Following the close loss to Butler on Wednesday night, the Cincinnati Bearcats got back on track with a comfortable 87-66 win over Morgon State thanks to a strong performance from their front court.
That’s the formula for success this season, leaning on UC’s tall, lanky big men to dominate the paint. They didn’t exactly leverage them against the Bulldogs. Sure, Ellis dropped a team high 16 points on Butler but did a large amount of his damage from the line, going 8-10. He only took four shots from the field. The same for Gary Clark and Coreontae DeBerry only shot twice.
Not against Morgan State. Ellis went 6-7 from the field, Clark 4-6, and DeBerry 4-5. It’s no surprise that those three were among the team’s leaders in points last night as a result, with 13, 13, and 11 respectively. If the Bearcats want to win a boatload of games this year these three need to be the ones to hoist this team on their very broad shoulders. UC boasts one of the most talented, experienced front courts in the country. While they’ll see a ton of zone this year since I assume most opponents even remotely scout Cincinnati, the Bearcats need to find a way to feed it inside.
They didn’t do that to a high degree against Butler and it cost them.
UC played about as perfect as they could against a lesser opponent except for the three ball. Cincinnati shot a what is now uncharacteristic 20.7% from three, with Troy Caupain going an ice cold 0-8 from beyond the arc. Kevin Johnson and Farad Cobb weren’t a whole heck of a lot better going 2-9 and 2-6 themselves respectively. Part of that can be attributed to the Bears’ perimeter defense, which is 16th best in the country, so we can pretty much write off the guards’ performance from three last night.
Cincinnati hits the floor again Saturday in the always much anticipated Crosstown Shootout against the #12 Xavier Musketeers.