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No. 7 Cincinnati uses balanced effort to crush Central Florida

Feb 20, 2014 - 3:07 AM Orlando, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Sean Kilpatrick poured in 23 points and No. 7 Cincinnati easily took care of UCF, 77-49, on Wednesday.

Kilpatrick made six 3-pointers to lead Cincinnati (24-3, 13-1 AAC), which has won two straight after dropping its first conference game to SMU on Feb. 8. Justin Jackson added 10 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots in the triumph. Nine different Bearcats scored at least five points in a balanced effort.

Isaiah Sykes had 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Knights (10-14, 2-11), who failed to build off of a one-point win over South Florida on Saturday. UCF has lost 10 of 11 overall.

Cincinnati had it working on both ends in the first half, putting forth a dominant effort to carry a 40-18 lead into the break.

After Sykes' layup a little over two minutes in gave UCF its only lead at 4-2, the visiting Bearcats responded with 15 straight points, holding UCF scoreless for more than eight minutes until a pair of Justin McBride free throws made it 19-6.

Moments later, a Kilpatrick triple highlighted a 7-0 Cincy run. The conference's leading scorer hit three more from distance in the final 2:18 of the half.

UCF mustered just four field goals on 23 attempts in the first 20 minutes. Knights aside from Sykes were shooting 0-for-16 until Tristan Spurlock splashed one in from 3-point range as the buzzer sounded.

Calvin Newell made a pair of 3s early in the second half to inject some life into the UCF offense, but Kilpatrick made one of his own to keep the Knights at arm's length.

Cincy led by at least 17 the rest of the way.

Game Notes

Kilpatrick has scored at least 22 points in six of his last seven games. He has reached double figures in every conference game this season ... UCF outrebounded Cincinnati, 39-38 ... The Bearcats won the turnover margin, 18-7 ... UCF started 0-for-12 from the arc but made 7-of-15 the rest of the way.