By Henry Rawn

Day Day Thomas added 21 points and six steals

March 11, 2025

KANSAS CITY – Junior forward Josh Reed scored a career-high 19 points, senior guard Day Day Thomas finished with a season-high 21 points and junior forward Dillon Mitchell notched his fifth double-double of the season with 18 points and a career-best 15 boards to power the Cincinnati men’s basketball team to an 87-68 victory over Oklahoma State in the first round of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship at the T-Mobile Center.

Thomas added a career-high six steals as UC recorded an impressive 18 steals as a team – tying for the sixth-most in a single game in school history.

Cincinnati will face fifth-seeded and No. 13-ranked Iowa State at 12:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday on ESPN or ESPN2. The Bearcats lost to the Cyclones, 81-70, in Ames, Iowa, on Feb. 15, despite 25 points from sophomore guard Jizzle James.

UC fell to OSU, 78-67, to close out the regular season on Saturday, but the Bearcats bounced back by holding OSU post Abou Ousmane to just four points after he scored 24 points and eight rebounds in the Cowboys’ win three days ago.

Ousmane, who was also Xavier’s leading rebounder last season, did not score a point until the 16:29 mark in the second half and fouled out midway through the final frame.

Reed’s 15 points on 6 of 8 shooting before halftime eclipsed his previous career high (13) and powered UC to a 38-26 lead at the break.

Both teams combined for 20 turnovers in the first 20 minutes, but Cincinnati held a 16-8 edge in points in the paint with Reed and Mitchell (nine points, seven rebounds at the break) setting the pace for the Bearcats in the first half.

Cincinnati jumped out to a 9-3 lead by making three of their first four 3-point attempts in the game’s first five minutes with James, Mitchell and Reed all burying triples.

After Oklahoma State cut its deficit to 4, Cincinnati scored four straight on a pair of James’ free throws and two-handed Mitchell slam, making the score 21-13 with 8:14 remaining in the first half.

Reed reached double figures five minutes before the intermission with a spinning and-one layup for a three-point play that put UC in front 26-18.

Reed’s skying layup and a steal and emphatic one-handed dunk by Thomas put Cincinnati up 12 with 36 seconds left before the break.

In the opening minutes of the second half, James found senior center Aziz Bandaogo for an alley-oop dunk and Mitchell converted a putback to keep Cincinnati in front by 12.

Thomas pushed the Bearcats further ahead with a second-chance 3-point swish and fastbreak dunk before junior wing Dan Skillings Jr.’s fastbreak dunk capped a 6-0 run and put Cincinnati in front 53-34 with 15 minutes left.

A three-point play on a layup and free throw from Skillings Jr. gave the Bearcats’ their biggest lead of the game, 58-38, with 12:49 remaining.

The Cowboys chipped away at the lead and trailed by 12, 67-55, but the Bearcats used four fastbreak dunks to move back in front by 20 en route to the emphatic victory.

Notes:

• Josh Reed reached double figures with 4:31 left in the first half for his sixth career 10-point game, fifth this season and fifth in the last 10 games. He scored a career-high 15 points before halftime.
• Cincinnati’s 18 steals were its most since tallying 19 against Arkansas Pine-Bluff in 2015-16, and tied for the sixth-most in a single game in school history.
• Day Day Thomas’ six steals were the most since Cashmere Wright had seven steals in 2011-12 and tied for the fifth-most all-time.

COURTESY UC SPORTS COMMUNICATIONS