By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

UC's Taron Barker drives the ball against LaSalle's Jermaine Thomas (2) and Rasheed Quadri (5). (Mike Simons photos) | ZOOM |

It's a good thing Hugs has mellowed out a little. | ZOOM |

UC's Derek Hollman is pressured by LaSalle's Steven Smith and Jeff Farmer. | ZOOM |

UC's Armein Kirkland dunks the ball in the closing seconds. | ZOOM |

UC's Jason Maxiell is fouled by LaSalle's David Bell. | ZOOM |

UC's Leonard Stokes is covered by LaSalle's Dzaflo Larkai. | ZOOM |

Minutes into the second half against LaSalle, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats were feeling pretty good about themselves.

They had a 17-point lead and appeared on their way to an easy win. All that was left was to cruise home with the victory, then begin to look forward to Tuesday's date against No. 5 Oregon in the Jimmy V Classic.That mentality almost cost them.

UC (4-2) frittered away nearly all of the lead, then held on to beat LaSalle, 65-62, Saturday night before 10,538 fans at Shoemaker Center.

"We got a little relaxed," sophomore forward Jason Maxiell said. "We had a big lead and we thought it was going to be an easy game from that point, but it wasn't."

Maxiell led UC with career-high 18 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out with 1:04 to go. Senior point guard Taron Barker had 17 points and seven assists for UC. But what could have been an easy win turned into a nail-biter.

"They just have a hard time grasping the idea that when you relax people are going to take advantage of you," said UC coach Bob Huggins. "We failed to understand that and then things started to snowball."

LaSalle (3-3) was led by freshman guard Jermaine Thomas' 25 points.

Coming off last week's loss to Xavier, the Bearcats, who wore their red uniforms for the first time this season, kept intact their record of never having lost two consecutive games at Shoemaker Center since the building opened in 1989.

While the Bearcats were looking ahead to Oregon, the Explorers continued to play. They sliced the 17-point lead four with1:04 to go.

Barker made the front end of the one-and-one bonus but missed the second. Thomas then pushed in a layup to make it 63-60, UC, with 47.8 seconds to go.

UC held the ball for nearly all of the 35-second shot clock, then Barker missed a jump shot from the corner. LaSalle rebounded and Thomas drove the lane for another layup to get the Explorers within one, 63-62, with 2.4 seconds to go.

After LaSalle called time out, Stokes inbounded the ball to freshman Armein Kirkland who had sprinted ahead of the LaSalle defense for a game-clinching dunk, his only two points of the game.

"This is a step back," Barker said of UC's performance, "especially when we've got Oregon next. That lead should have been 20 or 30 but it didn't happen."

UC appeared to take control early in the second half, with Barker as the catalyst. He scored five points and made a nice feed to Maxiell for a dunk that gave the Bearcats a 43-26 lead with 15:25 to go. UC led by eight at the half.

"At the beginning of the second half, we couldn't score," said LaSalle coach Billy Hahn. "They jumped all over us the first five minutes of the second half. That was the ballgame. We had to battle back. We just didn't have enough left to get it done."

But the Explorers came close. They scored seven straight points to close the gap to nine points with 8:20 to go, helped by two UC turnovers. Stokes ended the Explorers' run with a 15-foot jump shot to get the UC lead back to 11, 56-45, with 7:23 to go, but the Explorers weren't finished yet.

"The way they responded was good, but there are no moral victories in this game," Hahn said.

Both teams entered the game struggling with their shooting and neither did anything to improve in that area.

UC made just 39.3 percent of it shots, a shade better than its 38.3 percent average.

LaSalle	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Farmer	18	0	1	0	0	2	1	0	0	0
Smith	30	3	7	4	4	4	0	4	3	12
Jean-Baptiste	19	0	2	0	0	2	0	4	3	0
Thomas	37	6	11	12	13	2	4	3	4	25
Cleaves	9	1	4	2	2	0	0	1	1	4
Quadri	21	2	5	0	1	6	1	3	1	4
Larkai	19	3	3	0	1	8	0	3	0	6
Neal	27	3	13	2	2	4	0	4	2	11
Fadipe	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Bell	19	0	4	0	2	1	0	1	0	0
Totals	200	18	50	20	25	33	6	23	15	62

Team rebounds - 4.

UC	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Stokes	36	4	10	4	7	5	4	1	4	13
Maxiell	36	8	14	2	4	12	2	5	0	18
Johnson	9	0	0	0	0	2	0	4	0	0
Williams	31	3	13	0	0	3	3	1	2	9
Barker	34	5	9	3	4	4	7	4	2	17
Hollman	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0
Lucas	7	0	0	2	2	1	0	1	0	2
Hicks	19	1	3	1	2	4	0	2	0	3
Bobbitt	9	0	3	0	0	1	1	1	4	0
Flowers	8	0	1	1	2	2	0	1	0	1
Kirkland	7	1	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	2
Totals	200	22	56	13	21	36	17	24	12	65

Team rebounds - 2.

LaSalle	23	39	-62
Cincinnati	31	34	-65

3-pointers - L 6-17 (Farmer 0-1, Smith 2-3, Thomas 1-2, Cleaves 0-1, Quadri 0-1, Neal 3-8, Bell 0-1), UC 8-26 (Stokes 1-4, Williams 3-12, Barker 4-6, Bobbitt 0-3, Kirkland 0-1). Technicals - None. Officials - Art McDonald, Jeff Nichols, Gene Menees. Att: 10,538.