Ohio suffered its first loss of the year in a 86-58 drubbing at Cincinnati wednesday night. It was a tale of two halves for the Bobcats (4-1). Ohio used a 20-4 run to take a 5-point lead late in the first half. UC (5-2) rallied to take a 39-38 lead to the break.

Things would unravel for the Bobcats in the second half. Cincinnati had a 10-point lead at the 14:24 mark. When Leon Williams picked up his fourth foul shortly thereafter, UC went to work capitalizing on Ohio turnovers and poor shot selection. Their lead ballooned to 71-49 with 8:37 remaining.

For the half, Ohio would shoot just 6-for-23 (26.1 %) from the field and 1-for-10 (10.0%) behind the 3-point line. Cincinnati, meanwhile, shot a sizzling 62.5% (20 of 32) in the second half.

Ohio had no answer for the Bearcats' Devan Downey who broke down the Bobcat defense for 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting. James White added 18 points for Cincinnati. Sonny Troutman led Ohio with 17 points while Whitney Davis chipped in with 10. The Bobcats' two leading scorers, Mychal Green and Jeremy Fears, struggled. The two combined to shoot 3-for-23 (13.0%) from the field including 1-for-11 (9.1%) on 3-point attempts.

Perhaps the only bright spot of the night for Ohio was that assistant coach Kevin Kuwik was back on the bench for the first time since being deployed to Iraq last year as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ohio completes its 3-game road trip with a 2-1 mark and returns to Athens to host Shippensburg on Saturday.