TicketsCINCINNATI — The Jerrod Calhoun era officially has begun in the Queen City, as the Cincinnati men’s basketball team recorded a 79-53 season-opening victory over American Monday night at Fifth Third Arena.
“You have to give American a lot of credit,” the Bearcats' first-year head coach said. “I thought they were really ready to play. We had a lot of really bad breakdowns in the first half, and then thought we let our inability to score the basketball impact some of our defense in that first half, but I’m proud of these guys. I thought we took a lot of ‘me’ shots early, so we settled. Four of our first five shots were contested threes. I hadn’t seen that group do that. Not to say we’re selfish, I just think we were way too antsy and hopefully will be more settled on Thursday.”
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The Bearcats led just 35-33 at halftime but put together an early-second half 12-0 burst and pulled away from there. Cincinnati built a 49-37 lead with 14:14 left, then held the Eagles to 1-of-13 shooting over nearly eight minutes to stretch the margin to 63-45 with 6:28 remaining.
MJ Collins Jr. led the way on both ends with 13 points and four steals. Tyler Tejada also scored 13, going 3-of-5 from 3-point range. David Iweze filled the stat sheet with eight points, seven rebounds and four steals, and his plus-24 rating was the best of any player in the game. Tylen Riley and Elijah Perryman each had five assists.
Cincinnati dominated the numbers across the board. The Bearcats had 15 steals to American’s four, outrebounded the Eagles 48-32 and held advantages of 41-15 in bench points and 40-14 in the paint. Eleven Bearcats scored.
Cincinnati’s first points of the season came off the bench. Riley Allenspach checked in for an injured Jayden Hastings at the 18:46 mark and immediately made a 3-pointer. Hastings returned briefly before leaving the game again.
Akai Fleming’s dunk sent the Fifth Third Arena crowd to its feet and put the Bearcats back in front 12-11. A 3-pointer by Trevian Carson then sparked a run that pushed the lead to 20-14 with 10:56 left in the half.
Collins Jr. stole the ball at midcourt and took it the length of the floor for a dunk. On the next possession, Riley came up with a steal, and Myles Colvin drove downhill for an and-one finish that made it 27-16.
The Eagles then began to chip away. Madden Collins spearheaded a 12-1 run, scoring nine of the points, to tie the game at 33 with just under a minute left in the half. Collins Jr. then made two free throws to give Cincinnati a 35-33 lead at the break.
Allenspach led the Bearcats with six points at halftime, while Collins paced American with 14. Neither team shot well, with the Eagles at 10-for-28 (36%) and Cincinnati at 12-for-29 (41%).
Cincinnati came out firing after the break, as 3-pointers by Tejada and Collins Jr. highlighted the opening burst that made it 49-37. American went 0-of-12 from 3-point range in the half.
The defense then took over. Iweze had a dunk, a 3-pointer and a steal in a nine-point spurt that forced the Eagles into a timeout, trailing 60-41 with 8:07 to play.
A layup by Riley pushed the lead to 69-45 with 5:35 on the clock, and a one-handed fast-break dunk by Eric Mahaffey with 1:15 left put an exclamation point on the 26-point win.