UC Edges Louisville

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Deonta Vaughn made two free throws with 5.9 seconds left to preserve the victory after Reginald Delk’s 3-pointer had pulled Louisville to within one point with 9.8 seconds remaining.

Vaughn then knocked the ball away from Louisville’s Edgar Sosa as Sosa attempted to shoot a potential game-tying 3-point shot just before time expired.

UC coach Mick Cronin said the plan was for Vaughn to foul Sosa near midcourt so that he could not get the trey off, but Vaughn was unable to get the call from the officials.

“I was afraid he was going to foul him when the shot attempt went up,” Cronin said, “and I was going to be the laughingstock nationally. Deonta claims he was fouling him the whole time.”

No. 11 seed UC (18-14) will play No. 3 seed West Virginia (24-6) at 9 tonight in the quarterfinals on ESPN. The Mountaineers beat UC, 74-68, on Feb. 27 in Morgantown.

No. 6 seed Louisville fell to 20-12 and will await Sunday’s NCAA Tournament selection.

Yancy Gates scored 16 points to lead UC. Edgar Sosa scored a season-high 28 to lead Louisville.


http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100310/SPT0101/303100080/UC+edges+Louisville+to+stay+alive

 

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Q. What was the message during halftime that you conveyed to the players?

COACH Mick Cronin: We made a couple of adjustments. It's March. I've been known to get upset from time to time, but we're past that. We're not going to win if we give up 82; they had 41 at halftime. These guys know that. We're not going to win if we give up 82. We have to find a way to play better defense and Darnell and Ibrahima Thomas pointed out some things in the pick-and-roll defense that we changed. And we were able to stop them from getting drives down the lane and contain the basketball. Obviously Samardo getting his third foul. When he came out, we made a run. I think that was a factor. We made some halftime adjustments with our pick-and-roll defense and some things we were doing. That was the key.

It was a tale of two halves. They shoot 50% in the first half and 36% in the second half.


Q. You mentioned the pick-and-rolls on offense. What about defensive changes in the second half? What did you do to kind of slow them down, if at all?

COACH Mick Cronin: In our offense we were getting lost a little bit with their screening that we were late on our pick-and-roll defense. We did more switching on the perimeter. And Yancy was more aggressive with his pick-and-roll defense when they set the pick-and-roll with Samuels.

Then we tried to front him all night. Our goal was to try to front him and limit his touches as much as possible. But late Yancy had a couple of really good stands against him where he made him score over him. We walled him off and made Samardo take a tough shot and held his ground, and didn't let him back him down. Those were two big, big plays where he was able to get a couple of stops against him one-on-one. If you can guard him one-on-one, everything they do is predicated off of help. We guarded the ball better in the second half.


Q. Seeing when you guys started to make a move in the second half, the energy of the whole team picked up. What was it for you guys at that point? Did you feel them changing at that point?

Yancy Gates: Oh, yeah. We felt the momentum changing. Once we started to make our run, we got some big baskets and some key stops. We have Samardo pick up his third foul which was a big factor because he had to go out and sit for a while. Energy picked up as group, not just the five on the floor. It was the rest on the bench and the coaching staff. The energy just picked up in the huddle and on the court. I think that helped us a lot down the stretch of the game.


http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/031110aab.html

 

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UC outrebounded UofL, 54-33. The 54 total rebounds were a season-high. Cincinnati’s 28 offensive rebounds were also a season high. The Bearcats are 9-1 on the season when grabbing 45-plus rebounds in a game.

• Cincinnati outscored Louisville in points in the paint (40-24), second-chance points (17-6), and in bench points (15-2).

• UC held UofL to 36.0 percent (9-of-25) shooting in the second half after the Cards shot 50 percent (15-of-30) in the first half. Cincinnati connected on 43.8 percent (14-of-32) of its shots in the second half compared to 27.5 percent (11-of-40) of its shots in the first half.


http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/031110aac.html

 

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FG 34.7%
FG-3's 22.2%

DV 2-9
Cash 1-6


But the intensity and ball movement was about as good as I've seen for awhile.