UC Senior Armein Kirkland, one of the Bearcats’ men’s basketball top players, suffered a torn ACL in the losing battle against Connecticut, ranked fourth in the country, on, January 9. As for the remainder of the game against the Huskies, the Bearcats were dominated, 70-59. This ended the Bearcats’ 10-game winning streak. The Bearcat scoring was led by James White with 18 points and Eric Hicks with 14 points. Kirkland managed to score 14 points prior to his knee injury.
In spite of the loss to the Huskies, the Bearcats at that point still maintained a 13-3 record and 2-1 record in the Big East. This year’s new head Coach, Andy Kennedy, is well on his way to proving that the Bearcats can, and will, go on without previous head coach, Bob Huggins.
The Bearcats are struggling now, as the numbers start to dwindle down from injuries. With this in mind, Coach Kennedy is looking toward one of the Bearcat football players for back-up. Freshman Connor Barwin played eight minutes against Syracuse.
The battle against Syracuse started out as a great fight, with the Bearcats leading most of the first half, but by half time the Cats were tied at 34. The team just couldn’t seem to hang on, as they took another loss, ending the game with a 77-58 defeat.
The Bearcats were held to a season low 33 percent shooting. Their record now stands at 13-4 and 2-2 in the Big East. Coach Kennedy pointed out that the lack of rebounding also contributed to the loss against Syracuse. Syracuse had 24 more rebounds than the Bearcats.
Meanwhile, the Lady Bearcat basketball team currently has a 10-3 record, following three consecutive losses to No. 8 Rutgers, Providence, and UConn.
Player highlights on the Lady Bearcat team: Micah Harvey is just three points shy of 500 career points and has moved to 4th in the history of the Bearcats with 362 assists. Anne Stephens reached her 700th career point and Treasure Humphries also reached her 500th career point.
As the Lady Bearcats put up a good fight in the first half against UConn, the lead was tossed back and forth, with the Huskies leading by just one point at halftime, 44-43.
Unfortunately for the ladies it was another loss as the game ended with the Huskies leading, 92-71.