CINCINNATI — Words were bouncing off the wall outside the West Virginia locker room like so many of their missed shots Thursday night at the Fifth Third Center.

Words like “ugly” and “dumb”, like “stupid” and “miscommunicated.”

Had you been able to somehow string them into a sentence they would have simply said: “We sucked”, for that is what the players were trying to say as they kept giving away a game that Cincinnati kept trying to give to them, eventually dropping a 65-61 decision to the Bearcats.

So much for Bob Huggins Night in Cincinnati.

What should have been a night to remember for Huggins turned into one to forget.

They played the first 38 minutes of it to set up the finish, an riotous 38 minutes that included bodies flying, three technical fouls, all on Cincinnati, some spectacular play and some rather dreadful play.

But all of it was simply setting things up for the final act, almost like an NBA game.

You can recap the early action by noting that the Mountaineers took an early lead and looked sharp doing it until Cincinnati sent in its man-child of freshman, Yancy Gates, from just up the road in town here at Withrow High.

The man came in and did everything, even at one point taking the mop from one of the kids who soak up the sweat and mopped the floor himself. He came in down 7-2 Cincinnati went on a 15-2 spurt with Gates getting 11 of those points, overwhelming everyone.

West Virginia’s one-on-one defense looked more like none-on-one.

“When you have a freshman killing your man-to-man defense you have a problem there,” senior guard Alex Ruoff was to say.

Gates forced Huggins to break out the 1-3-1 zone, which became the staple for the Mountaineers in the game, slowing Gates to the point that he finished with “only” 22 points and 11 rebounds. The defensive, along with Kevin Jones supplying some offense and finishing with 12 points, got the Mountaineers back into the game.

And so they went, back and forth, one team on a run, then the other until all of a sudden you looked up and the game was tied, 60-60, with 1:45 to play.

Cincinnati certainly didn’t act like it wanted to win the game, making just four of 11 free throws down the stretch, continually opening the door for the Mountaineers. But West Virginia acted like they thought the door was booby-trapped, for as bad as Cincinnati was, they were worse.

“Just stupid mistakes … by me,” said Devin Ebanks, not a bad freshman himself for West Virginia, notching yet another double-double — his sixth — with 12 points and 14 rebounds. “I’m not going to name anyone else.”

Either he was being extremely charitable or just didn’t have the complete roster in front of him.

Certainly when he rushed down the court in the last minute, out of control, slipped and slid out of bounds it didn’t help matters any, but then neither did a pass that Wellington Smith tried to throw, stopped, tried to grab back and eventually lost.

Or there was usually reliable Alex Ruoff, who had a mirage of a statistical night, leading WVU with 18 points … but hitting ony 3 of 15 field goal attempts and 2 of 11 3s. Only 10 of 11 free throws made his night look respectable on paper.

“The bottom line is they missed free throws and we couldn’t not hit shots. When you make shots it’s contagious. When you miss shots it’s contagious,” Ruoff said.%

Call the Center for Communicable Diseases.

On and on it went. No one was immune, not even a player who was put in with 6 seconds left to play with simple enough orders, foul someone.

That would be little used Will Thomas, who managed in that little time to get tangled with Ruoff, fall down allowing Deona Vaughn to get free, then run from behind and tackle him, which was ruled an intentional foul.

It cost only one free throw but Cincinnati kept possession of the ball … 15 yards closer to the basket.

“Another mental mistake,” said Ruoff.

And so it went.

“It was a matter of not executing at the end,” said Mountaineer forward Da’Sean Butler, held to eight points on four of 11 shooting. “We should have won if we had taken care of business.”

“I detest losing,” said Huggins. “When you wanted to play me one-on-one, I wanted to bury your ass. Remember that. I destest losing. I did not come back to my alma mater to play for sixth.”

Good thing, because by losing West Virginia fell to 8-8 in the conference, tied with Syracuse and Cincinnati for seventh place, and both Syracuse and Cincinnati have a tiebreaker over WVU. The top eight teams get byes in the conference tournament.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.