Cincinnati Veterans Highlight Turned Down NIL Prizes, Togetherness As 2024-25 Season Approaches

The Bearcats sound like a tight knit group ready for another Big 12 basketball gauntlet.

Cincinnati Bearcats guard Dan Skillings Jr. (0) yells in excitement Tuesday, March 26, 2024, during the quarterfinals of the NIT at the Hulman Center in Terre Haute. The Indiana State Sycamores defeated the Cincinnati Bearcats, 85-81. / Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

CINCINNATI — It's hard to gauge how many wins Cincinnati basketball will put up under Wes Miller this season, but the program's first media availability made it clear how together this group is.

Cincinnati arguably has its deepest roster in the past decade, which took some fortitude from its best players to keep together. Junior wing Dan Skillings Jr. noted that many of UC's top players could've left for bigger NIL offers, but chose to stick together under Miller's guidance.

"It really says something about Coach Wes and Cincinnati and this program in general," Skillings said about the returning roster. "And how together we are, like, I bet Simas (Lukošius), Jizzle (James), AZ (Aziz Bandaogo), and me got offered more money to go somewhere else. And what did we all do? We all came back and stayed together because we believe in what we have here. And that's a true fact. 

"There's a lot of other universities that I don't know personally, that I know offered them money for sure, and myself, and that was maybe it was more than here, but we all chose to come back here and fight together because we know how good we were last year, and we know how good we could have been last year. To finish some games out and win a couple one possession games but that really says a lot about this program and says a lot about Coach Wes and how much we believe in him and him bringing us back."

One of the key additions Miller made is former Bradley guard Connor Hickman, who is used to starting, but knows It's about how a player impacts the full 40 minutes, not the opening few.

"When your goal is to win championships, you have to have people who are accepting of roles, right?" Hickman said on Tuesday about starting. "You can only start five people. You can't start fifteen. So I think it doesn't matter. I think you guys saw it last year with the six guys they're bringing back. It's a lot of great talent, and with the freshmen and the transfers that have been brought in, it's a lot of great talent. I think if you want to win you have to have guys who are accepting of, it's okay to be the sixth, seventh, eighth man. It's not always who starts the game, it's more about who finishes the game."

The Bearcats are going without Tyler McKinley this year due to injury. Still, if the rest of the roster stays healthy, they should have the depth and veteran experience to hang with anyone in the Big 12, and maybe shock the league along the way.

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