By Marisol Nicholson
CINCINNATI GAME NOTES
https://gobearcats.com/documents/2024/1/11/2023-24_MBB_Game_Notes.pdf
1 13 2024
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati men’s basketball team will get its third top-25 Big 12 matchup in as many games when it takes on No. 14 Baylor on Saturday night in Waco, Texas.
THE RUNDOWN
- Cincinnati fell in a home heartbreaker to No. 25 Texas on Tuesday, as Max Abmas made a short pull-up jumper in the final seconds of a 14-lead change, 14-tie, 74-73 decision. The Bearcats fell to 10-2 when scoring 70-plus.
- Saturday’s game marks UC’s first time playing three-straight ranked teams since 2013-14, the inaugural AAC season. It fell to Louisville and UConn before defeating Memphis.
- Aziz Bandaogo entered with 3-straight double-doubles, but a hard foul to his back in the first half aggravated an injury sustained against Dayton on Dec. 16. He returned in the second half and played through it.
- Jamille Reynolds scored 11 points over 18 minutes in his place, going 5-for-6 from the field with two blocks.
- Viktor Lakhin’s 17 points put him in double-digits for the fifth-straight game (15.0 ppg on 53% shooting), to continue his team lead at 14.1 ppg. He is fourth in the Big 12 for FG% (54.0) and rebounds (8.1).
- Simas Lukosius scored a season-high 19 points, including 12 over the final 7:50 and a crucial jumper for a three-point lead with a minute left. He is shooting 58 percent (11-for-19) from deep over his last four games.
- Josh Reed has become an unsung piece to the team’s recent success. Despite two DNPs in non-conference play, he has played 17 minutes each of the last three games, going 5-for-6 from deep and serving as a defensive specialist. The Dayton game has been the only one in which Cincinnati had all its scholarship players healthy or eligible, making for new roles to be filled and at a high level.
- Cincinnati maintained its No. 2 national ranking in rebounding (12.8) by defeating Texas on the glass, 34-28. All this comes despite Reynolds and Bandaogo missing a combined 16 games. By comparison, last year’s Bearcats were 101 (2.6) and 211 (-0.3) in 2021-22, Wes Miller‘s first season. UC is +7.5 on the glass in Big 12 play.-
- The Bearcats’ 32 three-point attempts in Big 12 play mark their fewest in any two-game stretch this season, but they have shot an efficient 41 percent from deep. UC has also boosted its approach with a 39-20 advantage in free-throw attempts over that span.
- UC’s last time winning consecutive ranked games away from home came late in 2018 (at 11 Wichita State, vs. 21 Houston in AAC title game).
SERIES HISTORY
- The lone meeting was a Cincinnati home loss in 1946.
- Bandaogo and Baylor big Josh Ojianwuna both participated in the NCAA’s Next Generation Sunday event at the 2019 Men’s Final Four (Minneapolis) for NBA Global Academy.
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