Cincinnati Bearcats Keys to the Game: West Virginia Big 12 Tournament First Round

UC just destroyed WVU over the weekend.

CINCINNATI — The UC basketball squad rolled West Virginia on Saturday to set up an instant rematch in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

Cincinnati lost the first matchup in late January but destroyed WVU 92-56 this past weekend. UC is now 11-11 all-time against WVU.

The Bearcats enter this game ranked 41st in the NET and on KenPom, while WVU is 158th in the NET and 142nd on KenPom.

When West Virginia Has The Ball

Cincinnati's going to roll again on Tuesday if they contain WVU center Jesse Edwards (15.0 Pts, 8.2 Reb, 1.2 Ast) in this game as they did on Saturday. He posted just eight points and four rebounds in 18 minutes.

Top guard RaeQuan Battle (16.2 Pts, 4.1 Reb, 0.6 Ast) couldn't get rolling at all either. Cincinnati did a great job keeping the ball out of his hands in both matchups and he is just 6-of-16 from the field against Cincinnati this season. The Bearcats' dominant perimeter defense led by John Newman III and Day Day Thomas has cratered the two-man impact of Battle and Edwardas across two games.

If Cincinnati can box out Edwards well and keep Battle from getting red-hot from deep, then they should have more than enough offensive success to win. WVU is the second-worst rebounding team in Big 12 play, as displayed in a 37-23 UC advantage Saturday and the hot shooting still didn't matter (8-of-19 from outside)

They've run extremely hot from three in conference play (37.6%, second) and that's something Cincinnati (35.7% allowed in conference, 12th) has to stay on top of. WVU is shooting 47.7% from two-point range in conference play (13th among all Big 12 teams). They are gonna have to hit at least 10 threes to pull the upset.

When Cincinnati Has The Ball

The three-point shots have to start falling if Cincinnati wants to make the NCAA Tournament, but they don't need them in this game. Continued impact from John Newman III is the biggest thing I'm tracking for the full Big 12 tournament run.

The All-Big 12 defender is complementing that lockdown title with some highly efficient scoring. Newman's averaging 15.7 points on 55% shooting over the past three games. If he can play like that this whole week, UC's NCAA Tournament hopes could have life.

Add in Dan Skillings's impressive past two games coming off the hip injury and Cincinnati might have the wing scoring needed to make a run. It'll take a full-team effort like Saturday to get to the Championship game, let alone win it, but Saturday's performance may have been the spark.

Still, they have more to prove than routing the worst team in the league that appears to have quit on the season (81.4 PPG allowed in the conference, last in Big 12).

Prediction: 81-69 Bearcats

West Virginia has given up on this season. It was clear watching closely on Saturday and they don't have the talent to make up for any lacking effort.

UC munches on the interior again on Saturday to put the Mountaineers out of their misery. The game tips off at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday.

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