Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Storylines: Grambling Tigers

The Bearcats defense is on fire lately.

Dayton Flyers forward Nate Santos (2) and Cincinnati Bearcats forward Aziz Bandaogo (55) fail to gain possession of a loose ball in the second half of a NCAA men’s basketball game between the Cincinnati Bearcats and Dayton Flyers, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, at Heritage Bank Center in downtown Cincinnati. Bearcats won 66-59. / Frank Bowen IV/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats are rolling over the past week as the kings of Ohio. Now, Wes Miller's team gets its quickest turnaround of the season against Grambling on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET.

The Tigers enter the game 309th in the NET rankings and are the final quad-four opponent on Cincinnati's schedule as of this writing. UC is No. 22 in the NET and is projected to win the game 98.9% of the time on ESPN's Matchup Predictor.

Sunday marks the first meeting ever between the two programs after Cincinnati moved to 9-1 with a gritty win over No. 22 Dayton.

"I'm proud of the win and our kids," Miller said on Friday night. "We defended our tails off tonight, especially in the first half. We set a tone defensively, and our kids were completely focused and locked in on the scout, forcing deflections and turnovers. We hit the boards too. We had good moments offensively early in the game with good shots and getting to the board. There was a stretch in the first half where their pressure probably affected us into not getting good shots. I thought we weathered the storm a little bit, and it eventually opened back up. We're coming on offense. We are starting to have stretches tonight where the offense got better."

Offensive Storyline: Find The Jumper

Cincinnati should have no problem in this game, especially if they can start banging home more of the open looks they've missed over the past two games.

The offense hasn't been a flowing beauty to watch and then head-scratchingly just fails to make shots—there's been stagnation and too much isolation play at times. Still, Cincinnati has missed some uncharacteristic looks outside and around the rim recently.

Getting Simas Lukošius going again amidst a cold stretch is imperative ahead of Big 12 play next week. The sharpshooting Lithuanian is hitting 29.4% from outside over the past four games and that includes a 3-6 outing against Howard. Sometimes, that's just the name of the game with deep shooting—it was never realistic to expect him to hit 50-60% from outside all season.

Breaking through against Grambling would be impressive and is a good shooting gauge before Kansas State. The Tigers only allow 6.6 made threes per game (81st nationally) but are giving up those shots at a 34.9% clip (270th nationally).

If Cincinnati can get back to nice ball movement and more consistent flow on offense, Lukošius and the rest of Cincinnati's shooters should be primed better for Big 12 play.

Defensive Storyline: Continue The Trends

The short rest is a good test for one of the nation's five best defenses on KenPom. The return of Dan Skillings mixed with Dillon Mitchell's roaming havoc and high-level on-ball defense in the backcourt has Cincinnati playing championship-level ball on that end.

The offense has slightly fallen off, while the defense has only gotten better, allowing 70-plus points zero times this season. Now, Dayton and its top-20 level offense broke through for 42 points in the second half on Friday. Some due to great shotmaking and some due to controllable factors for the Bearcats.

Stamping the non-conference slate with a full 40 minutes less than two days later would be a nice way to make some type of statement as a huge favorite. Grambling should play right into that goal with another small lineup coming to Fifth Third Arena (two players over 6-5 in the main rotation) that doesn't rank in the top 100 nationally in any traditional offensive category.

They've also been traveling a bunch this week, playing three games in the past five days. A third consecutive game holding an opponent under 40% shooting is the bar to clear on Sunday.

Prediction: 86-59 Bearcats 

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