Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Storylines: Kansas State Wildcats

The start of Big 12 play.

Cincinnati Bearcats guard Jizzle James (2) shoots a fade away basket in the second half of the NCAA Big 12 basketball game between the Cincinnati Bearcats and the Kansas State Wildcats at Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati on Saturday, March 2, 2024. The Bearcats collected a 74-72 conference win. / Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

CINCINNATI — Out of the frying pan and into the Big 12 fire.

Cincinnati basketball (10-1) hits the road on Monday to start 2024-25 Big 12 play against Kansas State (6-5). The Bearcats built up a strong résumé to this point and sit at No. 18 in the NET rankings, while KSU is last among Big 12 teams in the NET (122nd overall).

This is arguably Cincinnati's easiest game until Kansas State comes to town later in the schedule. ESPN's Matchup Predictor gives UC a 74.1% chance to win on Monday night.

“Listen, we took care of business in non-conference," Wes Miller said on Sunday. "We wanted to do that and wanted to make sure that we did our part in our non-conference. We wanted to put ourselves in a position to go into league play and to be a quality team. I believe we've done that, and we've checked that box. Was it perfect? No, it's not perfect. We have a lot of room for improvement but when we look back at the non-conference, I am pleased and believe that we did our part. We will use the next two or three days as a staff to recharge and kind of look at things and evaluate things, and we'll have a couple days of practice when we get back on the 26th to adjust and make the necessary changes we need to going into conference play.” 

Cincinnati is 8-1 all-time against KSU, beating them 74-72 last season.

Offensive Storyline: Break Through A Decent Defense

Cincinnati has done a great job scoring on bad teams through 11 games, but has not cracked 70-plus points in any of its three outings against top-100 teams on KenPom.

The Villanova struggles stick out most considering they are ranked just 192nd in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom, but UC was missing Dan Skillings Jr. in that game. He's a huge part of the offense and a player I'm looking to step up against KSU's 94th-ranked defense on KenPom.

"I think we've improved in a lot of areas, and we have to keep doing it. We have to keep growing, keep improving," Miller said after the win over Grambling State. "We haven't arrived in any area. I'm not pleased with any area, but I do think this team has continued to grow and improve. I think I said this recently but anytime we've been able to take a step back over any portion of time, I think we've improved over that portion of time. That doesn't mean it's been linear. We have had ups and downs and taken maybe two steps forward, one step back, but I think this group's been that way from the summer until now. We've been a team that's continued to improve over time, and we have to continue to be that team when we get back from Christmas.” 

If Skillings and Cincinnati's other frontcourt creators can get downhill and take advantage of KSU's defensive profile, they should win this game by double digits. The Wildcats like to funnel offenses into the paint and let their star big man clean it up in Coleman Hawkins (9.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.5 blocks, team-best 96.3 defensive rating).

KSU allows just 20.2 three-point attempts per game (52nd nationally) to 38.7 two-point attempts (308th nationally). They want teams to attack the rim and avoid the outside shot. Good lob efficiency and strong ball movement will give Cincinnati enough open short looks to bust open that strategy.

If Hawkins has to start getting help inside, the three-point opportunities open up even more (KSU allowing 34.7% from deep, 262nd nationally). It starts with that downhill pressure from Skillings, Jizzle James, Day Day Thomas and more. Cincinnati doesn't have to shoot lights out to win this game but if they can't get downhill early in shot clocks to at least create fouls and free throws, things could stagnate.

Defensive Storyline: Rolling Rotations

KSU represents one of the tougher tests for a top-10 defense nationally from UC that hasn't allowed 70-plus points in a game yet this season. The Wildcats enter with the 103rd-ranked offense on KenPom and are 124th nationally in points per game (78.1).

This is the most size Cincinnati's had to deal with so far, with Hawkins leading the way at 6-10, 200 pounds, along with second-leading scorer David N'Guessan (13.6 points, 6.7 rebounds) at 6-9, 205 pounds. The latter represents the offensive force Cincinnati needs to stop in the middle.

N'Guessan is the Wildcats most efficient player with a whopping 140.5 offensive rating (18th-best nationally) and a 69.2% effective field goal rate (third-best nationally). Aziz Bandaogo, Dillon Mitchell, and Arrinten Page will have their hands full all night against that duo. solid rotations down low and up top are crucial in this game.

KSU is going to try and run the offense through Hawkins as a scorer or passer and leave most of the other playmaking to guard Dug McDaniel (9.6 points, 4.5 assists). They move the ball extremely well (17.3 assists per game, 34th nationally) and Cincinnati will have to switch in and out of man-to-man matchups cleanly to avoid a bunch of open shots.

They've done that well, especially recently, as the ball screen defense gets sharper and sharper with a gelling rotation.

Prediction: 78-69 Bearcats

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