Cincinnati rallies for rout of Illinois
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Cincinnati coach Wes Miller had no idea who he was watching early on against Illinois on Monday night.
Not because he’s in his first year with the Bearcats, either.
“We weren’t playing our defensive principles. We weren’t alert. We weren’t executing offensively,” Miller said.
It took two media timeouts for the Bearcats to rediscover themselves. And when they did, they mounted a big firsthalf charge to take a stunning halftime lead, then steadily pulled away from the No. 14 Illini for a 71-51 victory that pushed them into the championship game of the Hall of Fame Classic.
“Sometimes you’re going to get your butt kicked, that’s part of college basketball,” Miller said. “I don’t like it but that’s part of it, and if we were going to get our butt kicked, let’s get it kicked our way. And I thought our guys really adjusted and we started to play the way we had the first four games of the year.”
Mike Saunders Jr. scored 20 points and Jeremiah Davenport added 19 to lead the Bearcats (5-0), who went 17 of 20 from the foul line and won the battle of the boards against the bigger Illini (2-2) inside T-Mobile Center.
That earned the right to play No. 13 Arkansas for the tournament title Tuesday night. “This shows what we can do,” Davenport said. “As a whole group, we just have to go out every night and just execute what we can do at the highest level. You guys saw it tonight.”
Kofi Cockburn, who was suspended the first three games of the season for vio- lating NCAA rules, had 18 points and seven rebounds for the Fighting Illini (2-2). Andre Curbelo added 12 points with five turnovers.
It was the Bearcats’ first win over a ranked team since beating Tennessee on Dec. 18, 2019.