CINCINNATI — There are no more tune-ups. Ready or not, the Bearcats are jumping head-first into college basketball’s toughest conference.
Simas Lukosius keyed a 26-4 second-half outburst and finished with 15 points as the host Cincinnati Bearcats rallied past the short-handed Evansville Purple Aces, 76-58, Friday night.
John Newman III led Cincinnati (11-2) with 16 points while Yacine Toumi scored 17 and Kenny Strawbridge added 14 to pace Evansville (10-3).
The Bearcats wiped out an eight-point halftime deficit by outscoring Evansville, 44-18, in the second half.
“I certainly am pleased with the second half,” Cincinnati coach Wes Miller said. “If we play with that type of defensive activity, energy and intention, we have a chance to be a competitive team in our league. We have to decide that we’re going to be that way every night for 40 minutes. I think when this team makes that conscious decision that that’s the most important thing for our team to figure out, then we are going to be good. We can’t be a light switch team. We can’t be a team that turns it on and turns it off, and in the first half the light switch wasn’t on and that was really disappointing.”
Evansville took the court without top scorer Ben Humrichous (16.3 points per game) and Chuck Bailey III (10.7 ppg), both sitting out with injuries.
But without their top two scorers, the Aces, led by Toumi’s 13 first-half points, still found a way to silence the partisan Bearcats crowd early.
Cincinnati was also short-handed as big man Aziz Bandaogo missed his third straight game with a back injury while CJ Fredrick sat out with a hamstring injury.
Evansville used a tenacious defense to pressure the ball, forcing six turnovers and holding Cincinnati scoreless for over four minutes late in the first half. During the four-minute span, Evansville ran off 10 straight points to take a 38-29 lead.
Miller called timeout, the crowd booed the Bearcats. They also booed the Bearcats off the court as they went to the locker room trailing 40-32 at the half. Miller didn’t scream or yell at halftime. He didn’t need to.
“I’d have been booing if I could damn boo,” Cincinnati coach Wes Miller told me. “I was probably booing in my own coaching way. You should boo that. It was terrible. But I’ve probably come a long way like I’m trying to get better and grow every every damn year. I love trying to get better just like we asked the players to do and I probably lost my mind and yelled and screamed. I didn’t do that.
“I just tried to point out the things that we had to do because I think these are really good kids that want to be good. I just think they’re still learning what it takes to be good. So it’s not about yelling and screaming because it’s not like they don’t want to be good or they don’t want to perform. It’s about trying to teach them and I’m not very damn patient, but I’m trying to do a good job of coaching those moments.”
Wes Miller says he would’ve booed the first half too. pic.twitter.com/ibi0I9trIg
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) December 30, 2023
Toumi made a short stepback jumper to open the second half and give Evansville its biggest lead, 42-32, just 16 seconds into the second half.
From that point, Cincinnati took complete control, thanks to defense and three-point shooting.
With under 12 minutes left, Lukosius drained a three in transition, his fourth triple in five attempts. Josh Reed added another three on the next possession and Cincinnati took a 57-46 lead.
Meanwhile, Evansville went over 10 minutes without a field goal as Cincinnati built its lead up to 12, 58-46.
“I think our defense is are super power,” Newman said. “Whenever we play with activity and we’re flying around getting deflections, getting loose balls that kind of gets our offense rolling because we get to get out in transition and run get easy baskets. It was great to see Simas knock down a bunch of shots. That’s what he does. So it was good to see him and everybody just got going I think but I think it starts on the defensive end for us. We need to continue to try to work at it every day to make that our identity.”
“I am glad that we responded in the second half and found a way to win the game,” Miller said. “We have to decide that we’re going to be the way we were in that second half every second of every possession. If we play like that in the league we are going into and the games we are about to start playing, it will give us a chance. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to win, but that’s going to give us a dang chance.
“If we play the way we did in the first half, it doesn’t matter who we play against, we’re not going to have a chance. I’m pleased that we responded in the second half. There’s a lot of things that were positive there, but I’m really disappointed in how we played in the first half.”
“Any team I’ve coached, if we played a half like that I’d go in, yell, scream l, break things. I didn’t do that” Wes Miller on halftime talk to his team. pic.twitter.com/G5z1yQx3GI
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) December 30, 2023
Newman heard the boos and took it as constructive.
“They care a lot. They care about it here. I’m thankful to be a part of a program where the fans care that much,” Newman told me. “I mean no one likes to be booed. But the fact that they even care tells us that we need to step up our game and then we need to do something different. So I don’t take things like that hard. I just showed me that they care
“It’s just all about the response. You know how we’re going to respond to it. Oboviously, they love us they want to see us play good a good brand of basketball and we weren’t doing that in the first half. So, I’m glad we responded and you know, it’s not always ideal.”
The win was Cincinnati’s first over Evansville since the last meeting between the two schools on Nov. 9, 2021. That night, the Bearcats prevailed, 65-43, in Wes Miller’s first game as Cincinnati head coach.
It was the final non-conference game for both schools as Cincinnati opens its first-ever Big 12 season on Jan. 6 at BYU while Evansville returns to Missouri Valley Conference play on Jan. 3 at Indiana State.
“It felt very good” Simas Lukosius on his 5 3s that sparked Bearcats big second half rally pic.twitter.com/mvBJXX0RHN
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) December 30, 2023
