By Cord Rankin
12 22 2024
CINCINNATI, Ohio – The University of Cincinnati men’s basketball team hosted Grambling State on Sunday in its final non-conference matchup of the season and came away with an 84-49 victory.
With the win, Cincinnati improves to 10-1 on the season, its best non-conference mark since 2012-13.
The Bearcats treated the fans at Fifth Third Arena to another stellar performance before its eight-day holiday break. Three players reached double figures in scoring including Aziz Bandaogo, who led the way with 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting. Joining him in double figures were Dillon Mitchell (13) and Day Day Thomas (12). For Thomas, it was his first double-digit scoring effort of the season. All 12 of his points came after halftime.
Arrinten Page and Tyler Betsey just missed the double-digit mark, scoring nine points apiece.
Cincinnati’s play around the basket helped build its insurmountable lead. Forty of its 84 points were scored in the paint, and its 18 offensive rebounds constitute a season-high. Bandaogo’s five offensive boards led all players.
The Bearcats dominated from the jump on Sunday, with Mitchell’s dunk less than a minute into the game sparking an 11-2 run. Rim-rattling dunks were Cincinnati’s primary mode of scoring in the first five minutes of the game, with 10 of 11 points coming on dunks from Mitchell and Bandaogo.
UC continued to pile it on, opening up a 23-5 lead by the midway point of the first half. Back-to-back three-pointers from Betsey, the second of which came with 7:35 to go in the half, made it a 29-9 game.
Grambling found life in the final minutes of the first half, scoring 11 of the final 13 points, but Cincinnati still held a 37-24 advantage heading into the break. Bandaogo scored 10 first half points to lead the charge.
The Cincinnati lead continued to build in the second half. Back-to-back-to-back three-pointers from Simas Lukosius, Jizzle James, and Dan Skillings pushed the score to 50-29, then Mitchell followed up with another dunk.
The lead crept into the thirties for the first time near the halfway point of the second half. Thomas made it 63-35 with an acrobatic fast break layup, and moments later James lofted the perfect pass to Skillings for the alley-oop that put the score at 65-35 with 9:51 remaining.
The lead ballooned to a high of 37 points late in the fourth quarter when Halvine Dzellat knocked down a couple free throws with 1:17 to go.
FROM WES MILLER
Assessment of team through non-conference play
“Listen, we took care of business in non-conference. We wanted to do that and wanted to make sure that we did our part in our non-conference. We wanted to put ourselves in a position to go into league play and to be a quality team. I believe we’ve done that, and we’ve checked that box. Was it perfect? No, it’s not perfect. We have a lot of room for improvement but when we look back at the non-conference, I am pleased and believe that we did our part. We will use the next two or three days as a staff to recharge and kind of look at things and evaluate things, and we’ll have a couple days of practice when we get back on the 26th to adjust and make the necessary changes we need to do going into conference play.”
On area of progression from first game to now
“I thought this week we looked more natural in our defensive concepts. So, I can see why Dillon [Mitchell] would say that, or our players would feel that way. I think we’ve improved in a lot of areas, and we have to keep doing it. We have to keep growing, keep improving. We haven’t arrived in any area. I’m not pleased with any area, but I do think this team has continued to grow and improve. I think I said this recently but anytime we’ve been able to take a step back over any portion of time, I think we’ve improved over that portion of time. That doesn’t mean it’s been linear. We have had ups and downs and taken maybe two steps forward, one step back, but I think this group’s been that way from the summer until now. We’ve been a team that’s continued to improve over time, and we have to continue to be that team when we get back from Christmas.”
UP NEXT
Cincinnati will head to Manhattan, Kan. to open up Big 12 Conference play at Kansas State on Monday, Dec. 30. Tipoff is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.
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