Cincinnati returned to the court Saturday afternoon for a 2:30 pm tip off inside Fifth Third Arena against Tommy Lloyd's Arizona Wildcats.
(Photos: Taylor Keeton / RiverfrontU )
The Bearcats started the season 10-1 in non-conference play, but received a humbling road loss to Kansas State to open Big 12 play, falling 70-67.
After beginning the season 3-4, Arizona had gone 4-1 over their last five games, including a 90-81 home win over TCU to open Big 12 play.
"They're an elite, elite team in college basketball," head coach Wes Miller told media Thursday morning. "When you start really breaking them down, you see it in every facet. You see it analytically on both offense and defense."
Cincinnati struggled with consistency at times during the non-conference portion of their schedule and that inconsistency once again caught up to them in a 72-67 loss to Arizona on Saturday.
Playing in front of a sold out, standing room only, home crowd, Cincinnati clawed back from a 19-point second half deficit against Arizona to tie the score at 64 with :58 seconds remaining.
A defensive lapse on the following possession on a ball screen allowed Jaden Bradley a free run at the rim and wide open lay up in what would ultimately be the game winning basket for Arizona, as UC didn't score again until Day Day Thomas made a three with :02 seconds left and UC trailing by six.
" I thought we did a nice job of digging back into the game and showing some character down 18 at one point," said Miller following the game. "I was proud of that part and then I was not please with the offense and defensive execution the last minute, but you got to give them credit for making plays."
The three by Thomas would be just the fifth of the game for UC as the Bearcats finished 5-of-25 from deep. Wes Miller's team also struggled to convert from the free throw line, making just 12-of-23 attempts.
When asked about the poor shooting following the game, Miller attributed the poor shooting to lack of execution, movement, and timing.
" I did think we executed to get some great looks from three in the second half. I thought there were some wide-open shots and good ball movement and good decision making and we just couldn't convert those and that happens.'
(Photos: Taylor Keeton / RiverfrontU )
Arizona finished 43% from the field, 5-of-14 from three, and 21-of-27 from the free throw line in the win.
Defensively, UC limited Arizona's leading scorer, Caleb Love, to 12 points on 3-of-15 shooting but the Bearcats struggled to contain the other key contributors as Jaden Bradley led the Wildcats with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting, while freshman Carter Bryant came off the bench to score a season-high 14 points on a perfect 5-of-5 from the field, while also knocking down all three of his attempts from deep.
Bryant entered the game shooting 26% from three, making just six of his 17 attempts.
"Carter's really making progress and the one thing about Carter is, you know, I've told him he checks two boxes that are really hard to check," explained Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd. " He's an elite talent and he has an elite character. The game is going to come to him, the refinement is going to come, the experience is going to come, and the progress he's made the last month has been game-changing for us."
With consecutive games against Top-25 opponents coming up next week on the road at Baylor and then back home against Kansas, Cincinnati will have to find a way to put another disappointing loss behind them quickly.
"You want to play in these leagues where every night it's an opportunity and certainly I feel like we're good enough to play with anybody," said Miller. " To me it's not hard to get locked into the next game. My entire life is the next game so that part's not hard, but you got to bring it and play well every night and that's the challenge. The teams in this league that do that over the course of the next two month will be the best teams. It's a challenge for everybody."
Game recap:
Cincinnati won the opening tip and proceeded to score on their first possession on a lob from Jizzle James to Aziz Bandaogo.
Defensively, the Bearcats limited Arizona to a 1-for-7 showing from the field through the first five minutes and led 6-4.
Carter Bryant's three at 13:29 put the Wildcats on top 9-8, as both teams were struggling from the field and a combined 6-of-21 from the field with 11:54 remaining in the first half.
Day Day Thomas finish at the rim ended a Bearcats scoring drought and put UC back on top, 10-9, but the Wildcats answered with a 6-0 run over the next 1:09, forcing Wes Miller to call a timeout at 10:02 in the first half.
Jizzle James' basket at 8:49 ended a scoring drought that was approaching three minutes. James buried another midrange jumper on the next Bearcat possession to cut the Arizona lead to two, 16-14.
Dan Skillings' three on the next UC possession capped off a 7-0 run over 1:18 to give UC a 17-16 advantage. with 7:27 left in the opening half.
Defensively, UC did a great job on Arizona All American Caleb Love to begin the game. The Wildcats' leading scorer made his first basket of the game on a three with 6:02 left in the first half to put Arizona up 21-19.
A three-point play by Jaden Bradley on the next Arizona possession gave the Wildcats a 24-19 advantage with under five minutes remaining.
Arizona's 8-0 run over 2:10 extended their lead to 26-19 at 3:52 following a Henri Veesaar.
Carter Bryan's three gave Arizona a 29-21 lead at 3:33 of the first half.
Cincinnati failed to score over the final 2:40 of the first half and missed seven of their final eight field goal attempts.
