TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI – Two hours after the newly renovated Fifth Third Arena was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony filled with superlatives, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats took the floor and spent the first half with play that was decidedly not superlative.
UC missed its first seven shots, including its first five 3-pointers and fell behind, 7-3, five minutes into the game against Division II Tusculum. Even more troubling to head coach Mick Cronin was the lack of defensive intensity that his team displayed at the outset.
The Bearcats recovered to post a 68-41 exhibition victory over the Pioneers before a crowd of 10,101 – about 2,000 less than capacity - that showed up for the unveiling of the impressive new arena.
"My biggest concern with our team is our inexperience," Cronin said. "I thought we let our lack of making a shot affect our effort."
Cronin theorized that his players might have been feeling their oats after beating Notre Dame in a scrimmage Sunday in Indianapolis. Or maybe they let the festivities surrounding the new arena get to them. Whatever the reason, he didn't like what he saw in the first half.
"We scrapped out a minor victory the other day," Cronin said, "but today we were worried about jump shots. We didn't play very hard until later in the game. We were too good, too cool, to play hard and it showed. Once we started playing hard, things changed a little bit. We got a lot of points off of turnovers."
UC led by 12 at 25-13 after Rashawn Frederick's layup with 2:41 left in the first half, but Tusculum then scored seven straight points to get within five before Justin Jenifer converted a conventional 3-point play with 3.5 seconds left to give the Bearcats a 28-20 halftime lead. Jenifer was helped off the floor with an injury midway through the second half.
The Bearcats stayed in their locker room during halftime until there were only about 32 seconds left before play resumed.
UC led by five, 35-30, with 14:44 to go, then used a 20-0 run over eight minutes and 50 seconds to pull away to a 65-36 advantage. Senior guard Cane Broome, who led UC with 15 points, sparked the run. He scored all of his points in the second half. Jarron Cumberland scored 11 for UC.
"I was just feeling good at the time and I wanted to keep it going," Broome said. "We didn't come out of the gate ready. We came out sluggish. Our defensive intensity wasn't there at the beginning. We only had 13 deflections in the first half, then we had about 40-something in the second."
The Bearcats got nine rebounds each from Trevon Scott and Eliel Nsoseme, but received a total of only 11 points from Scott and Nysier Brooks, who are being counted on to make up for some of the scoring that was lost by the departure of seniors Kyle Washington and Gary Clark.
"These guys don't know how hard it is to show up every night," Cronin said. "It's different when you're coming off the bench for a few minutes vs. you're the guy that's getting on the bus deciding whether we win or lose."
Scott, who's in his fourth year at UC after redshirting as a freshman, says he's ready to accept the bigger role Cronin has assigned to him. Not only is he ready to accept it, he's looking forward to it.
"I've been here long enough," Scott said. "I'm ready to embrace the challenge. I feel good knowing that my teammates and my coaches want to have me in a different role, stepping up and doing more. It's a great feeling. It's just up to me to see what I do with it."
Cronin was also troubled by the fact that his team blocked only one shot – by Nsoseme.
"Defense around the rim," Cronin said. "Gary and Jacob (Evans) and Kyle a little bit protected the rim last year. Tre and Nas had no blocked shots."
Scott was well aware of that stat.
"It bothers us a lot," he said. "There were opportunities where we could have had blocked shots and we didn't. That's got to change."
The Bearcats shot 35.6 percent from the floor and made four of 23 from three-point range. Tusculum shot 28.9 percent overall and was five for 21 from beyond the arc. UC out-rebounded Tusculum, 43-34, and committed 10 turnovers to 23 for Tusculum, which resulted in 28 UC points.
UC begins the regular season next Wednesday, Nov. 7 against Ohio State at Fifth Third looking to open the renovated arena the same way the 1989-90 Bearcats opened the original version – with a win over a Big Ten opponent.