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March Madness: Nevada completes 22-point comeback, beats Cincinnati

By Alex Butler

March 19 (UPI) -- Nevada beat Cincinnati 75-73 on Sunday to advance to the Sweet 16, after facing a 22-point deficit at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.

"That locker room right now...I've never seen anything like it in my life," Nevada coach Eric Musselman told reporters after the game.

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"It's the happiest I've ever seen. It's the happiest I've ever been in my life. I couldn't be more proud of a team...every single player in there. This feeling is never going away, for the rest of any of our lives."

Sophomore guard Jarron Cumblerland put the No. 2 Bearcats up 65-43 with 11:34 remaining for Cincinnati's largest lead of the game. Then the No. 7 Wolf Pack started chipping away.

Nevada went on a 16-0 run to get within six points of Cincinnati with 7:55 remaining. Junior swingman Jordan Caroline's hit a layup to cut the lead to three points with 1:55 remaining. Caleb Martin then stepped up and hit a fade away 3-pointer to tie the game at 73-73 with 57 seconds left in the contest.

The Wolf pack earned another possession and went ahead of the Bearcats on a floater from sophomore Josh Hall with just 9.1 seconds remaining.

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Cincinnati had one more chance to get the game to overtime or win it outright, but the Bearcats turned the ball over and never got up a decent shot.

"Can't say enough about our energy and effort," Musselman said. "We were struggling so much and they were just dominating the backboards. we knew they were a great rebounding team. The thing that is amazing when you go back and look on this game is just the fact that we just played 40 minutes and had two turnovers against arguably one of the most aggressive, best defensive teams in the country."

Cody Martin scored a game-high 25 points and had seven assists and six rebounds for the Wolf Pack. Jacob Evans led the Bearcats with 19 points.

Nevada faces No. 11 Loyola Chicago at 7:07 p.m. Thursday in an Elite Eight matchup at Philips Arena in Atlanta.

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