on 11-of-13 shooting. Troy Caupain added 12, tying his season high.
The Bearcats, who shot 55.7 percent from the floor, capped off the victory with walk-on Zack Tobler's first career 3-point field goal in six tries with 23 seconds left.
Bowling Green (3-5) was led by Wes Alcegaire and Zack Denny with 16 points each.
With his superior size and soft shooting touch, the 6-foot-9, 230-pound Washington dominated inside against the Falcons.
"I saw that the first few moves felt pretty easy so I said let me keep on getting good post position and I felt locked in," Washington said. "Not worrying about scoring is the biggest key. If I don't worry about it, it's gonna happen because over time I've really had that knack for being able to put the ball in the basket."
But Washington was more interested in talking about his roommate, Jenifer, whom he calls 'Sto,' which is short for 'Justo,' which apparently is a variation of Justin.
"He gave us a great lift," Washington said. "He's been doing that the whole season. You can see it clearly with his energy on defense, but he's always had a great ability to blow by his man and create opportunities for other people. He's also had that 3-point ability since the summer. He was just knocking it down the whole summer and the whole preseason. I'm glad it's translating to the game. He's going to be imperative for our team's success."
Cronin was pleased with the Bearcats' passing and their offensive flow, especially after they had been held to 55 points in their win at Iowa State. He also liked the way they pounded the ball inside, where they held a 54-20 edge in points in the paint.
"I felt we played a pretty good offensive game," Cronin said. "We weren't happy with the way we played on offense the other night. Obviously Iowa State had a lot to do with that.
"We got the ball inside. That's something we talked about on film Friday. We worked hard yesterday in practice on trying to make sure we got it inside off the drive or off the pass. You can't play around the 3-point line. You're never gonna break a defense down that way. I was really happy with the guys grasping what we were trying to do."
The Bearcats will spend this week taking final exams and preparing for Saturday's game at No. 18 Butler, having avoided the kind of slippage that sometimes happens after a crucial win.
"We did a great job as a nucleus just talking to each other, saying we don't want to take any step-backs," Washington said. "We picked up a great win at Ames and we just wanted to keep the momentum rolling, with a chance to get back in the Top 25, a chance to keep on building momentum going to Hinkle Fieldhouse next Saturday. We want that win too. We're about to play a good ball club."
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.