With Cincinnati seemingly struggling to get anything going offensively, Arizona took advantage and increased their lead to 39-26 at the half.
Caleb Love and Jaden Bradley each scored nine points during the first half to lead all scorers as the Wildcats made 4-of-7 attempts from deep. Cincinnati made just 2-of-10 from deep.
The Bearcats began the second half making just 2-of-10 from the field and trailed 47-31 with 15:29 remaining in the game. UC also missed all six attempts from deep, while missing 3-of-4 at the free throw line.
Trailing 52-33, the Bearcats finally started to show some life, using a 6-0 run over :53 seconds to cut the Arizona lead to 52-39 with 12:29 remaining in the game.
Dunks by Arrinten Page and Dillon Mitchell during the run helped get the home crowd back into the game.
After Dan Skillings made two free throws, KJ Lewis turnaround jumper with 11:43
remaining ended the 8-0 UC to push the UA lead back to 13.
Arizona pushed their lead to 15 on the next UA possession and UC would respond in a big way to reignite a fan base just waiting to explode.
Dunks by Aziz Bandaogo and Dillon Mitchell would fuel a 9-0 UC run over the next 1:40.
Mitchell followed his dunk with a corner three and Day Day Thomas scored in transition off a UA miss to cut the Arizona lead to six, 58-52, with 7:19 remaining in the game.
With Cincinnati trailing 64-57 following a Carter Bryant dunk with 4:12 left, Jizzle James scored on consecutive possessions to cut the lead to 64-61.
Trailing by two, Day Day Thomas attempted a corner three. The ball bounced off the rim and in to the hands of Dan Skillings. Skillings immediately went back up with the ball and laid it in to tie the score at 64 with :58 seconds on the clock.
On the next Arizona possession, Jaden Bradley made a move at the top of the key, drove right, and got to the rim for an easy lay up to give the Wildcats the lead.
Cincinnati got a good look from three on their next possession, but KJ Lewis made an athletic play on Dan Skillings' attempt, getting just enough of a hand on the shot for it to fall short.
Arizona made 5-of-6 free throws over the final :24 seconds to close out the road win.
Key stats and Notes:
- After Arizona missed six of their first seven shots to open the game, the Wildcats responded by making 13-of-23 extending their lead to 47-28 with 17:22 remaining in the game. Defensively, Cincinnati struggled to find consistency defending ball screens and allowed Arizona to get easy baskets in transition off of their misses.
- Dan Skillings scored 18 points to lead Cincinnati, making 6-of-14 from the field and 2-of-7 from deep. He was the best player on the floor and the Bearcats will need him to continue playing like that for them to have the type of success in this league that they're capable of.
- Dillon Mitchell was the only other Bearcat to reach double figures, scoring 13 points to go with seven rebounds. Mitchell was the only player to finish with a positive +/- at +6.
While it's not in his nature to be an alpha, Mitchell becoming more aggressive with the ball in his hands could go a long way in preventing teams from keying in on Simas Lukosius and Jizzle James.
- Speaking of Lukosius, he finished with nine points but continues to struggle from deep, making just 1-of-4 attempts. He is now 6-for-31 over his last five games.
- Jizzle James contributed seven points, five rebounds, four assists, making 3-of-11 from the field. While there's no reason to panic, James has had back-to-back games of three turnovers. In a league where every possession matters, this team needs James to become the elite point guard that they envisioned at the beginning of the season.
- Arizona was the deeper team and it showed in the box score. The Wildcats finished with 31 bench points, compared to 15 for UC. Day Day Thomas came off the bench and contributed nine points, but Tyler Betsey was 1-for-7 from the field and 0-of-5 from three, while Conner Hickman was 0-for-2 in just under eight minutes. Arrinten Page only saw nine minutes, but scored four points.
- On a positive note, the Bearcats out-rebounded one of the best rebounding teams in the country, 39-34, and also outscored them in the paint, 36-32.
Final Thoughts:
While Wes Miller continues to say he isn't concerned, free throw shooting has to improve for this team to reach their full potential. Missing 11-of-23 free throws in a five-point loss is hard to overlook.
"I don't concern myself with a lot of the things that I can't control but we can control effort, approach, we can control a free throw box out, quite frankly we can control switching a ball screen," said Miller when asked about free throw shooting. "They're going to step up and make free throws. It's a long season. They're gonna make them. I ain't worried about that."
Hopefully Miller is right. This team has too much talent to lose games like today because of not taking advantage of free opportunities. The duo of Dillon Mitchell and Aziz Bandaogo were a combined 1-for-9 from the line. Teams will start taking notice of this in late game situations when the game is on the line.
Up Next:
Tuesday 1/7 at #25 Baylor 8:00 pm
Postgame Video: Wes Miller & Dillon Mitchell ; Tommy Lloyd, Carter Bryant, Henri Veesaar
