TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – Nearly a half hour had passed after the University of Cincinnati's lopsided victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff before a UC coach emerged to take questions from the media Tuesday night. And when one finally did show up it was associate head coach Larry Davis, not head coach Mick Cronin.
Davis said Cronin skipped his post-game press conference because he was fighting a bad cold and fatigue from traveling. The long delay after the game, he said, had nothing to do with the way the Bearcats played. But it would have been understandable if it had.
Coming off a big win Saturday at UCLA, No. 20 UC (10-2) extended its home winning streak to 32 games, the longest in the nation, with a 77-49 victory before a season-low crowd of 5,812. But the Bearcats did it with an uninspired effort in the second half when they outscored the Golden Lions by only one point, 34-33, after rolling out to a 43-16 halftime lead.
"When you play a team like Pine Bluff and you get up big early, the hardest thing for young people to do is stay focused in success," Davis said. "When you get knocked down, that's easy. You're going to get up and fight.
"In the scout last night that was all I talked to our guys about, as much as I talked to them about Arkansas-Pine Bluff. I said, look, we can't take two steps back. We played really, really well at UCLA. We can't now, because our opponent is somebody with less talent, we can't go out and turn the ball over. We can't not rebound the ball. That's the constant battle when you win is keeping young people focused on why you won."
Cane Broome led UC with 17 points, tying his season high. Jacob Evans III scored 12 for the Bearcats. Senior forward Gary Clark scored six points with six rebounds but failed to make a field goal for the first time since his sophomore year.
Travon Harper scored 16 to lead UAPB (0-13). The Golden Lions are in the midst of a 17-game road trip to start their season.
The two teams exchanged baskets to start the game. UC then scored the next 24 points to build a 26-2 lead before UAPB's Christian Robertson made a layup with 10:16 remaining in the first half to end a drought that lasted 8:45. At one point in the first half, the Bearcats made nine of 11 field goal attempts and finished the half with a 27-point lead.
The second half was a different story. After shooting 53.6 percent in the first half, UC made only 11 of 30 shots in the second for 36.7 percent. The Bearcats missed 10 of their last 12 shots.
"It's hard to come out when you're up 30 and try to get back into the groove," Broome said, "but we've got to get better at that."
Cronin had planned to use this game to get more playing time for the players who don't usually get on the floor very much and he succeeded at that, with 11 different players logging 10 minutes or more. The Bearcats forced UAPB into 22 turnovers, 14 in the first half, but committed 15 of their own, a recurring problem for them this season. Still, they outscored the Golden Lions, 34-9, in points off turnovers.
"I felt like we came out pretty good to start the game," Evans said. "We started out with our press, creating some turnovers, getting our hands on a lot of passes. In the second half, we were kind of flat and we also had too many turnovers. We had 15 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. That's not good.
You just can't have it. You've got to get better."
As Davis pointed out, the Bearcats were expected to prevail in this game with relative ease because of their huge edge in overall talent. But he said their deflection total was an indication that their effort did not match their talent.
"In the first half, we had 31 deflections," Davis said. "In the second half we had 20. That's an effort stat. That tells you how hard you're playing. Tonight was a game where we probably should have gotten 60 because we're that much better than them.
"And we felt like in the second half we turned it over a little bit more. Those are areas that we've got to address if we're going to try to win the league, if we're going to try to be one of the best teams in the country."
The Bearcats will have just one day to prepare for Thursday's game at home vs. Cleveland State, which will complete their non-league schedule. By the end of that game they will have played three games in six days, one of which involved a trip to the West Coast.
Then they'll have 10 days before opening their American Athletic Conference season on New Year's Eve at home against Memphis. The Bearcats were picked to win the league, which has added 11th-ranked Wichita State to the mix.
"Our league is better, way better than it was the last couple years," Davis said. "We've got to drive our guys to keep getting better."
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.