Bearcats Host Temple in Wednesday Showdown

CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati men's basketball team will look to build off its clutch road win Sunday at UCF when it hosts Temple on Wednesday (7 p.m.), its second-to-last home game of the season.

Both teams are tied for fourth in the AAC at 9-6, sitting 1 ½ games ahead of Wichita State (7-7) and the same behind Memphis (10-6).

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Cincinnati picked up a much-needed win on the road Sunday, edging UCF behind David DeJulius' runner in the final second. The Bearcats led by nine with nine to play and 71-66 with 1:20 left, avenging back-to-back heartbreaking road defeats. UC's 15 three-point attempts were its fewest in an AAC game of the Wes Miller tenure, but its 54.7 percent clip from the field was its best in an AAC game this season. The Bearcats also won the boards, 31-24, after suffering a season-low differential at ECU. UC is 15-1 when winning that battle.

DeJulius extended his nation-leading 5-plus assist streak (ESPN Stats and Info) to 13 games. His 144 are 58 more than he had last year, while his 5.1 per game (league-best 6.9 in AAC play) is the highest UC average since Taron Baker in 2002-03. Ody Oguama is 24-for-29 from the field (82.8 percent) his last four games (13.8 ppg), with all three of his double-figure scoring outputs of the year coming over that span. Kalu Ezikpe earned his third-straight start in the absence of Viktor Lakhin (12.5 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 16th nationally at 62.5 FG%), scoring a season-high 12 points while registering a season-high in minutes back-to-back contests (8.2 mpg on the year).

The Bearcats are 17 three-pointers away from matching last year's school record, while its 36.4 percent mark in AAC play leads the league. Seventeen of UC's 18 wins have come when leading at the half. The Bearcats have climbed to 22nd nationally with 10.6 turnovers per game. UC is 16-4 when scoring 70 or more points. UC is also 15th in assist-turnover ratio (1.49), while DeJulius is 16th.

SERIES HISTORY
Temple has won three-straight, snapping a nine-game Cincinnati streak in the series. The last eight meetings have been decided by single-digits (4.1 ppg).

UC was up 27-20 with 7:16 left in the New Year's Day matchup, but the Owls responded from their timeout with a 15-0 run they would not relinquish. The Bearcats pulled within 46-44 in the final 13 minutes, but Temple went on a 9-2 run to take it back.

Key UC freshman reserve Dan Skillings Jr. makes his homecoming after playing at Roman Catholic High School (1.6 miles from campus).

CAPTAIN CLUTCH
DeJulius claimed his second UC buzzer-beater with a runner (0.2 seconds left) for a 73-71 win at UCF on Feb. 19. He took it himself from the top of the key on a sideline set after UC called timeout with 11 seconds left.

DeJulius knocked down the team's only buzzer-beating-like shot of the season on Jan. 30 at ECU. Trailing by one, he secured an offensive rebound off his own missed runner, dribbled once and rolled one around the rim and in for a 60-59 lead with 3.7 seconds left. ECU, with no timeouts left, missed a contested three from the wing.

DeJulius also banked in a three and connected on the succeeding free-throw for a four-point play with 11 seconds left against Xavier this year.

MORE DEJULIUS DEJA VU
DeJulius, an old soul with maturity beyond his years, missed a crucial game-tying shot at Temple in 2021-22. Afterwards, he reflected on it, and it seemed to come to fruition when he made that same shot late in the aforementioned UCF game this year.

"I just missed it. Floater is the shot I shot my whole life. I thought it was good," DeJulius said to The Athletic. "It stings a little bit, because I've been in the gym so much working on creating space and my shot, and I didn't really think about it until I got into the locker room, but I feel like my floater was something I maybe neglected in my workouts. So that kind of sucks when you feel like you didn't prepare.

"I don't think I deserved to make that shot, but I'll get back in the gym and make sure everything is working."

"I just feel like if I put the work in, then I can kind of live with the results. But if something happens and I feel I didn't prepare for it, that's when I feel bad about it," DeJulius said. "So if I didn't feel I had neglected my floater in my workouts and I missed that shot, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. It's just something I wanted to emphasize going forward."