TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – During the past few years, most of the meetings between the University of Cincinnati and SMU have been so hard-fought that it's just assumed when they get together the game will be physical, low-scoring and close.
That's how it was in the early going Sunday, but it didn't last long.
The Bearcats, with the nation's second-best scoring defense, clamped down on SMU and rolled to a convincing 76-56 victory over the Mustangs before a season-high crowd of 9,109 at BB&T Arena, extending the nation's longest home-court winning streak to 35 games.
No. 19 UC (14-2 overall, 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference) has won its last seven games overall. SMU, the defending regular-season and conference tournament champions, lost its second straight game.
"I did not anticipate winning this game the way we won it," said UC coach Mick Cronin. "We're used to everything's life and death when we play each other. Our guys came with a tremendous effort tonight on the defensive end. We're not always pretty at times, but our effort's tremendous and as a coach you appreciate that. It makes it fun to coach when your guys are really trying to play for each other and compete as hard as our guys competed."
Gary Clark scored 18 points – 13 in the second half – and pulled down eight rebounds to lead the Bearcats. Jacob Evans III also scored 18 with four rebounds, four assists and no turnovers in 36 minutes. Jarron Cumberland added 14 points, but continues to struggle with his shooting. He was 4-for-13 from the field.
Jarrey Foster scored 16 points to lead SMU, which fell to 12-5, 2-2.
"It was as frustrating as any game I can remember in a number of years and very disappointing," said SMU coach Tim Jankovich. "I thought we were ready to play and we were excited to play, knowing we were playing a great team. They are, to me, one of the best teams in the country and on a floor where they never lose. But I wasn't expecting that."
The Bearcats started slowly on offense, then put together a 22-3 run midway through the first half to pull away from the Mustangs, building a 23-point lead with 9:29 left in the second half. SMU made a mild run to get within 14 with 5:54 to go, but the Bearcats pulled away again and took a 70-49 lead with 4:11 to go.
The UC defense limited SMU, the top 3-point shooting team in the conference at 42.4 percent, to just six of 19 from long range (31.6 percent) and forced 18 turnovers against a team that also leads the league in that category with 12.3 per game. The Bearcats held the Mustangs to 37.5 shooting, their second-lowest mark of the season.
"We were just digging in," Evans said. "It's conference time. You've got to turn it up a notch on both ends. If we worry about defense and rebounding we should be fine."
Limiting the Mustangs' 3-point shooting was the main focus of assistant coach Darren Savino's scouting report and the Bearcats executed it to near perfection.
"When you pressure a team and you have tremendous ball pressure, first of all their shooters have to handle the ball, they have to handle the pressure," Cronin said. "My theory is that comfortable teams shoot a high percentage and we tried everything we could to make them uncomfortable. They don't have the counterpunch of the post guy. They play you with five shooters, so if you take that away from them, they really don't have the post-up game this year."
It was obvious from the outset that SMU's defensive plan was to clog the lane and try to prevent the Bearcats from dominating inside, forcing them to try to win from the perimeter. It worked fairly well in the first half when Clark was double-teamed every time he touched the ball. As a result, the Bearcats attempted 19 shots from beyond the arc, making six. UC still managed to build a 14-point halftime on the strength of its defense, even though it shot on 28.1 percent from the field.
The second half was a different story. The defensive intensity remained, but the Bearcats shot 57.7 percent, mostly because Clark refused to let himself be cowed in the low post. As Evans put it, "this guy right here just started being a beast down there."
"It was more me taking too long," Clark said of his first-half struggles. "I'm allowing them to get it together and come trap rather than just in the second half, once they gave it to me I was going."
Clark's more aggressive approach might have come as a result of Cronin's urging.
"I tried to remind him that your senior year is going to disappear if you just let everybody double you," Cronin said. "They're not going to stop doubling you. You've got to score before they get to the double team. He was much more aggressive in the second half and once he did that the game was over."
UC point guard Cane Broome played 12 minutes after missing the last two games with a twisted ankle, but appeared a tad rusty. He scored three points – all on free throws – but missed all three of his shots from the field and committed three turnovers. But that was a minor concern in a game in which the Bearcats were operating on all cylinders.
"It took a tremendous effort to do what we did tonight," Cronin said. "We made it look easy, but anybody who watches and knows SMU knows that they don't make some of the plays they made tonight. They don't have 18 turnovers. It just doesn't happen."
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.