No. 20 Cincinnati Falls to No. 12 Houston on Senior Day, 85-69

By Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com

CINCINNATI – Mick Cronin insisted that he was serious. He even asked if Luke Fickell had started spring practice yet, suggesting that perhaps he could recruit a few football players to right the ship. 

"We'll have tryouts at 3 o'clock tomorrow to see who goes to Memphis," the University of Cincinnati coach said after the Bearcats absorbed an 85-69 Senior Day blowout loss to Houston on Sunday before a sellout crowd of 12,701 at Fifth Third Arena.
    
The loss cost the Bearcats a chance to share the American Athletic Conference regular-season championship with the Cougars and sent them into the conference tournament in Memphis with a two-game losing streak.
 
UC led 47-41 with 13:33 remaining when Houston coach Kelvin Sampson called time out. After the timeout the Cougars scored 11 straight points to take a 52-47 lead and extended the run to 16-2 to make it 57-49 with 11:03 remaining.

The Bearcats have been resilient all season after falling behind in the second half, but that wasn't going to happen against Houston, which outscored UC 23-14 over the final 7:07.

Corey Davis Jr. scored a career-high 31 points to lead the Cougars, who shot 50 percent in the second half. Jarron Cumberland scored 20 to lead UC. The Bearcats shot 38 percent from the field.

No. 20 UC (25-6 overall, 14-4 in the American) suffered its first two-game losing streak of the season and will be the No. 2 seed in this week's conference tournament in Memphis. They'll play at 7 p.m Friday against the winner of Thursday's first-round game between the No. 7 seed and the No.10 seed. No. 12 Houston (29-2, 16-2) will be the No. 1 seed.

Houston's 85 points were the most allowed by a UC team since the Bearcats lost to Xavier 89-76 on Dec. 2, 2017. The 16-point margin of defeat was the largest since they lost 75-59 at Temple on Feb. 10, 2015. It was their most lopsided defeat at home since a 68-47 loss to Virginia Commonwealth on Dec. 20, 2014.     

What really troubled Cronin, though, was the fact that Houston out-rebounded UC 42-28 and seized 18 offensive rebounds.

"It was a tough battle on the glass," said UC center Nysier Brooks, who scored 16 points and pulled down six rebounds. "They got the better of us today."
     
That was an understatement.

"When you give a team with that kind of firepower…we gave them way too many chances," Cronin said. "Eventually the dam is going to break."

UC led by eight in the first half, but trailed by two at halftime. Houston missed 10 of its first 11 shots in the second half when it looked as if the Bearcats would prevail. But that was just the calm before the storm. Once the Cougars, especially Davis, got things rolling there was no stopping them. 

"We had a lot of mistakes defensively," said UC forward Trevon Scott. "They had a lot of open threes. It was just mental mistakes."

But mental mistakes don't lead to such an overwhelming beating on the boards. 

"Around here we've won a lot of game because nobody gets 18 offensive rebounds against us," Cronin said. "When you play a team like that you've got no chance if you give up 18 offensive rebounds. If you're going to get on the plane and represent the team I coach, you're going to block out."

Asked where he thought his players' heads are at as they enter the postseason, Cronin said, "They need to worry about where my head's at. They need to be embarrassed, just like their coach is."

Cronin then drew on his experience as an assistant coach under Bob Huggins in the early years of his career to put the loss into perspective and to point to a way forward.

"When you're in real program it can never be OK to lose," Cronin said. "The one thing I learned from Bob Huggins is that it was never OK to lose. He never let it be OK to lose. It was the same thing with my father and the same thing with Rick Pitino. When you allow that, you're in trouble. So tomorrow we're going to practice and we're going to see who wants to play.

"Today we got outplayed. They've got a great team. We gave them too many opportunities and the dam broke. We can't allow that. But we had a great season."

The season's not over yet. The Bearcats will try to recover in time to make a run in the conference tournament and then will make their ninth straight NCAA Tournament appearance. But they'll head into both tournaments with a bad taste in their mouths.  

"There's not a whole lot to say when you get whipped that bad physically," Cronin said.

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.