By james art 
Cincinnati – If Bearcats (12-8, 2-7) want to get the miracle return to the NCAA tournament status, they must defeat West Virginia (13-7, 4-5) on Sunday afternoon.
Bearcats are on a three -time losing series and firmly from the balloon entering the 2 pm ET top of ESPN+. Cincinnati enters this game, ranked 49th in the network and 57th place in Kenpom, while West Virginia is 44th on the net and 48th on Kenpom. ESPN’s Matchup forecast gives Cincinnati 68.6% a chance to get the victory after Bearcats beat WVU in the back matches last March.
UC is 11-8 against WVU after the 1949-50 season. This is Quad 2 game for Cincinnati and they can no longer lose non-square games over the rest of the season.
“Now it is due to a few boys to get off both offensive.”
From Wes Miller’s mouth to the ears of God. Bearcats coach is confident that boys as skills will turn things around among these brutal first nine games in a conference game. The attacker was a shell of his normal self in three years in UC.
Cincinnati needs it to get a lot of defense sound and find some offensive rhythm – the sweets are an average of 7.4 points with a disgusting 33.3% effective target price of the field in the last five games. Add only 2.4 struggles to play in this section and it is difficult to see how it affects the winning ways at all.
Now things could turn quickly and Sunday brings an opponent against whom he was thriving to end last season (15 points, 4.5 rebounds and three assists per match in the last two WVU matches). It must start with defense. Skillings completely fell from a rock there in the last few weeks. It does not sound in its switches, leaves its legs too often, and continues to scatter on opposite screens instead of sliding around.
He has the worst 109.4 defensive rating in the conference game (102.5 last season).
“Dan Wilengs and Jizl James are in positions in this team where they have never been in any team,” Miller said on Thursday. “And at times you can see that they are in the right position. They are prepared for this position and they consist of being elite players in this league. And then you can sometimes see that they are learning in this process.
“I have so much faith in both of them and in the others because they belong. They belong not only to this league or in this team, but they belong to the positions they are relying on, and they are expected to introduce. Players .
James’ distinction makes sense from Miller, but skills are far from a foreigner to the role he has in this team. He started each game after February 13 last season, played more minutes per game as a whole during the season of this campaign and held almost the same degree of use (25.8% last season, 25.4% this season).
He has to play better for Cincinnati to turn this titanic around. It will not be easy to ignite this crime against a team of West Virginia, ranked 22nd for corrected defense efficiency.
Only one healthy player in Western Virginia is on average the numbers with double evaluation this season, and he simply happens to lead the conference in scoring. The Javon Small electric security (19.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, five assists) is the heavy offensive center for WVU.
Cincinnati has been familiar with him since his time with East Carolina in AAC and he has only become better for the last two years. It is the heart of the WVU crime that accumulates threesomes with blisters (27.1 per game, 49th on a national scale), but hits only 32.7% of the time (249). UC will have big problems if their recent poor protection against three points continued.
It is clear that something should give a match, with the UC allowing 18.8 attempts per match (15th national) and 5.8 marks (ninth). The small methodically will move the crime, swing for external photos and drag the game in the mud (WVU ranks 328th in a corrected tempo). Cincinnati cannot handle this game and you probably need to keep a strong team for free throws below 15 attempts (WVU shoots 74.7% on the line, 84th).
Down low, forward Armani Hansbury (9.6 points, 5.6 rebounds) leads the team when shooting two points (53.7%) and is the only real internal threat at 6-8. WVU is a terrible rebound team (-4 bounce differential, 47.7% of the fight, 279), but Cincinnati is beaten the glass in seven consecutive games.
They need to win this game if they manage to return to the attack of the glass as we are as accustomed to seeing from the hoops of Cincinnati. This is big if. WVU has a clear offensive killer on their side, something that none of the UC has proven.
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