TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI – Before the University of Cincinnati Bearcats took the floor to face Western Michigan on Monday night, head coach Mick Cronin told trainer Bob Mangine to get Jarron Cumberland some smelling salts.
"I think it worked," Cronin joked. "He came out ready to play."
Actually, Cumberland gave himself his own wakeup call after watching Cronin's press conference Friday night following the Bearcats' win over Milwaukee. Cronin spent a lot of time during that gathering talking about how important it was for Cumberland to be productive for the entire game, not just the second half.
Cumberland decided that his coach was right. Then he did something about it.
With Cumberland leading the way with 27 points, which matched his career high, the Bearcats jumped on the Broncos from the start and rolled to a 78-52 victory before 8,998 fans at Fifth Third Arena.
The Bearcats (3-1) won their third straight game and did it in convincing fashion, jumping out to a 20-4 lead before the Broncos knew what hit them. Cumberland scored 12 of those points and had 19 at halftime.
Nysier Brooks scored a career-high 15 points with 10 rebounds for his second straight double-double, and Cane Broome scored 15 points off the bench. UC forced 17 turnovers, out-rebounded Western Michigan, 42-27, and limited the Broncos to 33.3 percent shooting in their best defensive performance of the season. They held WMU 34 points below their average of 84.2.
Michael Flowers led the Broncos (3-2) with 23 points, 18 in the first half. WMU made 16 of 31 from the free throw line compared with 13 of 17 for UC. The Bearcats shot 46.9 percent from the field and made five of 13 three-point shots.
"They obviously jumped on us big," said Broncos coach Steve Hawkins. "We were very timid early. Between that, and we turned the ball over a lot. The next thing I know, I look up and we're down, 20-4."
The Bearcats never trailed. They forced seven turnovers in the first six minutes and led 43-29 at halftime, and even though their offense bogged down a bit in the second half of a game marred by 39 fouls – 21 against UC - they pulled away at the end for their most lopsided win of the season.
Cumberland started the game with such a rush that it seemed he might go for 30 or 40. It was just what Cronin had hoped to see from the best player on the team.
The next step in his progression is to become more of a vocal leader, but that won't be as simple as increasing his point production.
"Coach yells at me almost every day – talk, Jarron, talk - you need to work on your leadership," Cumberland said. "That's something I've been working on, to talk louder just like Jacob (Evans) and Kyle (Washington) and Gary (Clark) helped me."
Cumberland is naturally quiet, so much so that he resisted appearing at post-game press conferences his first two seasons no matter how well he had played. But this season he has accepted that as part of his job.
"He's our best player and he's our leader," Cronin said. "He's also our smartest player. His body language is really confusing for people that don't know him. He's a great guy, but he's got a look on his face sometimes. He's not a guy running around smiling all the time and he talks really low.
"Good teams, their veteran players help each other. They get each other in the right spot. And he knows more than anybody out there. Scoring more is not hard for him, but we need his voice, not just his points."
Broome had his second straight double-figure scoring night after scoring a total of only five points in his first two games. And like Cumberland, he's still trying to adjust to being a leader.
"I just tried to come in again and do it again with defense," Broome said, "make a layup to try to get me started. I didn't want to shoot a three because when I do that, it gets in my head. This year is more of a challenge. Last year it wasn't our team. We were the back guys. It was a different team. Now we have to be the guys that help out the other guys."
Cronin was also pleased to see the 6-foot-11, 240-pound Brooks build on the first career double-double he had against Milwaukee.
"Nas' hard work is really paying off," he said. "If he can keep giving us a physical presence, it changes a lot. When you've got a guy that can score down low and make free throws and he can protect the rim, it's huge for your offense. He looked like a veteran out there tonight."
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.