Cincinnati @ Connecticut preview

Last Meeting ( Jan 12, 2019 ) Connecticut 72, Cincinnati 74

No. 25 Cincinnati can’t afford to look ahead as it goes on the road in search of an 11th win in 12 games overall Sunday afternoon against struggling Connecticut in American Athletic Conference play. The Bearcats, who trail first-place Houston by one game and host the Cougars in the regular-season finale on March 10, survived a scare against UConn at home on Jan. 12 before pulling out a 74-72 overtime victory.

Cincinnati won the first of two battles with fourth place Central Florida (also at UCF, March 7) on Thursday after rallying for a 60-55 victory without a big performance from the league’s leading scorer Jarron Cumberland, who finished with 11 points on 3-of-13 shooting. “Our kids refused to give up tonight,” Bearcats coach Mick Cronin told reporters after his team shot 40.4 percent from the field Thursday. “We had a lot of times when we could have packed it in.” UConn has dropped four straight, three of them without leading scorer Jalen Adams (knee), and shot just 30 percent from the field Thursday in a 77-59 setback at SMU. “We dishonored the uniform today. We embarrassed ourselves,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley told reporters after the loss. “There wasn’t an aspect of the game that we did a good job with besides maybe offensive rebounding the multitude of misses.”

TV: 2 p.m. ET, ESPN

ABOUT CINCINNATI (22-4, 11-2 American): Cumberland averages 19 points along with team highs of 3.6 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting better from 3-point range (43.9 percent) than from the field overall (41.4). Sophomore guard Keith Williams is the only other player averaging in double figures scoring (11.0) after recording 12 against UCF, while junior forward Tre Scott (8.9 points) tops the Bearcats in rebounding (6.3). Senior guard Justin Jenifer also scored 12 in Thursday’s win and is among the national leaders in assist-turnover ratio (4.39).

ABOUT CONNECTICUT (13-13, 4-9): Sophomore guard Alterique Gilbert returned to the lineup after missing five games with a shoulder injury and finished with six points on 3-of-10 shooting with four rebounds in 23 minutes Thursday. Gilbert averages 12.6 points - behind only Adams (17.0) and junior guard Christian Vital (14.0), who is averaging 16.3 per contest over the last eight and grabs a team-high six rebounds per game. Sophomore Tyler Polley (8.4 points) has stepped up since Adams went down, draining 11-of-20 from 3-point range and scoring 48 total in three contests.

TIP-INS

1. UConn senior G Tarin Smith was limited to one point Thursday after averaging 10.2 the previous five games.

2. Cincinnati senior G Cane Broome is 5-of-9 from 3-point range the last three games and averaged 10.3 points over that span.

3. The Bearcats have won the last six meetings and eight of the past nine against the Huskies.

PREDICTION: Cincinnati 76, Connecticut 66