MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia used 17 points and 13 rebounds from Amani Hansberry to defeat Cincinnati 62-59 Wednesday night here at the WVU Coliseum.
 
Javon Small added 16 and Jonathan Powell chipped in with 12 to help the Mountaineers rally from a six-point second half deficit to snap their two-game conference losing streak and improve to 16-10 overall and 7-8 in Big 12 play.
 
"It was just a tough, hard-fought game," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said afterward. "When knew they were going to come in and play extremely tough and there was a lot at stake tonight for both of us, both teams knew that and played that way."
 
WVU used a 17-3 run during a 6:30 stretch late in the second half to take control of the game before having to hang on for dear life at the end. 
 
All Cincinnati could get during that stretch was a Jizzle James 3-pointer with 4:01 remaining. Meanwhile, Hansberry was the catalyst with a couple of free throws, a wide-open 3 from the top of the key to put the Mountaineers ahead 53-50 and then a layup with 1:29 left to extend the lead to eight.
 
"I thought Amani down the stretch was huge for us with some of that pick-and-pop stuff, and Javon is always good," DeVries said. "Then, (Powell) hit a couple of huge 3s and had a big layup there, too."
 
A Day Day Thomas 3 briefly reduced the Mountaineers' lead to five, 58-53, but Powell answered with a layup and two Small free throws pushed the lead up to nine, 62-53, with 34 seconds to go.
 
Then things got really interesting.
 
Dan Skillings Jr. banked in a 3 from the wing with eight seconds left. Hansberry's inbound pass underneath Cincinnati's basket was stolen by Skillings, and he quickly made another 3, reducing West Virginia's lead to 62-59 with five seconds to go.
 
On three different occasions, West Virginia couldn't inbound the ball. WVU called its final two timeouts and on its third attempt, Joseph Yesufu's pass in the corner to Sencire Harris was knocked out of his hands, possession was awarded to Cincinnati and confirmed after the play was reviewed.
 
That gave the Bearcats the basketball underneath their basket with three seconds remaining and an opportunity to send the game into overtime with a 3.
 
The ball eventually made its way to a wide-open Tyler Betsey at the top of the key, but fortunately, the freshman forward's shot hit the front of the rim and was rebounded by Harris.
 
Betsey had made 24 triples, including one tonight, leading up to that miss.
 
"Sometimes, when you haven't had a lot of success recently some of that doubt can creep in, and some of that doubt crept in on that last shot when it was in the air," DeVries admitted.
 
James, averaging 22.3 points over his last four games, was held to 13 tonight on six-of-20 shooting. Thomas also scored 13 on five-of-15 shooting, while Dillon Mitchell and Skillings scored 10 each for the Bearcats, now 15-11 overall and 5-10 in Big 12 play.
 
Since losing 63-50 to West Virginia back on Feb. 2, the Bearcats had scored 93, 84, 85 and 70 points in their prior four games heading into tonight's contest.
 
The Mountaineers did an exceptional job on the glass by outrebounding the Bearcats 40 to 32 and had a rare advantage at the free throw line. West Virginia made 12 of its 14 attempts tonight compared to just two-of-seven for Cincinnati.
 
UC was 2-0 when playing teams a second time this season, the Bearcats winning their repeat games against BYU and Utah. It was West Virginia's first conference sweep since taking a pair of regular season games from Iowa State during the 2023 season.
 
"I'm glad we pulled that out," DeVries said. "Winning is hard in any league, especially in this league, but to be able to get one on the good side of the column, we feel really good about it."
 
Tonight's victory puts West Virginia in a three-way tie with Utah and Kansas State for ninth place in the Big 12 standings, one game behind 8-7 Kansas, Baylor and TCU.
 
WVU returns to the road to play at ninth-ranked Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon. The Red Raiders were upset by TCU on Monday night.