The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Huskies nip Bearcats in OT
STORRS — Cincinnati has been as close as UConn has had as a rival in its seven years in the American Athletic Conference, but it’s been rather one-sided in recent years.
The last time the Huskies had defeated the
Bearcats, prior to Sunday, came in the 2016 AAC tournament, when Jalen Adams hit a 75-footer to force a fourth and final overtime.
The teams’ final regularseason meeting as AAC foes on Sunday required only one overtime and didn’t have any 75-footers — though it nearly had a 50-footer. Christian Vital’s near-halfcourt heave at the end of regulation fell short, but for the first time in four tries this season, the Huskies didn’t fall short in overtime and emerged with a 72-71 victory.
On the heels of Thursday night’s win at Tulsa, UConn (13-10, 4-6 AAC) has now defeated the AAC’s firstplace team in consecutive games, and won two games in a row for the first time since the New Year began.
“It just shows we’re learning,” sophomore guard Brendan Adams said. “We’re learning from those games where we couldn’t close it, and now we’re winning the big games.”
It’s the program’s first win in OT since beating Monmouth on Dec. 2, 2017.
“We needed one like that,” UConn coach Dan Hurley exhaled. “Desperately.”
Once again, it was freshman James Bouknight who stepped up biggest. The dynamic guard scored 11 of UConn’s first 13 points in the second half, hit a tough 3-pointer to get the Huskies within a point with 5 1/2 minutes left in regulation, then buried a lane jumper with 1:06 remaining in regulation to tie the game at 67.
“That boy, he’s different, man,” Vital said of Bouknight.
Bouknight’s two free throws with 1:05 left in OT also provided the final points of the game. He finished with a career-high 23 points, three nights after pouring in 22 at Tulsa, and has emerged as UConn’s go-to scorer.
“I think I’m ready for it,” the 6-foot-4 guard said. “I score the ball. If they need me to score, I’m gonna go score.”
Vital added 19 points in a thoroughly symbolic performance. The senior guard jacked up a couple of illtimed shots — including a missed 3-pointer with 14 seconds left in OT. But he also made two of the game’s biggest hustle plays, running down a loose ball after Akok Akok had turned the ball over that led to the possession where Bouknight hit his lane jumper, and scoring on a putback of a missed Adams jumper with 1:51 left in OT to get the Huskies to within a point.
“Angel or devil,” Hurley said, with a smirk. “Christian did ‘Vital’ us a couple of times in the second half. But the good far outweighed the bad.”
Indeed, Vital also spent most of the game guarding Cincy leading scorer and reigning AAC Player of the Year Jarron Cumberland, who was held to just eight points on 1-for-11 shooting.
Cumberland saved his biggest misses for the end of regulation and overtime. He missed a driving layup with 24.2 seconds left in regulation and UConn’s Josh Carlton grabbed the rebound but stepped out of bounds. Cumberland drove to the hole in the waning seconds but mishandled it, and this time Vital came up with the loose ball that led to his missed 50-footer.
With four seconds left in overtime and Cincy trailing by one, Cumberland missed on a drive again, and the ball went out of bounds with 2.7 ticks left off the Bearcats. However, after a replay review, the officials awarded the ball back to Cincy.
Mika Adams-Woods inbounded to Cumberland, who put the ball on the floor and unleashed a fallaway. It appeared Cumberland was fouled by Vital on the play, but there was no call. Time had seemingly expired before Cumberland got his shot off, though he might have been fouled before the final buzzer.
“I knew with this crowd that we would really have to foul to call a foul,” said Hurley. “With a crew like that, they weren’t gonna bail him out on that shot-fake, fallinto-the-guy, flop and falldown at the end.”
Cincinnati fell to 15-8, 8-3. First-year Bearcats coach John Brannen wasn’t about to complain about the potential no-call at the end of overtime.
“This game was lost with 18 offensive rebounds given up and 11 3-point shots given up,” he said. “Not great execution at the end, that’s on me. The out-of-bounds play, we had one option. It happened late, so it was hard to see. Give them credit, they took away our main options.”
Adams added 16 points, including four 3-pointers — the first two following a Hurley timeout after Cincy had opened up a 28-18 lead with 6:20 left in the first half. That kicked off UConn’s 16-2 run to halftime that gave it a 34-30 lead.
It’s the type of confidence that UConn is beginning to muster after a half-dozen near-misses over the past month. Ironically, however, it was the Huskies’ most confident player who tempered things a bit when it was over.
“Obviously it’s big-time for us, confidence-wise,” Vital said. “We’ve got to move on, though. We’re gonna enjoy ourselves this night, sleep a little bit better tonight, but we’ve got a road game at SMU coming up (on Wednesday). So, we’ve got to keep going. We can’t be satisfied at all.”