By Daniel Daniels

10 18 2024

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati men’s basketball team never trailed, raced out to an 18-6 lead in the first seven minutes and never looked back in an 80-62 win over Ohio State on Friday night.

The contest marked the first installment of a weekend slate for the CareSource Charity Exhibition Games for Mental Health. Dayton and Xavier face off Sunday to close it out.

The two teams met at midcourt for check presentations to the Joe Burrow Foundation, Lindner Center of Hope and Jay’s Light, three organizations that CareSource selected for excelling in mental health services within the Tri-State area. There was also a joint pep rally at Princeton High School in the morning focused on mental health awareness.

“I appreciate all the fans for coming out for this exhibition game,” Dan Skillings said. “It’s amazing how many people showed up. We want them to keep showing up, so we’re going to keep going to practice and working hard for them so we can keep getting wins, but we appreciate the fans so much.”

FROM WES MILLER
“I don’t want to lose sight of this, tonight was about was about having awareness for mental health. It is a real thing. We were at a function this morning at Princeton High School, both Ohio State and us and our players. Anthony Grant’s wife, Christina, got up and spoke about them losing their daughter to suicide. It was a room full of high school kids and everybody knows how big it is at Princeton. They gave the mic to me, and they gave the mic to Jake [Diebler], and the kids were just talking. They could have cared less.  When she started talking, you could have heard a pin drop in the place. That’s what tonight was about first and let’s not forget that. It was great to see four programs in this state, the four high major programs in the state all come together to be a part of this and benefit Jay’s Light, which is the charity associated with the Grants.”

“There are some aspects of tonight that were good. I don’t want to be a debbie downer. I believe if anything, our guys should get some confidence. They can be a good team tonight and we have the pieces and depth to be a good team. We aren’t going to be a very good team if we think we’ve arrived in October because the score was in our favor. You guys watch, Ohio State will be three times better in two weeks. I’ve been here three years, and we have played these closed-door scrimmages and have lost a bunch of them. We’ve lost a bunch of them and then we got a lot better the next week. Ohio State will have their players’ attention this week. They’re a new group and they’re going to be really good.  If I’m right about what my group can be, we should act like we lost too because we haven’t done anything. That would be my first thing I’d say is please don’t tell these guys how great they are because they had a good exhibition game. We have a long way to go but I do think that the depth was good, and I was pleased that we played a ton of guys tonight. We were subbing so much over there that my head was spinning. We played a ton of guys, and I thought everybody that played showed why they’re in our program. CJ [Anthony] is a really good little player and he’s gotten really good. He can shoot the heck out of the ball. I wish he’d have made one of those shots tonight. Everybody that checked in the game made an impact tonight, and I’m proud of that. It was great to see Rayvon [Griffith] get out there. It’s been a long time coming, and that was great. It was awesome to see his first shot go in.”

FROM DILLON MITCHELL
“I think the main thing with this group is we have fun together. That’s kind of what it’s all about. When we go out there, it’s not we’re trying to execute this, execute that, but we’re going to have fun at the end of the day. I think that’s something that this team really connects on. It’s a big reason why I came here. The coaches brought a lot of guys back, and then adding me to that, I think the way we went out, the way we competed, I think that’s the biggest thing. Coach can live with mistakes and turnovers, but it’s the effort that counts. I know the goal that I have as far as what I want to accomplish with this team, and that’s getting a national championship. That’s getting rings, hanging of banners, and it’s good to know that every player down the bench has that same goal. That just motivates the whole team to just stay together.”

COURTESY UC SPORTS COMMUNICATIONS