The three-man weave: UCLA basketball stumbles 75-68 against Memphis

Cincinnati – The Cincinnati Bearcats postseason hopes (14-7, 5-3) took another major blow Sunday as they fell 75-68 to the Memphis Tigers (15-5, 5-2).

Viktor Lakhen (22 points, 10 rebounds) returned to stellar form with a career high in points – but a tough outside shooting performance as a team and inside dominance by the Tigers’ Deandre Williams (26 points, 8 rebounds) had UC never leading yet. Advantage 3-2.

Cincinnati still doesn’t have a quadruple win 1 or 2 this season after losing and is running out of chances to even get into the NCAA tournament bubble, let alone make a big bid. It’s been nearly 15 months since a team has had a Ranked win, let alone any sort of featurette win.

They are also still winless this season when they fall behind in the first half.

Here’s The Three Man Weave in The Tiger’s fourth consecutive win over Cincinnati.

External issues

The Bearcats put themselves in a brutal shooting hole during the first half going 1 of 13 from deep and 6 of 24 for the game. Some were bad decisions, some were bad luck off the edge, but all were opportunities for Memphis to slide to the basket.

This is how the Tigers scored most of their easy points in the first half.

The most grueling display was by Micah Adams Woods (2 points, 3 assists, 1-10 FGs). The guard made a mistake and went 0 of 5 from deep, including a sequence of two wide-opening shots during an important part of the late game.

He was now down 34% shooting in consecutive games after shooting 52% overall and 54% from three in the previous five games.

Memphis used a tough man-to-man defense on Sunday. They communicated well in it and didn’t give away too many open looks. The ones that got away usually didn’t go down, which Wes Miller never wants as an excuse not to win close games like Sunday’s game.

Efficiency in you, refer

The Bearcats’ biggest man has struggled with his shooting over the past four games, but that changed on Sunday. Lakhin is back in the top 10 in FG% with an 11-of-14 performance. The only big letdown is his free throw shooting, where he is 0-for-4, including several forward misses on 1st-and-1.

Lakhen quickly made an impact on the game early on with some of the only consistent attacks being found in the first half. Several UCLA guards hit him in quick passes to stop the Memphis rush. The Russian went 5 of 5 in those 20 minutes.

Then he came back with a full performance on both ends.

Lakhine easily led the team in defensive rating (94.5) on a day when they were unable to defend consistently. Williams might have taken 40 if Lachen had been off the ground throughout the match.

He worked well to hone the base defense down low, and was the savior of UCLA’s biggest weakness in front court depth. Lakhen went on to prove why he owns the team’s MVP rating by such a wide margin.

Dunder Down Low

Williams was a mismatch all afternoon for Cincinnati.

Kabir showed off his well-polished inner skills with baby hooks, a face, and a hunger for connection.

It was his fifth 20-point game of the season in what has become a benchmark for the AAC’s top 15 scorers. He was the second most proficient player in the game behind Viktor Lakhen.

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