Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Clamps down in Second Half to Beat UCF 68-57

Cincinnati played its best defensive half of the season to storm back and beat UCF.

Author:
Russ Heltman
Jan 27, 2024 9:09 PM EST

In this story:

CINCINNATI — A tale of two halves in Clifton as Cincinnati escaped UCF 68-57 on Saturday night behind a nice birthday performance from Dan Skillings (21 points, seven rebounds, two assists).

The two top-25 defenses nationally showed their teeth in a grinder that featured some fantastic man-to-man defense and an intense environment. The Bearcats trailed by 12 at the break, but held UCF to just 18 points in the second half to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes on track.

Cincinnati is now 16-5 all-time against UCF as they try to stack a win streak in conference play.

Second-Half Drought Seals

The Bearcats played some rough defense in the first half but tightened the issues up to help spark a five-minute UCF scoring drought that played a huge role in Cincinnati's win.

It was a classic defensive stretch from Wes Miller's team with elite man-to-man rotations and multiple shot-clock violations. The team understood how much they had to lock in across the second half and got it done thanks to a spearheading effort from John Newman III (19 points, seven rebounds).

He was the heart of The Undertaker-like rebirth that might end up saving Cincinnati's chances to make the 2024 NCAA Tournament down the line. It got cemented with the nastiest poster dunk by a UC player I've seen on this beat.

Newman's intensity was met by the birthday boy, Skillings, who skied for plenty of big plays throughout the game and had a few crucial ones in that stretch.

Cincinnati got the crunch time perimeter performances it needed on Saturday night as those two led the team in Game Score.

Havoc Travels

Cincinnati ran into a defensive buzzsaw on Saturday night as UCF forced 12 turnovers and had their hands on the ball all game long. UCF's top-10 defense by adjusted efficiency thrives off havoc like that and it came in handy for the underdogs.

The Bearcats were pestered in the half-court and never got into a good rhythm with their high-percentage looks. UCF's entire rotation had a good eye for when to poke at the ball and it screwed up the whole operation.

Cincinnati shot 46.2% from the field in a game that they desperately needed to win after a 2-4 start as a Big 12 team. UCF is arguably the best on-ball defensive team they've played this season.

The Knights's top defensive player was on the floor for less than 10 minutes due to foul trouble. The lack of Ibrahima Diallo (no stats) hurt UCF on the defensive end in the second half.

They went away from the ordinary by making their shots from deep (8-for-17), while Cincinnati continued to struggle with any deep looks as they are now below 30% in conference play.

Sellers & Avery At Your Service

UCF brought the offensive pain with a 1-2 punch from Marchelus Avery (19 points, seven rebounds) and Jaylin Sellers (19 points, two assists).

The two combined for over half of the Knights's points as they hunted sweet spots well and just made some nasty shots against an otherwise strong defense. UCF lives in the paint and them have any impact there

The two were sharpshooters from deep on a team that entered shooting just over 30% from outside. That helped open the paint and led to some contact around the rim. Sellers brought a nasty fire to this game, and Avery answered with an awesome performance from his slinky frame.

Avery's biggest bucket was probably the second-half drought buster to help UCF hang onto a tight lead for just a bit longer.

It was his best scoring performance in conference play as he tested Cincinnati's frontcourt depth without Lakhin.

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