Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Handles East Carolina 79-71

The Bearcats are playing some of their best basketball of the season since that ugly first half against Tulane.

Author:
Russ Heltman
Updated:
Jan 13, 2022 7:20 AM EST

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats carried their momentum from a strong showing against Memphis right into Wednesday's 79-71 victory over East Carolina.

UC turned the offense into defense in the first half, where they shot a season-high 58.6%. ECU faced a terrible schedule of defenses so far this year and the Bearcats took advantage before the Pirates knew what hit them.

The intensity was palpable on that end of the floor, and the jump-shooting confidence is starting to follow. Here's the Three Man Weave from Cincinnati's second conference win of the season.

No, No, No, Newton

There are more talented teams scattered across the country, but there might not be one that defends man-to-man with the sound fundamentals that UC displays game in and game out. Cincinnati forced 15 turnovers while allowing ECU to shoot 40.7% from the field.

From the backcourt to the frontcourt, each player communicates succinctly each possession and never faces a major mismatch athletically. Cincinnati took it on the chin from Vance Jackson (season-high 35 points, nine rebounds), but they did a great job bottling up ECU's lead playmaker.

Tristen Newton (11 points, 4-for-11 from the field, four assists) came into the game as the Pirates leading scorer and assist man. Cincinnati had active hands ready whenever he drove (game-high four turnovers) and made sure that ECU's best weapon wasn't taking them out.

David Dejulius, Mike Saunders, and Mika Adams-Woods took the assignment for much of the night. No one in that trio did it alone.

Cincinnati forced 12 turnovers in the game and wasted no time turning those chances into points. UC edged ECU 20-14 in points off of turnovers and sped up the fast break when they had numbers—the Bearcats beat ECU 17-8 on fast break points.

Davenport Ready To Eat

The Bearcats leading scorer kept up that status with a team-high 22 points and six rebounds. Davenport squeezed every bit of juice out of a shaky shooting night. He finished 3-for-10 from deep but didn't let a second-half shooting slump slow his intensity.

Davenport was perfect at the line (3-for-3) and played critical defense on a red-hot Jackson late in the game. Speaking of late-game heroics, Davenport canned the dagger triple with less than two minutes left, icing the victory.

The streaky scorer played with top-tier aggression on Wednesday night—leading all UC players in usage rate (21.4%) and game score (12.9). On another note, the Bearcats got another victory when Mason Madsen hit some shots from outside. He went 3-for-4 from deep and Cincinnati is now 4-0 in his career when the guard hits three-plus triples.

Vance Jackson Rains Fire From Deep

Jackson came into this game as ECU's most-efficient shooter on the outside, and that continued against Cincinnati. The 6-foot-9 senior finished 8-for-11 from three-point range and secured a game-high nine rebounds.

Jackson got hot early and kept putting up shots on a season-high 24 field goal attempts. Other than the three-point outburst, Jackson attacked the basket nicely and showed some veteran timing by cutting behind double teams and finding easy looks. The forward was ECU's only player that finished with positive net points in the game (+3.9). He also led all players on either team in game score (25) and usage rate (28.6%).

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