BEARCATS LOSE GROUND ON NCAA BID

March 2, 2009

Coming off the emotion and tense win over West Virginia and former coach Bob Huggins on Thursday night, Cincinnati looked to have little left in the tank on Sunday afternoon when they visited Syracuse in the Carrier Dome.

After the win against WVU gave the Bearcats their eighth win in their last 12 games, they were hoping to show some hunger in a push to make the Big Dance. However, UC Loses Appetite for Tourney (Cincinnati Enquirer) and pushed their backs against in a quest for a bid as SU Bears Down (Syracuse Post-Standard) expecting UC's best shot. Instead, the Bearcats misfired early and often as the Orange cruise to an 87-63 win.

It was not even that close. The Bearcats Were Knocked to the Canvas Early and Often (Post-Standard) as SU raced to a 19-4 lead in the opening minutes, stretched it to 40-17 at the half and 54-21 in the opening minutes of the second half.

Jonny Flynn led five Orange players in double figures with 17 and Paul Harris (16), Rick Jackson (13), Eric Devendorf (13) and Arinze Onuaku also reached double figures.

The Bearcats did themselves no favor with the embarrasing loss on Sunday. They were playing without starting power forward Mike Williams and their depth took another hit as an Alvin Mitchell Hard Foul on Paul Harris Leads to an Ejection (Post-Standard).

UC leading scorer Deonta Vaughn scored all 11 of his points in the final six minutes of the game when the outcome was already well decided. Freshman Dion Dixon led UC with 18 points.

Cincinnati is now 8-8 in the Big East and closed with a pair of winnable games this week, at South Florida and home against Seton Hall, ahead of the 2009 Big East Tournament next week. Right now, their two losses to Providence may be very hard to overcome on selection Sunday without putting some distance between themselves and PC while in NYC next week.