TULSA, Okla. – The University of Cincinnati men's basketball team's hopes of making the NCAA Tournament were all but dashed Saturday night.
The Bearcats were outscored 44-26 in the paint and suffered an 83-77 loss at Tulsa, the last-place team in the American Athletic Conference.
"When you lose games when you don't defend people, it's really hard to swallow," UC coach Wes Miller told The Enquirer.
The Bearcats (16-8, 6-5) entered Saturday with eight regular-season games left and an outside shot at receiving an at-large bid to the dance with a late-season surge. Now, UC is going to have to win the AAC Tournament (March 10-13 in Fort Worth, Texas) in order to push its season into late March.
The Golden Hurricane (8-15, 2-10) led wire-to-wire only 23 days after Cincinnati defeated Tulsa 90-68 at home.
More:UC Bearcats, Wes Miller rout Tulsa for third straight win in AAC play
UC guard David DeJulius topped the 20-point mark for the third straight game. The 6-foot senior scored a team-high 23 points in the losing effort.
Jeriah Horne and Darien Jackson each scored 21 points for Tulsa, which shot 53% (32-for-61) from the field versus just 38% (28-for-74) for the Bearcats.
"They shoot 50% from the floor in both halves. If that happens, you're not going to win," said Miller on what his message was to his team following the loss. "That's not who we are. That's not how we've found any kind of success that we've found so far this year. It's pretty much just that simple. We've got to be a team that guards every single night. We've been doing that well. But we can't let it ever slip."
Tulsa opened the game in a 1-2-2 zone defensively and it gave the Bearcats fits. Cincinnati started 2-for-11 from the field and fell into an early 17-6 hole.
But Mason Madsen hopped off the bench and knocked down a 3-pointer, Viktor Lakhin added a dunk and DeJulius scored back-to-back baskets to spark a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 17-15.
After Cincinnati pulled to within 19-18 with less than nine minutes to play in the first half, the Golden Hurricane countered with another offensive spurt.
Led by Horne's 12 first-half points, Tulsa climbed to a 35-23 lead at the 4:19 mark. But DeJulius and Davenport did their best to keep the Bearcats within striking distance.
More:Playing with renewed confidence, David DeJulius steps into go-to role for UC Bearcats
DeJulius finished the first half with 11 points and Jeremiah Davenport added eight as UC trailed 39-34 at the break.
Davenport finished the night with 15 points and nine rebounds as the Bearcats cut it to 73-71 with 4:38 to play.
Mika Adams-Woods added 10 points and five rebounds. The junior guard shot 4-for-17 including 0-7 from 3-point range.
Cincinnati is back home Tuesday to face Memphis. Tip is scheduled for 7 p.m. on ESPN+. The game is a makeup of the originally scheduled Feb. 3 matchup that was postponed due to inclement weather.
The Bearcats will wear alternate throwback uniforms that pay homage to former UC head coach Gale Catlett's teams that earned three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids in the 1970s (1975-77).
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