Preview Paw Prints: East Carolina Pirates

An injury update, transfer trending the right direction, and more.

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats (11-6, 2-2) are ready to jumpstart the back half of this season with a win against East Carolina (10-7, 1-3) at home on Wednesday night.

Cincinnati enters the game ranked 74th in KenPom, while ECU sits at No. 164. They are one of three AAC teams outside the top 150 schools. ESPN's Matchup Predictor has Cincinnati winning 87.9% of the time.

Cincinnati leads the all-time series 18-2, including an 11-2 mark in AAC play and six-straight wins. Let's dive into the preview as UC tries to stay a perfect 10-0 at home against the Pirates.

Phinisee, Newman Updates

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The Bearcats' defense is missing guards Rob Phinisee and John Newman III, but both are progressing nicely, according to head coach Wes Miller.

Phinisee is on a faster track than Newman, but Miller didn't give any exact dates he expects either to return.

"I wouldn't say there's a timetable yet," Miller said on Wednesday. "You know, both of their rehabs are going well to date. The reports that I get weekly from our trainer are that they're on track, approaching it the right way. Rob started shooting, You know, so he's actually moving around and doing something on the basketball court, but nothing full speed yet, nothing live. I think when you get to this point, you don't push it too hard because you don't want to take a step backwards."

Neither guard has played since November as Phinisee broke his foot leading up to the win over Bryant. While Newman played in just one game before undergoing knee surgery.

"When guys are starting to move around, and getting the ball in their hands, you know you're heading in the right direction," Miller continued. "You know, John's recovery processes is much longer as everybody knows, so it's just going to be a lot longer process, but Rob's moving along, you know, on schedule. If we ever had a schedule type of thing."

The fact that Phinisee is starting to shoot and do more basketball activities is great news. Miller's mostly banked on David DeJulius and Mika Adams-Woods to handle major ballhandling duties on offense.

Defensively, Cincinnati has had to rely on DeJulius more as a primary scoring defender this season, something Miller isn't ready to turn into an excuse when DeJulius has rough shooting days like he did against Houston (2-of-10 FGs).

All in all, expect to see Phinisee on the floor sooner than Newman.

Kalu Clues

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Kalu Ezikpe was arguably the Bearcats' second-most anticipated transfer behind Landers Nolley. Unfortunately, the forward has played sparingly over this season, including DNPs against Detroit Mercy, Temple, Tulane, and Wichita State.

Ezikpe got another shot against Houston, and was a team-best plus-8 for the game, logging 2 points and 3 rebounds in 9 minutes.

"I thought he added to the game when he played," Miller said about Ezikpe's Houston outing. "He's approached, being buried on the bench the way that you expect people to approach it. And he's just kind of come in the gym worked every day and tried to play with a little edge in practice to show that he wants to be out there. And even when he does that, and has a good practice, and doesn't get in the game, he comes back and does it the next day."

He's been handling the benching as every player should as he works out of the dog house.

"So we've been saying here not just going into the game against Houston, but we were saying going into the game against Temple, going into the game against Wichita, 'Hey, I think Kalu can play in this game.' We've been saying that for multiple games now. And it just so happened that we needed them. And he went in and did some nice things."

Cincinnati needs Ezikpe to start impacting games even more. Ody Oguama is a solid energy option next to Viktor Lakhin, but his offensive floor is much lower than Ezikpe's in a vacuum.

Wednesday should be another good opportunity for Ezikpe if that practice acumen has kept improving. ECU sports two impactful players 6-foot-8 or taller in Brandon Johnson (13.2 Pts, 9.1 Reb, 2.1 Ast) and Ezra Ausar (8.9 Pts, 3.6 Reb, 0.3 Ast).

Charity Stripe Pirates

© William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports

East Carolina is about as mediocre as you can get in college basketball, but they are young and growing (25.8% of minutes played and 18.0% of scoring return from the 2021-22 roster).

They don't do anything great or poorly, except for getting to the free throw line. That's really the only path to victory I see for ECU outside of a red-hot shooting night.

The Pirates rank 55th in free throws made per game (15), and 32nd in attempts (22.2), but are just 292nd in percentage (67.5%). A big bellwether for that impact is leading scorer Javon Small (15.4 Pts, 4.8 Reb, 5.6 Ast). The sophomore is their best free throw shooter (84.6%) and gets to the line more than anyone on the team (5.4 FTAs)

The 6-foot-2, 180-pound guard loves contact and supplements an inefficient shot (47.7% effective FG rate) with those trips to the line. Cincinnati is a disciplined team overall and that needs to continue. They foul on just 21.8% of opposing possessions (57th nationally).

If not, Small and his sophomore teammate Johnson will punish Cincinnati. The Bearcats are no stranger to massive individual rebounding performances and the 6-foot-8 forward could be the next one if they aren't careful. 

He is tied for 36th nationally in rebounds per game (9.1). That is just ahead of Northern Kentucky's Chris Brandon who posted 16 rebounds against Cincinnati in November.

Keeping Johnson off the glass and Small off the line should lead to a victory at Fifth Third Arena.

UC and ECU battle at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday on ESPNU. The game is available via fuboTV—start your free trial here.

Make sure you bookmark All Bearcats for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more.

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