DeAndre Williams powers Memphis basketball to big win at Cincinnati
CINCINNATI − DeAndre Williams and Kendric Davis plowed Memphis basketball to a 75-68 win at Cincinnati Sunday.
Williams scored 26, while Davis dropped 21. Keonte Kennedy contributed 10 to the winning cause.
Memphis (15-5, 5-2 AAC) has won three straight. Cincinnati (14-7, 5-3) lost for the first time since Jan. 8.
Former Tiger Landers Nolley II scored 18 points, but Viktor Lahkin paced the Bearcats with 22 points.
Memphis came into the game 45th in the NCAA's NET rankings, while Cincinnati was No. 78. If the Bearcats finish in the top 75, the win becomes an all-important Quad 1 victory.
"The game was won on (us) understanding personnel," Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. "(Lahkin) had a great game against us, because we played small the majority of the game. But we wanted the majority of the balls to go his way and not Landers. Not (David) DeJulius. Not Davenport. They got caught up into the game of going inside instead of shooting those threes and being more dynamic."
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Tigers' strong start
The Bearcats punched first. Almost immediately, in fact.
Fifteen seconds after Cincinnati controlled the tip, the ball found Nolley, who gripped-and-ripped a 3-pointer in step.
Then, the Tigers seized control. Starting with a Davis jumper at the 18:38 mark, they made six of their next 11 field goal attempts. All the while, the Bearcats went ice cold, failing to connect on 10 straight attempts from the floor, helping Memphis stretch out to an early 12-3 lead.
Memphis picks up the first-half slack
The majority of that stretch was done without the Tigers’ best offensive weapon.
Davis, who came into the game leading the AAC in scoring at 21.2 points per game, injured his left ankle with 17:06 left in the first half and did not return until the 12:12 mark. During his 3-point attempt, he landed on the Cincinnati defender’s foot. Adding insult to injury, Davis was given a flop warning and the Bearcats were awarded a free throw attempt, thanks to a rule change in June 2022 aimed at curbing flopping.
Cincinnati's 3-point turnaround
Following Nolley’s triple to open the scoring, Cincinnati couldn’t buy a 3-pointer, missing each of its next 12 tries.
The Bearcats finally got going, though, in the second half. They didn’t attempt one until Nolley’s make with 15:34 left in the game. That sparked a stretch where the home team made 4 out of 5 beyond the arc, including three straight, punctuated by Jeremiah Davenport’s 3-ball that briefly tied the game (50-50) with 12:08 remaining.
Memphis' rebounding turnaround?
The Tigers went through an eight-game stretch this season where it was on the losing end of the rebounding battle seven times. The one game it finished with an advantage was by a mere one.
But Memphis has taken significant strides of late. Earlier this week, the team out-boarded Wichita State by six.
On Sunday, the Tigers controlled things for the most part, finishing with three more than the Bearcats.
Critical possession
Some possessions are more pivotal than others, and Cincinnati might find one in particular more difficult to forget given the outcome.
Trailing by four points with under six minutes to play, the Bearcats had three scoring opportunities and missed on each one. Viktor Lahkin came up empty under the basket, which was followed by a missed 3-pointer from Mika Adams-Woods and another missed two-pointer by Adams Woods.
On the ensuing Memphis possession, Johnathan Lawson sank a bucket that put the Tigers up 66-57.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis basketball: DeAndre Williams powers Tigers to win at Cincinnati
