TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI – University of Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin spent a good part of his postgame press conference Friday night lamenting his team's defensive effort, which was substandard by his lofty standards.
But every once in awhile, he would catch himself and remind everyone that the Bearcats did a lot of good things, too, in their 74-63 victory over Milwaukee before 10,163 fans at Fifth Third Arena.
"We led the nation in scoring margin last year," Cronin said. "That'll spoil you."
Let's start with some of those good things Cronin referred to. How about the first career double-doubles for both Trevon Scott and Nysier Brooks, with Scott scoring 15 points with 10 rebounds and Brooks adding 12 points with 10 rebounds. It was the first time UC had two players with double-doubles in the same game since Gary Clark and Kyle Washington did it at Iowa State on Dec. 1, 2016.
And then there was senior guard Cane Broome, who had made only one of 13 shots in his first two games. Broome, who surrendered his starting position to Keith Williams in UC's last game against North Carolina Central, returned to the lineup in place of Justin Jenifer, who was suffering from a stomach virus, and led the Bearcats (2-1) with 17 points on eight-of-12 shooting.
"I just tried to do it with defense first," Broome said, "try to get a few steals and just let it come to me. It was only two games. It wasn't like I was in the tank, but you want to make shots at the end of the day. It was in the back of my head, but I knew eventually it would change."
Jarron Cumberland added 14 points for UC and Keith Williams, making his second straight start, scored 12. Carson Warren-Newsome scored 18 to lead Milwaukee (0-4).
Brooks has spent his first two years at UC in a supportive role, carving out playing time wherever he could find it. But now he and Scott are in the spotlight, so it was encouraging to see both of them dominate the way they did against the Panthers.
"It's a good accomplishment," Brooks said, "but I'm just worried about the defensive end, just trying to make sure we're sound on defense. I believe me and Tre collectively are a better defensive group than Kyle and Gary were. Don't get me wrong, they had their very special characteristics, but you can't worry about all that. We're going to be a good unit together. We just need to focus on what we need to do."
The Bearcats got off to a poor shooting start for the second time in three games. They missed eight of their first nine shots before Broome made a layup with 13:32 left in the first half. Milwaukee made its first four shots and six of its first nine and jumped out to a 12-3 lead just over five minutes into the game. UC finally started to warm up, outscoring Milwaukee, 22-8, to take a 25-20 lead with 5:25 remaining in the half, but Milwaukee came back to forge a 33-33 tie at halftime.
With the score tied at 39-39, UC scored seven straight points to take a 46-39 lead with 14:32 left, their largest lead of the game to that point. Milwaukee came right back with a 7-0 run of its own to tie the score at 46-46.
After Milwaukee took a 49-48 lead, the Bearcats used another offensive burst to reclaim the lead at 57-51 with 7:56 left on a layup by Scott. Cumberland scored five of UC's points during that 9-2 run.
UC finally began to pull away during a stretch in which Milwaukee missed six of its seven shots while the Bearcats were making five of six. Two driving layups by Broome gave UC a 64-53 lead with 3:53 remaining.
By the end of the game, the Bearcats had raised their shooting percentage to 50 percent for the second straight game, but they were only 12 for 20 from the free throw line and four for 19 from three-point range. They out-rebounded Milwaukee, 37-25.
But that lack of defensive intensity seemed to nag at Cronin even as he listed the positives he had just witnessed.
"We only had 23 deflections," he said. "We let a team come in here and shoot 44.6 percent. Defense, for the nine millionth time, is my concern. We had a lot of defensive breakdowns. They had 24 points in the paint and that's without scoring on a post-up, meaning we're getting guys beat off the dribble, getting lost for layups, not a lot of talk, not a lot of communication, not a lot of defensive intensity. But with young teams, it's hard. They're inconsistent. But we did what we had to do to get the win."
It's true, that after all the lopsided wins the Bearcats enjoyed last year – they beat their opponents by an average margin of 16.7 points - it's easy to assume they're going to continue that this season against teams like Milwaukee, which they're supposed to beat handily. That's not necessarily the case.
As Cronin said, there was a reason why UC was able to win such lopsided scores last year.
"We had a veteran team, guys that didn't make mistakes," he said. "They knew how to snuff a team out."
The Bearcats didn't exactly snuff out Milwaukee, but as Cronin pointed out they had their share of positives, even if it didn't always seem that way as the game unfolded.
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.