West Virginia soundly beaten 92-56 at Cincinnati
West Virginia closed the regular season winless on the road with a lopsided 92-56 loss at Cincinnati Saturday afternoon.
The Bearcats got some revenge for the 69-65 loss in Morgantown at the end of January and shot 59-percent from the field in the process. West Virginia was outscored 56-27 in the second half as the Bearcats took complete control of the game.
The Mountaineers finish the regular season 9-22 overall and 4-14 in the Big 12.
Guard Noah Farrakhan scored 12 points, guard RaeQuan Battle scored 9 points and center Jesse Edwards had 8 points for the Mountaineers in the defeat.
The Mountaineers would get on the board first with a layup by Edwards but that would be the only scoring through almost the first three minutes of action until the Bearcats would get on the board with a dunk.
That would start a 9-0 run for the Bearcats over a span of just 1:25 to take a 9-2 lead at the 15:36 mark and force head coach Josh Eilert to use a timeout. That timeout would help settle things down for the visitors as the Mountaineers would use a 10-2 run of their own to take their own 12-11 lead at the 12:18 mark.
The Bearcats would lead 17-14 at the mid-way point of the first half as both teams started to settle in after the uneven start. Farrakhan would score 8 points in the first 10 minutes to keep the score even at 19-all at the 8:21 mark.
However, a 7-0 run that included a technicals on Eilert and Kriisa would allow the Bearcats to push things out to 26-19 with just under six minutes remaining. And things would continue to snowball from there with the Bearcats pushing ahead 36-22 in the final minutes of the half forcing Eilert to use another timeout.
And again West Virginia would respond as Battle would score five straight and the Mountaineers would use a 7-0 run to cut it to just a 36-29 deficit at halftime.
Battle would continue his streak with the first basket out of halftime, but the Bearcats would get that back on the other end to keep the deficit at 7. But that would be as close as the Mountaineers would get over the rest of the game.
Cincinnati would stretch the advantage out to 47-35 with 16 minutes remaining in the game as the Bearcats were shooting over 50-percent from the field. And things would get worse as Cincinnati would stretch things out to a 60-42 lead at the 10 minute mark.
The Bearcats would extend the advantage to as many as 36 points in the convincing home win during their senior day festivities.
With the regular season now complete, West Virginia will turn their attention toward the Big 12 Conference Tournament set to begin Tuesday in Kansas City. As the No. 14 seed, the Mountaineers will square off with the No. 11 seed at 3 p.m.
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