Cincinnati and Providence opened the second round of the Big East Tournament with a game only ink will remember.
Moving one step closer to securing an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament, the ninth-seeded Bearcats led from start to finish yesterday at the Garden, winning a 61-44 eyesore over the eighth-seeded Friars, which ended Providence’s ultra-slim hopes to enter the at-large debate. Cincinnati’s swarming pressure, and active interior defense, held Providence (17-14) to 28.1 percent shooting from the field, including 1-of-16 on 3-pointers.
The Bearcats (22-10) will play top-seeded Georgetown in today’s quarterfinals, having advanced past their first game for the fourth straight year, while handing the Friars their fifth straight loss in the Big East Tournament.
“We’re a great team when we play like that,” said junior Sean Kilpatrick, a Yonkers native who scored a game-high 17 points. “When we’re up on everyone and we’re just playing with a lot of energy on the defensive end, that’s something that we spoke about all week.”
The pressure was powerful, but the bright lights were even stronger. Despite winning seven of its past nine games, Providence coach Ed Cooley acknowledged his young players were “a little nervous,” never more evident than in the team’s 1-of-14 start from the field, which allowed the Bearcats to take an 18-4 lead midway through the first half.
“We had the game right where we wanted it,” Cooley said. “They scored 60 points. I mean, come on. You’re not going to win many games scoring 60 points. Wow. If you’d have told me before the game that they have 60, I’d say we’ve got a great shot at winning the basketball game.”
As the Bearcats cooled off from a 6-of-7 beginning, an 18-point lead was whittled to 31-23 by halftime and cut to four in the first few minutes of the second half, but Jaquan Parker (15 points, 10 rebounds) and center Cheikh Mbodj (eight points, seven rebounds, five blocks) continued to control the paint and never allowed the Friars to get any closer.
Providence’s Kadeem Batts battled hard, finishing with 14 points and eight rebounds, but the abysmal shooting of the Big East’s leading-scorer, Bryce Cotton (0-for-7 on 3-pointers, 12 points) sank Providence’s surprising season.
howard.kussoy@nypost.com