TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – Losing two games in a row is strange territory for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, who didn't lose two in a row all of last season and did it only once the season before.
So when they showed up at BB&T Arena on Tuesday to face unbeaten Mississippi State, they had a lot on the line. They wanted to make sure the losing streak didn't grow to an even more unfamiliar three-game streak while maintaining their 30-game home winning streak, the longest in the nation. Not only that, they had fallen from No. 11 to No. 25 in the Associated Press Top 25 in the last two weeks.
"It wasn't even necessarily confidence," said senior forward Kyle Washington. "We were just like, we have to get a win. We've got to get it back on the road because we're not used to losing."
Faced with the unusual situation of playing such a crucial game in mid-December, the Bearcats responded with an outstanding defensive effort that resulted in a 65-50 victory before a season-high crowd of 8,128 over the Bulldogs, who had arrived in town as one of only seven unbeaten teams remaining in the country only to head back down south with their 17th straight loss to a ranked team.
"We lost the game tonight because of inability to attack their zone," said Mississippi State coach Ben Howland. "We were standing way too much, not enough ball movement, not enough cutting and getting the ball inside."
Playing on their own floor, which was installed in their temporary home for the first time this season, the Bearcats (8-2) held the Bulldogs (8-1) to 30.2 percent shooting, 25.7 percent in the second half, and blocked a season-high 11 shots, five by Gary Clark.
The Bearcats shot 40.7 percent and committed 14 turnovers – a seven-turnover improvement over their total against Florida last Saturday, but still too many – and got big scoring nights from Washington, who scored 16 points, including 14 in the first half, and Jacob Evans III, who led the Bearcats with a season-high 24 points to go with a season-high eight rebounds. In addition to his five blocks, Clark scored nine points and pulled down 13 rebounds.
"This was a defensive victory, no question about it," said UC coach Mick Cronin. "We're still searching on offense a little bit at times with the new roles of guys on this team. We're running a lot of new stuff in the half-court that we weren't running last year, so we're still searching a little bit from an efficiency standpoint on offense."
UC led for all but 25 seconds. Mississippi State's Quinndary Weatherspoon opened the scoring with a 3-pointer before UC reeled off eight straight points. The Bearcats built their lead to 23-11 with another 8-0 run, taking advantage of a Bulldog scoring drought during which they missed 10 straight shots before Weatherspoon made a dunk with 7:32 left.
The Bulldogs capitalized on three UC turnovers to get within five points at 25-20 with 4:40 left in the first half, but the Bearcats responded to close out the half by outscoring the Bulldogs, 10-5, and took a 35-25 lead into halftime.
Midway through the second half, with UC leading, 43-33, Evans scored on a transition layup off a feed from Washington, then drilled a three to trigger a 9-0 run that gave the Bearcats a 52-33 lead, their largest of the game, with 11:30 remaining.
The Bulldogs ended a string of 14 straight missed shots with a Nick Weatherspoon layup that started an 8-0 run for Mississippi State, making it 52-41 with 8:00 left. Evans interrupted the run with a dunk for UC and Washington scored his only points of the second half with 4:59 left to give the Bearcats a 56-43 lead. After Tyson Carter's 3-pointer cut the UC lead to 10, Evans made another 3-pointer to make it 59-46.
Following the back-to-back losses to Xavier and Florida, the Bearcats used their two days of practice to return to the basics that have defined the program under Cronin for the past 11-plus years.
"We definitely tried to over-exaggerate us getting back to being the Bearcats, starting with defense, toughness and relentless effort in everything we do," Evans said. "I feel like we kind of got back to that, but we also need to cut down on our turnovers."
Cronin was looking forward to giving his players the day off Wednesday after the two losses and the lead-up to the Mississippi State game they needed to win so badly.
"I thought our guys were just emotionally drained," Cronin said. "In our program, losing two in a row doesn't happen very often. They need to get away for a day and just freshen up. I was concerned about the guys' confidence level. It's hard to shield them from social media and the outside world. Young people live in that world and I'm sure the sky was falling in that world because we lost a few games."
The Bearcats will leave Thursday afternoon for Los Angeles where they'll face UCLA on Saturday in a rematch of last year's second-round NCAA Tournament game, won by the Bruins, 79-67, in Sacramento.
"Of course we still remember losing to them in the tournament," Evans said, "but we know it's a different team and we know they're trying to bounce back after a tough home loss. We've got to be ready for war."
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.