By Henry Rawn

1 15 2025

GAME NOTES

https://gobearcats.com/documents/2025/1/14/2024-25_Game_Notes_at_Colorado.pdf

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati men’s basketball team is headed to the Rocky Mountains this week to take on Colorado, Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET.

THE RUNDOWN

• Cincinnati held Kansas to its lowest scoring total of the season, with the final two points even coming uncontested. Two of the Jayhawks’ four lowest outputs of the past two seasons have come at the hands of UC, including the 72-52 blowout in the Big 12 Tournament.
• The Bearcats allowed their fewest points in a loss since Feb. 26, 2017 at UCF (53-49). The defense also jumped to fifth nationally in three-pointers at 27.1 percent, seventh in scoring (60.5 ppg) and ninth in KenPom.
• Cincinnati led longer than KU, including falling to 9-1 when leading at the half this year, but a 14-0 run over starting at 6:47 of the second half put the game out of reach.
• Dillon Mitchell led UC with 10 points and five boards. He is shooting 56.7 percent in league play to go with six steals and 6.3 rpg.
• Mitchell post-Kansas: I told the team the other day that we have 16 games left in the conference. I don’t even think we’ve played that many games so far. There’s still a lot of season left … We know the shots are going to start to fall and when they do, everything’s going to open up for us. We just have to continue to lock in, stay focused on the details and stay together. That is the biggest thing. It’s all about the 15 other guys in that locker room and all the coaches. That’s all that matters.”
• Arrinten Page gave the Bearcats a strong boost with nine points and seven rebounds in only 14 minutes off the bench, including a huge trey in the second half. His career-high of 22 minutes occurred twice as a freshman at USC last year, including at Colorado. His team split the series with the Buffs.
• Further bench shake-ups included CJ Fredrick playing 16 minutes, his most since Nov. 8. Connor Hickman, who has played through injury most of the year, did not play. If Fredrick, who has 143 career triples in his career, can get going, UC was 5-0 when he made three or more last year, and Kentucky was 6-0 in those games in 2022-23, where he started 10 of the 15 games in which he appeared.
• Dan Skillings had 18 points in each of his first three Big 12 games before having nine against Kansas. He did have seven points and three steals in the first half alone. His 48.0 percent deep shooting (12-for-25) in league play ranks second. He was 3-for-15 in non-conference, which included missing six games with a knee injury.
• Simas Lukosius’ wins-and-losses splits are the sharpest on the team, as he is 15.1 ppg on 50.0 percent shooting when victorious and 6.6 ppg on 25.6 in losses.

DEFENSE REIGNING SUPREME

The 7.7 ppg improvement since last year has been a sight to see. Since the start of last year, Cincinnati has been responsible for two of Kansas’ four lowest-scoring games as well. Asterisks denote NCAA Tourney teams.

Season    Scoring Avg.    League/Nat’l Rank
2024-25    60.5    2/7
2023-24    68.2    4/68
2022-23    69.3    4/147
2021-22    65.9    3/72
2020-21    72.1    11/226
2019-20    67.1    7/117
2018-19*    62.7    2/14
2017-18*    57.5    1/2

SERIES HISTORY

• Cincinnati defeated Colorado in the 1962 and 1963 Elite Eights, eventually winning the former national title before falling to Loyola (Chicago) in the latter to end its three-peat bid.
• The last meetings were over a home-and-home from 1981 and 1982, with Colorado taking the last of those to improve to 1-7 against UC all-time.

COURTESY UC SPORTS COMMUNICATIONS