The Cincinnati Bearcats made ineffectual work of closing out the Memphis Tigers on Sunday and paid for it with a loss. Three days later, UC's effort to close out the visiting East Carolina Pirates also had its share of imperfections.
The Bearcats at least managed the win against ECU, however.
UC led the Pirates by as many as 20 points but saw the visitors close within five points with 3:15 to play. A test of UC's late-game nerve would follow, and the Bearcats narrowly passed the test – a necessary improvement after dropping the Memphis game despite leading it with under a minute to go.
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Cincinnati held off hard-charging ECU in a 79-71 win Wednesday at Fifth Third Arena before an announced crowd of 7,911.
Initially, the Bearcats dominated the proceedings and didn't appear to be in store for the nervy final stretch that was eventually required.
"I wasn't pleased in the second half. I can't imagine anybody that is a Cincinnati Bearcat fan was pleased with what they were watching in the second half," UC head coach Wes Miller said. "Give East Carolina credit. I mean, to be down 20 at halftime and come out and fight like that, to cut it to five (points) late in the game – that's a heck of an effort. That's a big margin to overcome. I think they had something to do with it.
"Certainly pleased with the win. I think we need to learn a little bit from this one and I think this team wants to learn and wants to do it right."
The win saw UC improve to 12-5 overall and 2-2 in the American Athletic Conference.
East Carolina fell to 10-5 and 1-2 in the league.
After an impressive, 21-point output at Memphis, Jeremiah Davenport enjoyed another strong showing as he went for 22 points on 8-for-16 shooting. He also tacked on six rebounds.
With Davenport leading the offense in the first half with nine points, UC led by double figures by the 15:44 mark of the half and, with 6:49 left in the period, were up 20. Come the halftime buzzer, the 20-point lead remained intact.
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Like most respectable college programs, though, ECU figured to be good for a run that made things interesting before UC pulled away. But the initial 7-0 run at the outset of the second half morphed into a constant second-half theme for the Pirates.
By the 11-minute mark, ECU had Cincinnati's lead down to nine. Home fans grew further restless as ECU cut the lead to five.
Vance Jackson was the Pirates' primary offensive facilitator as he went off for a game-high 35 points on 13-for-24 shooting.
"Vance Jackson was incredible. We were talking about it and we talked about it a lot in the scouting report," Miller said. "We talked about how we were going to defend him and some of the things we were going to do within their actions, and he had one heck of a night.
"We tried to make some changes in terms of who was guarding him and how we were guarding him, and it didn't really matter. Give him credit for coming in here and having a night."
Tristen Newton chipped in 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting for ECU.
Davenport's continued offensive output was necessary down the stretch as he did 13 points worth of damage in the second half. He was UC's only double-figure scorer until the final minute when John Newman III's breakaway dunk put him at 10 points for the evening.
Newman III also chipped in four steals and six rebounds.
David DeJulius was held scoreless in the second half and finished with seven points.
"Coach told us after the game that we've got to do a better job of finishing," Davenport said. "It's conference play now, so anything can happen. So, now we just have to lock in every game, every game, every day. That's what we took from it (the Memphis game)."
Despite imperfect foul-shooting late, unrefined guard play on the offensive end, and a second half shooting percentage of 36.7 – down from a 58.6% clip in the first half – the Bearcats hung on.
Miller credited his side for a strong finish over the final three-plus minutes, which included aggressive defense.
"I was really pleased in the last three, three-and-a-half minutes. I thought when we needed to, we buckled down and got stops," Miller said. "Flying around, getting deflections. Maybe had five deflections in the last four minutes of the game, and I think it shows that we're a good basketball team when we really defend, when all five guys are really engaged and trying to defend.
"You could see that we wanted to do that to win the game and close the game out. You could see that we wanted to do that in the first half. We can't ever turn that light switch off. It's just got to stay on all the time, and that's what I talked about with the guys in the locker room."
UC continues AAC play Sunday at Wichita State (1 p.m. ET).
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