After a rough week with losses against Houston followed by Wichita State, Cincinnati bounced back to dismantle UCONN 77-52. Gary Clark led the way with an efficient 17 points in 20 minutes on 6-7 from the floor. Other game standouts have to go to Kane Broome. Broome tallied 13 points with 4 assists and no turnovers off of the bench. Broome Iced the cake with a great steal and dunk to end the first half. Netting himself a standing ovation. Broome is making it very difficult on Mick to choose the starting point guard after Brooms recent performance. Jenifer must be feeling that seat getting hot.
Offensive flow seemed smooth for a team that at times seemed not he wrong page of each other in the past two games. The Bearcats assisted on 22 of the 28 made field goals. The number 2 ranked team int he nation showed out on defense Thursday night keeping the Huskies to 29% scoring. From a personal perspective Clark helped his case for all american leading the team with a 214 offensive rating
Gary Clark is showing students and alumni alike why they will truly miss the senior ending hot on what is a magical season. While the Cat’s 25 point win seems like a route. The game seemed to be even further out of reach than the score states for the huskies. Kevin Ollie’s team went into a slow paced defense to stop the bleeding as soon as the second half started. It’s sad to see at some point, the demise of Uconn. With the Huskies as one of the top teams in college basketball in the past twenty years, their downward spiral hurts the AAC. One of the biggest marks against Cincinnati’s tournament resume over the past few years has been strength of schedule. Those extra two competitive games would be huge for the bearcats tourney resume. Next up the bearcats play host to Tulsa in the senior night for Gary Clark and Kyle Washington’s last game in Clifton.
Non basketball notes for this game included how amazed I was by the halftime show. The leading act Thursday night was the Firecrackers jump rope team. This group absolutely blew me away. For the close to five minute stretch that the teams program ran it just kept getting more and more impressive. Anything from backflip jumprope to having multiple dancers jumping through the same rope at once. By the end of the show the entire crowd got to their feet to applaud these talented kids. I went out and found some video footage to back up how talented these kids are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7hxK9d1sm8. An absolute show stealer, as well as some thing to keep the fans in the seats at a halftime performance
Overall I had a great time at the game. My only complaint was missing the tipoff from the lack of parking at NKU campus. Northern Kentucky University is just flat out not large enough to house the numbers that Cincinnati games draw from a parking and traffic perspective. All this will be solved next year as the re vamping of fifth third arena is completed.