Kriisa and Thomas strong second half lead Bearcats past Tarleton State, 76-58

The Cincinnati Bearcats invited the Tarleton State Texans to Fifth Third Arena on a cold Monday night. Fresh off a 64-56 loss to EMU, they got good news as Jalen Celestine and Baba Miller made their returns. Miller missed the last two games and Celestine missed the last game. Will the return of Miller be the cure the Bearcats need?

Tartleton State was without all world scorer Dior Johnson, A.J. Dent, Jr., DJ Dormu, Chris Mpaka, O. The Bearcats played an uninspired brand of basketball in the first half shooting 40.7% from the field and 35.3% from 3. What hurt the most is they shot 17 3’s on their 27 shots. Miller was rusting scoring seven points and grabbing five rebounds, but also a team high seven turnovers. They only out rebounded Tarleton State 16-14 in the first half. Going into the half they only had a 2 point lead, 31-29.

In the second half the Bearcats shot great from the field and 3 51.7% and 47.4%. Overall their energy looked a lot better led by guards Day Day Thomas and Kerr Kriisa who both had 13 and 14 points in the second half. As a whole they started to dominate the glass winning 21 to 9.

Kriisa finished with a game high 20 points, followed by Thomas with 19, Miller had 13 and Abaev had 10.

Overall, it wasn’t an impressive night but they won 76-58 and are now 6-2 heading to the Crosstown Shootout on Friday.