National Basketball Association
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Cincinnati 76, Southern Methodist 69
When: 7:00 PM ET, Thursday, January 7, 2021
Where: Moody Coliseum, Dallas, Texas
Officials: # Terry Oglesby, # Owen Shortt, # Jerry Heater
Attendance: 1568

Jeremiah Davenport matched his career high of 18 points before Keith Williams helped carry Cincinnati to a 76-69 win over SMU on Thursday in Dallas.

The Bearcats (3-6, 1-3 American Athletic Conference) snapped a five-game losing skid by seizing control down with the stretch of the second half with a 15-2 run. Davenport kept Cincinnati afloat for most of the second half, scoring seven consecutive points before Williams rebounded from a slow start.

Williams started 1 for 9 from the field and scored his first basket at the 2:45 left in the first half. But his layup with 2:00 left to play gave Cincinnati the lead for good at 68-67, and Williams followed with an assist on a Tari Eason (14 points) dunk that extended that advantage. Eason added a transition dunk with 41 seconds left that pushed the Bearcats to a 72-67 lead. Williams scored 12 points.

Mika Adams-Woods gave the Bearcats their first lead since 8-6 with his 3-pointer with 2:41 left but SMU guard Kendrick Davis answered with a layup through a foul on the other end. Davis missed the subsequent free throw and Cincinnati followed by finally wrestling control.

Davis led the Mustangs (6-2, 2-2) with 14 points and a conference-record 14 assists. But SMU, which entered the game first in the conference in 3-point shooting, hit 5 of 21 treys and, despite leading throughout, could never quite shake Cincinnati.

Cincinnati had five turnovers by the 11:51 mark of the first half and, combined with 6-of-7 shooting following an 0 for 4 start by SMU, fell into an early deficit that required hard labor to erase. Ethan Chargois extended the SMU lead to 26-17 on a transition layup off the feed from Davis only for Cincinnati to mount an 11-2 run capped by an Eason second-chance basket.

The Mustangs fueled the Cincinnati run to a 30-30 deadlock with seven empty possessions, but when Davis converted a layup just prior to the buzzer, SMU took a 37-32 lead into the break.

--Field Level Media

Top Game Performances
 
Cincinnati   Southern Methodist
Jeremiah Davenport 18 Scoring Kendric Davis 14
David Dejulius 12 Assists Kendric Davis 14
Jeremiah Davenport 10 Rebounds Feron Hunt 10
Zach Harvey 4 Free Throws Made Kendric Davis 4
Mika Adams-Woods 2 Steals Darius McNeill 2
Tari Eason 4 Blocks Yor Anei 3
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Points FG% 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA Assists Rebounds Blocks Steals Turnovers
Cincinnati 76 45.9 10-23 10-14 22 38 7 8 15
Southern Methodist 69 45.2 5-21 8-14 19 31 4 6 14