Another last-second heartbreak: Cumberland helps Cincinnati steal win at WSU
At the end of the day, Cincinnati had the reigning American Athletic Conference Player of the Year and Wichita State did not.
That proved to be the difference in a high-level, back-and-forth tussle at Koch Arena on Thursday evening. Jarron Cumberland finished a three-point play in the closing seconds to lift Cincinnati to an 80-79 victory over the Shockers.
Cumberland scored a game-high 24 points and led the Bearcats (15-7, 8-2 AAC) to their third straight win over WSU (17-5, 5-4 AAC) at Koch Arena.
For WSU, it was the second straight heartbreaking loss in the closing seconds after last week’s 54-51 loss at Tulsa. Even though it wasn’t on a buzzer-beater, Thursday’s defeat might have matched the pain considering WSU led by two points with less than 10 seconds remaining.
“College basketball is cruel sometimes,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “Losing two games in a row like that is really tough.”
It robbed the Shockers of a thrilling come-from-behind victory, as they erased a six-point deficit in the final five minutes to take a 79-77 lead on a three-pointer by Wichita native Grant Sherfield with 16 seconds left.
But Cumberland stole the win on an isolation play by driving right, bumping into Dexter Dennis to draw the foul, absorbing the contact and somehow flipping the game-tying shot off the glass with three seconds remaining. He calmly sank what turned out to be the game-winning free throw and celebrated when a last-second three by Erik Stevenson for WSU missed its mark.
“That’s exactly what we wanted,” Cumberland said. “Coach, he wanted me to get downhill. ... It was an open lane from there.”
“That’s a heck of a play,” Cincinnati coach John Brannen said. “When you’ve got the best player on the floor you put the ball in his hands.”
“I did what I could, but apparently it wasn’t enough,” Dennis said of his defense on the play. “All night defensively I don’t think I was into him. I gave up too many baskets. Normally that doesn’t happen, but tonight it did and that resulted in a (loss).”
After a three-week stretch filled mostly with putrid offensive performances, WSU elevated its game on Thursday and finished shooting 48.5 percent from the field with a 20-6 advantage in second-chance points. But the top-10 defense that the Shockers had come to rely on failed them, as UC made 54.5 percent of its shots.
Jaime Echenique led WSU with 19 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks, while Dennis finished with 16 points and Jamarius Burton added 13 points.
“Yeah, it makes it tougher,” Burton said of playing so well in a loss. “We all went out there and played hard and that was the outcome, but we can learn from games like (Tulsa and Cincinnati).”
“Every loss is really tough, especially when you’re giving your best,” Echenique added. “We’ve got young guys that are learning. We kept pushing, we kept battling. It’s not like things are repeating in the same way. We competed, we made plays, we’re shooting better, we were executing. But a big-time shot by a big-time player, that’s the game.”
When Keith Williams put UC ahead 75-73 with 1 minute, 05 seconds remaining, WSU responded with a go-ahead three-pointer by Dennis with 50 seconds left. Cumberland put Cincinnati back on top 77-76 after two free throws with 40 seconds left, setting up Sherfield’s clutch shot.
WSU initially tried to go inside to Echenique. But after being double-teamed, Echenique passed out to Sherfield and the freshman drilled a pull-up three-pointer with 16 seconds remaining that put the Shockers up 79-77.
UC cracked open a nine-point lead, 46-37, early in the second half, but WSU rallied behind Tyson Etienne. The freshman swished a three and rocketed a no-look pass to Trey Wade coming off a screen for an easy layup that trimmed the deficit to 50-47 with 15:04 remaining and forced Cincinnati to call a timeout.
Each team traded baskets for the next five minutes, but UC capitalized on a pair of defensive lapses by WSU. The first was when WSU scored on a layup, then five seconds later allowed Cincinnati to score on a layup of its own. After an errant pass, UC again streaked in transition and drilled a three, pushing its lead to 63-55 with 9:53 remaining.
WSU again rallied, as a three-pointer by Dennis trimmed the deficit to three points, 63-60, but Cumberland took over and scored eight straight points capped by a 28-foot shot for a 70-62 lead. Dennis again helped the Shockers rally, ripping away an offensive rebound and dribbling out and hitting a three that cut the deficit to 70-67 with 5:39 remaining.
With the crowd on its feet and needing just one defensive stop to have a chance to tie the game, WSU couldn’t come up with what it needed. UC’s Keith Williams drove the lane and hit a tough jumper while being fouled for a three-point play and 73-67 lead.
“They’re good players and they run good stuff and they’re well-coached,” Marshall said. “They get the ball where they want and tonight they were on fire. They shot the ball great. They got it inside and got some easy ones in transition, so that’s how you shoot (68 percent) in the first half. That’s not going to do it. For us to give up 80 points, that’s not going to do it.”
Many fans would suspect the game to be over at halftime if they knew beforehand that Cincinnati would pour in 41 points and make 68.2 percent of its shots (15 of 22) in the first half, given WSU’s recent bout of offensive troubles. But the Shockers managed to stay within six points, 41-35, of the Bearcats at halftime, thanks to a 15-7 advantage in points off turnovers and 11-3 advantage in second-chance points.
By WSU’s recent standards, the 35 points on 43 percent shooting in the first half was an outburst. After falling behind 11-9 early, WSU reeled off a 9-0 run jump-started by a three-pointer by Dennis and capped off by a triple from Etienne for an 18-11 lead with 14:16 remaining.
But Cincinnati answered right back with a 10-0 run and captured a 21-18 lead. WSU briefly rallied to take a 24-21 lead off a steal and layup from Wade with 8:52 remaining, but UC didn’t trail for the final 7:37 of the half and thanks to a 5-0 spurt in the final minute of the half opened up its largest lead of the game, 41-35, to that point.
“There’s just some minor things that we have to clean up, whether its on the offensive or defensive end,” Burton said. “All we can do is take these games and learn from them and hopefully not make the same mistakes and improve and go out the next game and give it our all.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 8:06 PM.
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