TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com
CINCINNATI – The UCLA Bruins came to town Wednesday night with their flashy blue and gold uniforms, a history that includes 11 national titles and a passel of highly rated recruits.
They left having absorbed a 93-64 shellacking at the hands of a University of Cincinnati team that is their direct opposite in almost every respect.
UC's second straight sellout crowd – this one of 12,689 – was on hand to celebrate the official grand opening for newly renovated Fifth Third Arena. Former UC coach Bob Huggins made an appearance at halftime and received a huge ovation as the school recognized its three Final Four coaches – Huggins, Ed Jucker and George Smith.
Unlike the West Coast Bruins, the midwestern Bearcats under Mick Cronin rely largely on players who are willing to dig in and do the work to become productive as juniors and seniors. Then they attack every game with a physical tenaciousness that sometimes takes their opponents by surprise, even though UC has a national reputation for such hard-nosed play.
"A lot of people are surprised about our toughness because our defense is something special," said junior center Nysier Brooks. "Nobody knows what it is, but it's something special."
Perhaps it wasn't really a surprise that UC defeated UCLA. After all, the Bearcats were 10-point favorites and had beaten the Bruins last year in Los Angeles. But a 29-point margin of victory, the worst defeat for UCLA since Jan.4, 2015 against Utah? No one could have seen that coming.
"Our effort was tremendous," Cronin said. "As big a team as they are, they got five offensive rebounds."
Jarron Cumberland scored a game-high 25 points to lead UC (10-2). He scored 19 in the first half when the Bearcats rolled to a 48-31 advantage. Keith Williams finished with a career-high 19 points, followed by Brooks with 14 points and six rebounds; and Justin Jenifer with 11 points, five assists and no turnovers. Kris Wilkes led UCLA (7-4) with 21 points.
It was the second straight year the Bearcats have posted a convincing victory over the Bruins and gives UC a 4-2 lead in the all-time series.
But things didn't start very well for UC, which fell behind 17-9 with 13:22 left in the first half. At that point, the Bruins were scoring seemingly at ease. Based on those first six-plus minutes, it appeared that if there were going to be a blowout, it would be in favor of the Bruins.
"I liked how we started," said UCLA coach Steve Alford. "I liked the energy. I liked how we were executing, the shots we were getting. And then about eight minutes in, I thought we really struggled the rest of the half."
UC had a lot to do with that.
"We said we've got to pick it up on the defensive end," Jenifer said, "because they scored every time they came down the court. Once we picked up our defensive intensity it was Murder She Wrote."
After UCLA took its eight-point lead, the Bearcats scored 11 straight points that grew into a 17-2 run during which they made seven straight field goal attempts to take a 26-19 lead. They never trailed again.
UCLA did not convert a field goal from the 13:22 mark of the first half until David Singleton made a three-pointer with 8:19 remaining. Cumberland was virtually unstoppable in the first half when he scored the Bearcats' final 11 points.
UC led by 20 after a Cumberland basket with 18 seconds left before Wilkes banked in a long three-pointer just before time expired to leave the Bearcats with a 48-31 lead at intermission.
Brooks was an offensive force early in the game when he went right at Moses Brown, UCLA's 7-foot-1 freshman center. He scored nine of his 11 points in the game's first 10 minutes, unusual for a player who was mostly a defensive and rebounding presence in high school.
"Nobody ever threw him the ball when we recruited him," Cronin said. "His job was to block shots and get out of the way on offense."
Cronin has been trying to change that.
"I've just been really trying to focus on what Coach wants from me," Brooks said. "Sometimes I go away from being an offensive presence. He's been trying to drill into my head that I need to be an offensive player and a defensive player the whole 40 minutes of the game."
UCLA made a three-pointer and layup to start the second half to pull within 15, but the Bearcats responded with an 11-3 run that included three-pointers by Williams and Jenifer to increase their lead to 23 at 62-39 less than five minutes into the second half.
A step-back three-pointer by Cumberland just before the shot clock expired and a jump shot by Williams expanded UC's lead to a commanding 25 points with12:23 left. At that point, the Bearcats had made eight of 12 field goal attempts and were four-for-four from three-point range in the second half.
As the second half unfolded and the Bearcats continued to build on their lead – it reached 31 points at its apex – the crowd began to chant, "Just like football," a reference to the Bearcats' victory over the UCLA in football in their season opener last August.
UC made a season-high 12 three-point shots in 21 attempts and shot 52.4 percent from the field and held UCLA to 40.4 percent. The Bearcats made 15 of 20 free throws, out-rebounded UCLA 38-25 and forced 14 turnovers while committing only six. The Bearcats outscored the Bruins 20-7 in points off turnovers and 30-22 in the paint despite UCLA's size advantage.
It all made for a very crowd-pleasing evening in the new arena.
"I heard Coach Huggins was here tonight," said Cronin, who started his collegiate coaching career under Huggins. "I hope we made him proud."
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.