Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Storylines: Villanova Wildcats

The Bearcats don't play any more non-conference road games after this battle.

Cincinnati Bearcats forward Dillon Mitchell (23) dunks in the first half of the NCAA basketball game against the Alabama State Hornets at Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. / Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats (6-0) hit the road again this week for a matchup against Villanova (4-4) at 6:30 p.m. ET on FS1 Tuesday night. The Wildcats have struggled mightily to start the season, but it is still the best team Cincinnati's played yet and the best team they'll have played on the road before conference play.

UC has to be locked in as a projected betting favorite and 61.1% Matchup Predictor favorite on ESPN. The Bearcats are ninth nationally on KenPom, while Villanova is 61st in the metric.

Wes Miller had plenty of issues from the 77-59 win over Alabama State to keep his team hungry this week.

"They've met that standard for the most part in all the games that we played, today we did not meet that standard, and that makes me very angry or disappointed," Miller said about the Bearcats' last game. "So I have nothing positive to say about it, other than that, we won the game, and we will get back to it as soon as I'm done with you guys, with the staff, we cannot get in there and practice tonight, those days are long gone."

Cincinnati is 4-5 against Villanova since the 1949-50 season.

Offensive Storyline: Let It Fly From Deep

Villanova has a much better offense than defense so far this season (31st offensive rating on KenPom, 104th defensive rating), and Cincinnati can especially exploit the Wildcats' outside shooting defense (35.9% three-point mark allowed, 305th nationally).

Hit 8-10 threes in this game, and Cincinnati should have more than enough in other areas to leave with a victory. Villanova is 1-3 this season when teams make at least eight threes, something Cincinnati's done in every game but one so far (six against Morehead State).

That's going to open up the lane a lot more against another undersized team compared to Cincinnati's length at every position on the floor. Mix it all together and you get a paced-up game that UC wants, while Villanova should try to drag them into the mud and slow down possessions to work home variance in their direction (Nova 310th nationally in adjusted tempo so far this season).

Despite that low possession profile, Villanova doesn't have a single player boasting a defensive rating under 100. Cincinnati is shooting a scorching 41.5% from deep and probably needs to take more with that number so high (23.7 threes shot per game). They'll have that chance on Tuesday and it could open up another strong offensive outing if so. Simas Lukošius (team-high 16.5 points per game, 57.9% from deep) is primed to have a big game against one of his old Big East foes.

Defensive Storyline: Slow Down Dixon

Cincinnati will blow out Villanova if they can stifle their top scorer, a lot easier said than done. Veteran forward Eric Dixon (25.1 PPG, second nationally, 6.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists) is a walking bucket at 6-8, 260 pounds. He's a bear to deal with at all three levels of the floor shooting over 50% from two and three on over six shots per game in each area.

He's shouldered the full offensive load for Villanova, no player in the country has a higher offensive win share mark than Dixon (1.6), and he holds the highest usage rate of any Big East player (31.7%). It's going to take a fully connected effort from UC's third-best scoring defense in the country (56 PPG allowed).

Only two other players average double-scoring figures for Kyle Neptune's team, making things pretty simple (on paper) when it comes to slowing them down. Getting the ball out of his hands with quick traps and UC's signature tight man-to-man defense will be more important than in any game yet this season. Denying Dixon the ball and putting late-shot-clock pressure on Nova's transfer guards (4.5 turnovers per game combined from Wooga Poplar and Jahmir Brickus), should be a winning strategy on defense.

It'll connect to more transition opportunities for Cincinnati's potent, yet largely untapped ability on that front (11.5 transition points per game, 148th). Dillon Mitchell (second nationally in Evan Miyakawa's Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating) has his toughest test yet this season in Dixon. I expect Mitchell to get that assignment a lot when UC doesn't switch and it'll be a great gauge of his strength as a one-on-one defender.

Dixon does a lot of his damage unassisted and off the dribble, areas Cincinnati brought Mitchell in to shut down.

Prediction: 71-65 Bearcats

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