Villanova 72, UC 61 – summary
Posted by bkoch 01/09/11, 9:52 pm

Player of the game – Villanova guard Corey Fisher, who scored 21 points, making 3 of 5 from3-point range and 10 of 11 free throws.

Play of the game – Yancy Gates missed baseline jump shot with 8:36 left that would have cut the Villanova lead to five. Gates said after the game he shouldn’t have taken the shot.

Turning point: UC trailed, 21-19, with 9:31 to go in the first half, but was outscored, 18-4, the rest of the half and never fully recovered.

Quote: “I told our guys I take the blame for the loss. Much has been made of our schedule but I really thought two of those games in particular because of the rivalry situations would be dogfights. In retrospect, it affected us not being in a dogfight until today.” – UC coach Mick Cronin

What it means: I remember writing after the Toledo game that there would come a time when Mick Cronin would wish that he had played a tougher non-league schedule. That time was today. I found it interesting that Cronin, who has defended his schedule all season, blamed himself for not playing tougher competition before he could even be asked about it. Having said that, it’s no shame to lose to Villanova at the Pavilion where the Wildcats have won 45 straight games. It was disappointing to see how the Bearcats were dominated in the first half and how they let the officials get into their heads, but give them credit for coming back in the second half to make a game of it. One loss in 16 games is nothing to panic about, especially when that loss was on the road against the seven-ranked team in the country. It will be interesting to see if his loss knocks UC back out of the Top 25. A lot of ranked teams lost this weekend, but perhaps none was held in such low esteem as UC. We’ll see tomorrow afternoon what the voters think.

http://news.cincinnati.com/ucblog