Cincinnati Basketball: Bearcats survive second half surge to secure 73-64 win over UCF

Following a dominant first half performance, the Bearcats held off a late surge to escape with a 73-64 win over UCF to improve to 16-8 on Saturday afternoon.

Despite leading by double digits for most of the second half, Cincinnati allowed UCF to tie it with just over two minutes left before eventually sealing the win.

Just moments after finding Viktor Lakhin for a layup to regain the lead, David DeJulius knocked down a clutch stepback 3-pointer to put the Bearcats up 66-62.

Lakhin scored a team-high 20 points and eight rebounds, while DeJulius finished with 19 points and seven assists on 4/6 shooting from beyond the arc.

Cincinnati Basketball: Bearcats survive second half surge to secure 73-64 win over UCF

Wes Miller’s team was active defensively from the opening tip en route to recording the most takeaways since 2015 with 24 forced turnovers and 16 steals.

Cincinnati will look to extend the win streak at Tulane on Tuesday night with an opportunity to move into fourth place in the conference standings.

During a postgame press conference, Miller discussed the critical win and how the Bearcats can continue to improve moving forward per Cincinnati Athletics.

"“I told the guys in the locker room that you have to win games sometimes when things don’t go your way. At the end there, it got a lot more interesting than I thought it needed to be. I was really pleased with the majority of things we did until that point then we just got casual. We stopped doing the things we work on in practice everyday. What I’m really pleased with is we just found a way. That’s the most important quality of a good team and we have to build on that part of it. We have been steadily improving over time and that has to continue because we certainly haven’t arrived. The minute you think you’ve arrived is when you take those steps backward. I think that’s the mentality that we have to have all the time. Our crowd and students were a factor tonight. I thought they gave us a great lift.”"