To say Cincinnati was inept in the second half on Wednesday might be an understatement.

The Bearcats took a 40-36 lead into halftime, but scored just 11 points the rest of the way, in a 64-51 loss at Northern Kentucky. Cincinnati made just four of 29 shots in the second half, which included 2-of-11 from behind the arc.

For coach Wes Miller, it's an early trip back to the drawing board, in what will be the Bearcats' only non-conference test on the road. And some of it is attributed to their deer in the headlights look against the Norse's zone defense.

"You score 11 points in a half, it's gonna be hard to win a basketball game, in college basketball," coach Wes Miller said. "I told the guys in the locker room, the first thing we do when that happens is I look in the mirror as a coach. What did I not do to prepare us to play against the match zone. It's the same zone we played against in the first half, put 40 up."

Cincinnati will now head to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational. Its first test will come Monday, for an 11:30 pm ET tip-off against Arizona.