VCU Rams 68, Cincinnati Bearcats 47: That Was Havoc

The Cincinnati Bearcats were drubbed on their home floor 68-47 to the VCU Rams playing without their head coach Mick Cronin, who was sidelined with an unruptured aneurysm.

Larry Davis led this team admirrably in his stead but it’s difficult to replace the experience of their 9-year big man. For example, the Bearcats utilized an almost exclusive zone defense in the first half and VCU ate it alive. Typically the 2-3 is used to slow down poor shooting three-point teams or those with unimposing big men. The Rams are certainly the latter but most definitely a solid from beyond the arc. They showed it today by hitting eight of them in the first half alone. Cincinnati’s defense only allows five per game.

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But Davis stuck with the zone, not leveraging the Bearcats’ obvious size advantage over the guard-centric Rams in man-to-man. So it’s not really a surprise that Cincinnati was down 13 at halftime and never really made a game of it in the second half.

UC simply failed to do the things they normally do properly on defense (rotating quickly, keeping their hands up, etc.) and I have to believe the lack of Mick Cronin on the sideline was a major factor in that. VCU’s “havoc” offense torched Cincinnati, which at the very least will hopefully provide a great learning experience for this young team.

Next UC hosts the Wagner Seahawks on Tuesday. Hopefully Mick Cronin will be deemed healthy enough coach his Bearcats to a rebound win.