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This game was ugly from the very start. The Bearcats played OK basketball for much of the first half. They didn't shoot the ball particularly well. But the defense was generally excellent and it enabled the Bearcats to turnover the Johnies and convert those turnovers into bucket. UC took control late in the first half and managed to head into the locker room with possession of a 3 point lead, mainly due to the contributions of Sean Kilpatrick who seemed to be the only person who came to play the game in the first half.
The fact that the Bearcats had a three point lead at the half despite shooting a piss poor 26 per cent from the field and 17.6 per cent from three. The Bearcats got a ton of offensive rebounds (12 in the half) and second chance points of those. But that couldn't hold up for an entire game. The shooting had to improve. It did no such thing
The simple fact of the matter is this. An effective shooting percentage of 30 isn't going to win many games. The fact that the Bearcats even had a chance to win this game is a minor miracle. Down the stretch the Bearcats hustled and scrapped and fought their asses off to get back in the game. But there is a tipping point with leads in Basketball. There comes a certain point where the energy required to get back into the game makes actually winning the game neigh on impossible
That was certainly the case today. The Johnies simply made beat the Bearcats to all the 50/50 balls. St. John's didn't dominate this game, their control on the affair was tenuous at best for most of the second half. The Red Storm won this game on the margin by beating the Bearcats to those 50/50 balls time and time again and that's what wound up breaking the Bearcats back.
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