21 days. I know the seven of you reading this have been on the edge of your seat over the past three weeks wondering where I’ve been. But I’m back after a brief hiatus and excited to write about a win. Let’s forget about the last few weeks. From beating UCF in Fifth Third (yay) to the dreadful loss at ECU (blech). I’m ready to discuss Sunday’s win over the Central Florida Golden Knights.

Cincinnati trailed 17-11 roughly nine minutes into the game, which is often a danger zone for this team. Today that wasn’t the case. They closed the half strong and took a 33-30 lead into halftime. A balanced offensive attack was the story. It was a sprinkle of Nolley, a dash of Ody, and a pinch of DeJulius.

Cincinnati extended their lead to nine after halftime, and for a brief moment, a comfortable win might have been on the table. Unfortunately, with this team, comfortable wins haven’t been an option very often, so I chewed through my nails as I have for much of this season. They don’t make it easy, but that wouldn’t be very fun (blowout wins are encouraged and would be healthy for my heart, fellas). All that matters is that a David DeJulius floater found the bottom of the net with 0.2 left. I will never complain about that.

Perhaps the best part of the win is the domination of the paint even without Viktor Lakhin. The Bearcats made just four of their 15 three-point attempts. They scored 40 points in the paint! Good teams win in different ways. For a team that shot 48 threes in a game less than two weeks ago, that is a significant step.

Forgive me for going back to that game where Cincinnati shot 48 threes (a Feb. 7th loss at Tulane), but one of those threes was shot and missed by David DeJulius at the end of regulation. It was a less-than-ideal final shot, and it was honestly incomprehensible. Today, Dave did what I wish he would have done back then. He broke his defender down and took a 12-15 foot floater. That’s Dave’s game. He’s beyond awesome. Aside from the game-winner and 16 points, he dropped eight assists. That marks 13 straight games with at least five assists for the senior from Detroit. Pretty, pretty good.

It’s wild that this felt like an off-game for Landers Nolley II. He scored 18 points on 8/13 shooting, but the seven turnovers were a bit uncharacteristic. He also went 0/3 from the line. He’s human after all. In all seriousness, he did a nice job defensively on Taylor Hendricks (12 points, 4-10 FG), who is undoubtedly one of the five most talented players in this league. The campaign to get Landers back for year 6 should already be underway.

Ody Oguama is Shaq. He’s not, but how about the tear he’s been on since Vik went down? He scored 15 today and was a force in the high pick-and-roll. Ody’s last four games: 13.8 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 25/29 FG. I’ll be the first to say this is unexpected, and I was wrong about his offensive capabilites. It’s been there this whole time. Now can he continue this when Vik comes back? That remains to be seen.

Massive kudos to Kalu Ezikpe. He could have sulked when he was riding the pine early in conference play, but an opportunity presented itself and he got up off the mat and delivered today. He got punked at ECU on the glass. Today, he was tougher than a physical UCF frontcourt. That was a Cincinnati Bearcats four-man today.

A solid outing for Mika Adams-Woods. He had the rare no rebounds and no assists, but he hit a few threes, which is a confidence boost for a guy who’s struggled to find consistency from deep this year.

I’ll go to bat for Jeremiah Davenport. He played 30 minutes and scored two points, but he made one of the biggest plays of the game with an offensive rebound off a missed free throw which led to an Ody dunk and allowed Cincinnati to go up five with 80 seconds left. He followed that up with a horrific turnover, but I’m still happy with how JD came through.

Game ball:

David DeJulius (3)

Photo credit: Dylan Buell, Getty Images