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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Another team will have to find the secret to
stopping Kenyon Martin. Southern Mississippi sure didn't have the
answer.
|  | | Kenyon Martin lit up Southern Miss with a career-high 33 points. He also grabbed 14 rebounds. |
Martin scored a career-high 33 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and
blocked three shots to give him a school-record 100 for the season
as No. 3 Cincinnati beat Southern Miss 95-69 Wednesday
night.
"We tried to double him, but we didn't do a very good job of
it," Southern Miss coach James Green said. "He could turn and
face the basket and either shoot it or throw it over the top of us
for easy baskets."
It was Cincinnati's first game since losing the No. 1 ranking
with a 77-69 loss to Temple on Sunday, ending a 42-game home
winning streak.
"I just play. I come out every night and try to do something,"
Martin said. "It's all instinct. I just do what it takes to win. I
take what they give me."
Pete Mickeal had 18 points and 10 rebounds for Cincinnati (25-2,
13-0 Conference USA), which used a revised lineup because freshman
guard DerMarr Johnson was sitting out a one-game NCAA suspension
for accepting money from an AAU coach to help pay his tuition last
year at a prep school in Maine.
Johnson, who averages 13 points a game, is the only Cincinnati
player who regularly wears a sweatband around his head. While he
sat on the bench in street clothes, the entire starting five wore
headbands, some of them scrawled with Johnson's No. 3.
David Wall had 20 points and Kilavorus Thompson 12 for Southern
Mississippi (16-9, 6-7).
"We didn't give ourselves a chance in this game by getting down
early and then trying to match points with them," Green said. "We
had some guys who had no idea what they were in for. This team
dictated the rhythm from start to finish."
Martin scored 24 points in the first half, including six as the
Bearcats jumped to a 12-2 lead. The only Southern Mississippi
basket during that nearly five-minute stretch was the result of a
goaltending call on Martin.
Wall hit consecutive 3-pointers to bring the Golden Eagles
within five points at 13:23. But Southern Mississippi got just one
basket in the next four minutes as Cincinnati stepped up its
half-court press, which forced 11 turnovers in the first half.
After hitting two free throws with two seconds left to give
Cincinnati a 46-29 lead at halftime, Martin opened the second half
with two quick baskets as the Bearcats went up by 21.
A 3-pointer by Steve Logan and two free throws by Leonard Stokes
gave Cincinnati a 28-point lead with 15:17 to play, the Bearcats'
biggest margin until they exploited Southern Mississippi's
weariness in the final five minutes. Logan finished with 16 points.
Although Cincinnati already had clinched the Conference USA
regular-season championship, its fifth straight, the victory
against overmatched Southern Mississippi let the Bearcats get back
on track.
Cincinnati has beaten the Golden Eagles seven straight since the
semifinals of the Metro Conference Tournament in 1990.
"I think the guys realize we're not playing for a conference
championship anymore," Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins said. "We're
playing for the best spot in the NCAA tournament."
Huggins was unhappy with the Bearcats' defense, but said
otherwise they had recovered from the loss to Temple. Forward
Jermaine Tate, who had started 25 games this season, was in
Huggins' doghouse and did not play.
"It's real simple," Huggins said. "If you don't lay it out in
practice, you don't play in the game."
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ALSO SEE
Mens College Basketball Scoreboard
Southern Mississippi Clubhouse
Cincinnati Clubhouse
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