Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Edges East Carolina 60-59 on the Road

UC's defense carried them to another victory in AAC play.

Author:
Russ Heltman
Jan 30, 2022 3:21 PM EST

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats (15-6, 5-3) won a 60-59 thriller on the road against East Carolina (11-9, 2-6) on Sunday in one of the team's best defensive showings this season.

Mika Adams Woods (season-high 21 points) guided UC offensively while the entire team headed up by Abdul Ado (three points, team-high six rebounds, team-high plus-12) showed another reason why this defense is so reliable.

Here's the Three Man Weave from Cincinnati's second one-point win of the season

Defense Travels Again and Dejulius Gets His Second Chance

David Dejulius (14 points, four rebounds) was hard on himself for missing a crucial floater down the stretch of the Bearcats 61-58 loss to Temple but he cashed in against East Carolina.

The Bearcats floor general missed a wild layup with less than 10 seconds left but got the tip out from Viktor Lakhin and made the floater he missed against Temple.

"I've been putting extra time in on that this past week," Dejulius said about his floater skills. "I wanted to get to my spot, If I worked on it I knew I could make it and I was able to get after the rebound. But none of that was possible without my teammates and coaches and a guy like Shooey [Adams-Woods] stepping up to the plate and being himself to put us in a position for me to have that moment and us to have that moment."

It was a massive bucket for a team hanging onto NCAA tournament at-large hopes by a thread. Ado and the defense had a lot to do with that situation being afforded to Cincinnati.

The Bearcats were smothering on that end allowing one player to eclipse a 50% effective FG rate (Vance Jackson) and holding ECU to 15-of-52 from the field. It was the third-lowest shooting percentage from a UC opponent this season (28.8%).

Cincinnati outscored ECU 26-10 in the paint.

"The effect they [Ado, Hayden Koval] have on our defense around the rim, the collective effect of it will never show up in the stat sheet because it's a possession in possession out effect," Miller said about the rim protectors. "We look down at the stat sheet at halftime and I don't think they've made a two-point field goal in the first half."

He was correct. Cincinnati held ECU to 0-of-12 inside the arc to open the game. UC has an identity and it led to a victory in Greenville, North Carolina.

Mika Adams-Woods Attacks The Pirates

The Bearcats best-ballhandler paired his usual sound skillset with a great shooting performance on the road. Adams-Woods found the hot hand early on and UC continued showing its teamwide unselfishness by feeding him immediately.

"My teammates, they found me," Adams-Woods said about getting going early. "The shots just fell you know, being aggressive, and obviously shots fell tonight."

The guard had half of Cincinnati's 32 first-half points and did it in the most efficient spots on the floor. Adams-Woods had plenty to do with Cincinnati's dominant showing in the paint on Sunday. He was aggressive attacking the basket after identifying winning angles to the cup.

"I thought Mika did a tremendous job of carrying us offensively tonight," Wes Miller said after the game. "He's been due for that kind of breakout game because he's been showing it to us in practice all year. We told it to you guys many times. So I was really happy for him."

His efficiency showed up in the numbers, finishing with the highest effective FG percentage in the game among players with more than one attempt. It didn't matter the set, Adams-Woods executed.

He ran start-of-possession plays well, finished out-of-bounds calls at the rim, and stayed in rhythm with his jump shot. If the guard can find consistency like this for a longer stretch down the back half of conference play it changes the offensive ceiling for a team that rarely slips up for long stretches on the other end.

Vance Jackson and Tristen Newton Nearly Steal The Show

Tristen Newton (14 points, 3-of-10 FGs) is the Pirates leading scorer this season but it's hard to tell when ECU plays Cincinnati. Jackson (25 points, 10 rebounds) torched UC on his own again but wasn't quite as efficient along the way (8-of-17 FGs).

The 6-foot-9 versatile forward attacked early like he did in the team's first game (35 points) and was all over the glass in a complete performance.

"Man, gosh he likes playing against the Bearcats doesn't he?" Miller joked after the game. "He probably loves me, he probably loves our basketball team. But listen I thought at times we did a great job of closing to him, making it difficult. You know putting him in tough situations I thought at times we did that, but give him credit he's a great basketball player and has presented a lot of problems for us over two games."

Dejulius carries a large load throughout every 40 minutes of play for UC and Newton finally wore down his on-ball defense just enough to heat up in the final minute. Newton had nine points in the second half and went 3-of-4 from the line.

"He's had a great year to date," Miller said about Newton. "So give him credit first. I thought Dave [Dejulius] you know, probably wore down a little bit defensively. I thought kind of reached in and fouled, and lost defensive discipline. But Dave's guarded him for the majority of two straight games and we've done a nice job, so I think Dave deserves a lot of credit."

Cincinnati takes that nasty defense back home to Fifth Third Arena for throwback night against Memphis on Thursday. The game tips off at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

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