I don’t know why for sure, but when the game reached halftime I felt extremely confident that my DVR-delayed viewing of Pitt-Cinci was going to end the right way. Maybe it was seeing Pitt score the final basket of the half as Cinci let up after a score. After seeing it happen in the first meeting with Cinci and the Michigan game, having Pitt down at the half but getting the bucket to keep the game closer felt positive.
Maybe it was that outside of Sean Kilpatrick there wasn’t much to Cinci’s offense in the first half. He was 15 of their 31 points and take his shooting out of the equation and the rest of the Bearcats were only 6-19 shooting and 1-6 on 3s. And with Cashmere Wright playing through an injury, there just isn’t anyone else on the Bearcats picking up the slack.
“The kid is giving everything he’s got,” Mick Cronin said. “He’s playing hurt and he’s giving everything he’s got.”
Sean Kilpatrick sympathizes with his friend.
“I don’t know how his body feels,” Kilpatrick said. “He’s probably feeling it worse than anybody else. He’s a shooter and that’s what’s going to happen sometimes. He can’t let it affect his game.”
The scary thing for UC is that unless Wright gets his game back, there doesn’t seem to be another player on the team capable of picking up the slack and functioning as a scorinig complement for Kilpatrick. One thing’s for sure. Kilpatrick can’t do all himself. Just look at his one-point second half Saturday after he scored 15 in the first half.
Or maybe it is simply that this Pitt team has just kept on winning this month, and I’m starting to expect them to finish games.
