ATLANTA \u2014\u00a0Georgia used a strong second half to pull away from Cincinnati for an 84\u201365 win Saturday afternoon at State Farm Arena in the Hoops Classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs outscored the Bearcats 47\u201328 after halftime to break open a game that was tied at 37 at the break. Junior Blue Cain led Georgia with a career-high 22 points, converting 12 of 14 free throws.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cincinnati shot 35% (23-of-65) from the field and went 12 of 21 from the free-throw line. Graduate Jalen Celestine<\/a> recorded his best game as a Bearcat, scoring a season-high 13 points, while senior Baba Miller<\/a> added 11 for his sixth double-figure scoring performance of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Georgia finished at 50% (30-of-60) from the floor and 77% (20-of-26) at the stripe. The Bulldogs also held advantages in points off turnovers (21\u201311), points in the paint (48\u201330), fast-break points (18\u201311) and rebounds (41\u201337).\u00a0<\/p>\n The game was tied at 37 at halftime after Cincinnati built an 11-point lead midway through the first half. The Bearcats went ahead 29\u201318 with 8:24 remaining, marking Georgia\u2019s largest deficit of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cincinnati jumped out to an 18\u20139 advantage after Moustapha Thiam<\/a> knocked down a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 12:15 remaining, capitalizing on six Georgia turnovers in the opening eight minutes. The Bearcats later pushed the lead to 33\u201322 following back-to-back finishes at the rim by Celestine and Thiam.\u00a0<\/p>\n Georgia responded with an 8\u20130 run capped by a Jordan Ross layup to trim the deficit to 33\u201330. After Shon Abaev<\/a> split a pair of free throws, Cain scored five straight points to give the Bulldogs their first lead at 35\u201334 with 1:20 remaining. Kerr Kriisa<\/a> answered with a 3-pointer, but Ross converted again to send the teams into\u00a0halftime\u00a0tied.\u00a0<\/p>\n Georgia shot 52% in the first half but went 0 for 8 from 3-point range and committed 10 turnovers, resulting in its lowest-scoring first half of the season. Miller led Cincinnati with 10 first-half points, while Cain had 15 for the Bulldogs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kriisa opened the second half with a 3-pointer as the teams traded baskets early. Georgia gained separation just before the 15-minute mark following a quick scoring burst highlighted by a Somtochukwu\u00a0Cyril\u00a0dunk and a Jeremiah Wilkinson 3-pointer to take a 49\u201344 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 7\u20132 Bulldogs run pushed the margin to double digits at 61\u201351 with just under 11 minutes\u00a0remaining. Cincinnati briefly cut into the deficit when Miller secured an offensive rebound and found\u00a0Sencire\u00a0Harris, who\u00a0dished to\u00a0Celestine for a 3-pointer that made it 63\u201357 with 7:43 to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n Georgia answered down the stretch, highlighted by a\u00a0Cyril\u00a0three-point play with 2:05\u00a0remaining\u00a0that extended the lead to 75\u201361. Kareem Stagg punctuated the outcome with a late dunk.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cincinnati returns home to host Alabama State at 7 p.m. Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014\u00a0Georgia used a strong second half to pull away from Cincinnati for an 84\u201365 win Saturday afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,74894,136660,10027,33611,85,84301,136659],"class_list":["post-346196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-bearcats","tag-bearcats-athletics","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bearcats","tag-sports","tag-university-of-cincinnati","tag-university-of-cincinnati-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}