Jizzle James scored a game-high 24 points as hot-shooting Cincinnati picked up an 84-66 home win over BYU on Saturday night.
James hit a career high six 3-pointers, while Day Day Thomas scored 15 points and Josh Reed came off the bench to add 12 points for the Bearcats (14-9, 4-8 in Big 12).
Richie Saunders led the Cougars (15-8, 6-6) with 15 points while Egor Demin added 12 points.
Cincinnati opened the second half with a 22-2 scoring blitz en route to outscoring BYU 45-24 in the second half. The Bearcats shot 58.6 percent from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range, hitting 10 of 20 shots from beyond the arc.
Thomas’ pull-up jumper put Cincinnati ahead 52-44 with 16:05 left. James’ fifth 3-pointer with 13:11 left then gave the Bearcats a 61-44 lead.
A barrage of 3-pointers got the Cougars back in the game as every point on a 9-2 run came off a trey, capped by Mihailo Boskovic’s triple from the top of the key as BYU cut the Bearcats’ lead to 66-58 with 8:04 to play.
But a deep 3-pointer from Thomas put Cincinnati up 69-58 and initiated a 12-2 answer as Cincinnati went up 78-59 on a corner trey by James with 4:32 left.
Thomas hit a pair of mid-range shots on consecutive possessions that gave the Bearcats a 16-11 lead with 15:02 in the first half. The senior guard hit his first six shots.
Reed’s second-chance 3-pointer put the Bearcats up 22-13 and capped a 13-2 run as the Cougars called timeout with 12:19 left in the first. An 11-0 run later in the half gave the Cougars a 32-31 advantage.
The Bearcats battled back to take a 39-34 lead on an Aziz Bandaogo slam with 1:42 left in the first half, but BYU closed the first half on an 8-0 run to take a 42-39 lead, highlighted by Demin’s four-point play to cap the first-half scoring.
–Field Level Media
