By Henry Rawn
1 21 2025
GAME NOTES
https://gobearcats.com/documents/2025/1/19/2024-25_Game_Notes_vs._Texas_Tech.pdf
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati men’s basketball team, winners of two-straight games, host Texas Tech on Tuesday night inside Fifth Third Arena (7 p.m.).
THE RUNDOWN
- Cincinnati held Arizona State to 24.1 percent shooting in the first half, led by 17 early in the second and withstood a Sun Devil rally for its second-straight win on Saturday.
- UC’s 25 fastbreak points were a season-high by six, which included Dillon Mitchell picking off a pass and throwing down a windmill slam, not an uncommon sight at this point. He was among four Bearcats in double-figures for the second-straight game, a first for UC since the Dec. 14 win over Xavier.
- Per EvanMiya.com, Mitchell is 21st nationally and fourth in the Big 12 for “a player’s overall value to his team when he is on the floor.” He leads UC with 28 steals to go with his 11.1 ppg, six away from his career-high in the former and his best in the latter. He also had 16 points, 11 boards and four dimes in a home game against Texas Tech last year. He and Bandaogo (42 and 40) are second and third, respectively, nationally in dunks.
- Lukosius is averaging a team-high 14.8 ppg in wins (49.6 FG%) compared to 6.6 in losses (25.6 FG%). He went 5-for-13 from deep over the last two wins (38.4 percent), which also marks his most deep makes in a two-game stretch since Dec. 3-8. He also had a career-high four steals against Arizona State.
- CJ Fredrick has continued to elevate the Bearcats off the bench. He went 2-for-4 from deep versus ASU, his first game this year with multiple, in addition to a perfect alley-oop feed to a dunking Mitchell.
- Fredrick has only appeared in 10 of UC’s 17 games this year and is shooting 42.9 percent from deep. He was 42.6 percent last year, though he only played 41 minutes in the Big 12 due to injury. Prior to coming to UC, he was a part of four NCAA Tourney teams at Iowa and Kentucky, which does not include the COVID cancelation, and he has 146 treys on 41.4 percent shooting.
- Aziz Bandaogo blocked three shots against ASU and is averaging 9.0 rpg over the last three games, by far his best stretch of the year on the boards, including 3.6 per game on the offensive glass.
- Dan Skillings’ 14.2 ppg in Big 12 play leads UC. He had 18 in three-straight games to start and is in double-figures for five of the six contests.
- Cincinnati is second only to Tennessee in 3-point defense (26.9 percent) and seventh nationally in allowing 60.6 ppg, in addition to seventh in KenPom defense and 39th overall.
- While free-throw shooting has been a tough go for UC, it finished 6-for-7 over the final minutes, with the only miss coming as the game was decided against ASU, and 8-for-8 over the last 1:04 at Colorado.
SERIES HISTORY
- Cincinnati’s 1961 national title run began with a 78-55 win over Texas Tech in Lawrence, Kansas, and it was the only all-time meeting between the teams until UC joined the Big 12 last year.
- In that Lubbock matchup, Lukosius’ floater with 21 seconds left, after a go-ahead 3-pointer by Texas Tech, powered Cincinnati to a major 75-72 win over the No. 15 Red Raiders.
- Following Lukosius’ shot, Skillings picked up a defensive rebound with nine seconds left and fed it to an all-alone John Newman III, who stalled the final seconds before dunking with three left to ice it.
- There were eight ties and 14 lead changes. Lukosius had 16 points on 4-of-7 deep shooting, Skillings scored 14 points over 28 minutes off the bench, and Newman added 11 points while helping hold Tech star Pop Isaacs to 5-of-19 shooting.
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