Brigham Young 1/25 10:30 pm ESPN 2

[GoBearcats31]

UC heads west for two games in the Beehive State, first at BYU on Saturday night and then at Utah next week. I thought this was a 10 p.m. ET tip but apparently it is now listed at 10:30. Roxy Bernstein and King McClure will have the call on Saturday night. This is the sixth game in a row on ESPN2, so expect it to start over on the ESPN app ...

BYU is 12-6 (3-4). After starting 1-4, BYU has recently won at Oklahoma State, lost in OT at Utah and just won at Colorado by 16 on Tuesday. They also have a 20-point win over Arizona State and 5-point loss to Texas Tech, as far as common opponents thus far.

Ken Pom = UC 44, BYU 38
NET = UC 41, BYU 43

BYU is coached by Kevin Young, coming off a number of years as an NBA assistant.

Top players are:
- Richie Saunders, 6'5 guard 14.5 points, 4.1 rebounds (43% from three)
- Egor Demin, 6'9 guard - 10.7 points, 4.2 rebounds, 5.8 assists (likely first round NBA draft pick)
- Trevin Knell, 6'5 guard - 10.1 points, 2.4 rebounds (44.1% from three; hit 9 versus UC last year)

BYU also has two bigs averaging less than 20 minutes but putting up big numbers: Fousseyni Traore (6'6 but 240) 9.7/6.3 and Keba Keita 6.6/8.5

The Cougars score 80.4 points per game and shoot 35.9% from three, but only 68.1% from the free throw line.

The roster features players from Serbia, Russia, Mali (2x), Australia and Senegal.

[red_n_black_attack]

This year is obviously lost. Somehow Wes needs to bring in a few players with talent and who care to win. The bigger job will be to clear the air of malaise and acceptance of mediocrity that is hanging heavy. I like Wes but that seems beyond his capabilities. We all better develop some alternative interests for next winter.

I'd like to see Wes do the same thing Rick Barnes did at Tennessee: sit your star, and highest paid NIL player for a mistake, then tell the player in the post game presser he needs to do what he's paid to do or this coach will continue to sit him

[bearcatlifer]

This year is obviously lost. Somehow Wes needs to bring in a few players with talent and who care to win. The bigger job will be to clear the air of malaise and acceptance of mediocrity that is hanging heavy. I like Wes but that seems beyond his capabilities. We all better develop some alternative interests for next winter.

[sedz]

He surely doesn’t think he’s going to the League next
year, does he ? He already said this is his last year
so maybe he’s looking for more NIL money.
He makes some nice plays, like many, but is so inconsistent.

He has the physical tools and the NBA would do a better job of teaching him than our staff. But who knows. Maybe he sticks around next year or look for an NIL bidding war.

[SKell82155]

Skillings didn't read my scouting report. They send a double every time he drives and he has zero awareness.

He surely doesn’t think he’s going to the League next
year, does he ? He already said this is his last year
so maybe he’s looking for more NIL money.
He makes some nice plays, like many, but is so inconsistent.

[SKell82155]

If Aziz cannot play, who is going to play the back-up 5? Poorly constructed roster for the BIG XII. All of these wings and guards and they are not helping UC to win. What is the use of this guard-oriented stuff if it cannot help UC to win? Why would Miller even put a team together without enough bigmen? Any serious high-major team probably needs 5 bigs (6'9" or taller) to rotate and to insure against injury. UC only had three. Then McKinley went down. Currently, UC only has two playable bigs to work with. Now Aziz is hurt.

We will see how the remaining season plays out.

Viewing the recruiting tab is a bit disconcerting as
well- pretty much all guards & wings.

[leo from jersey]

Really bad on both sides of the ball. We again didn't get close to a point per possession, only putting up 0.87. And we gave up 1.33 points per possession.

Simas was our best player with 2.4 net points, hitting 4 of 8 from three. Day Day was our only other positive impact player, leading with a 4.7 defensive BPM.

Skillings was again our worst player with negative 5.1 net points. He committed 3 turnovers trying to bully his way through double teams. Skillings also had a team worst negative 4.9 defensive BPM. He has mentally regressed to streetball in the last couple games. Betsey was the worst in his time on the court with a negative 17 BPM.

This is going to break some brains around here, but we had a slightly higher rebounding rate despite being outrebounded by 6. The reason is we missed so many more shots. We rebounded 32.5% of our misses, BYU rebounded 31.8% of theirs. We won the turnover battle, outscored them and converted a better rate from two, and blocked more shots. We knew this game would be all about the three point line and we got torched there.

The problem on offense isn't that we took too many threes. It's that our threes aren't open catch-and-shoot set shots. The strategy to break a zone for decades has been to get the ball in the middle of the zone to collapse it and then kick it back out to wide open shooters. We didn't do that at all. Our threes were contested and off the dribble. BYUs weakness on defense is the three point line. You're not going to win without a strategy to exploit that, no matter how tough you are.

It's funny how people like Kevin Johnson will say they don't care about what analytics say, then in the same breath talk about strategy informed by analytics. Guarding the three point line means means going over the top of screens or hedging them, and staying on the shooting hip of drivers rather than staying in front. Those are things that can be coached. It requires awareness and discipline by the coach and players. To me, that's more strategy than grit. Blaming analytics for failing to implement a strategy is just silly. If Wes is using analytics for coming up with gameplans, he's doing a terrible job.

DS has played hero ball his entire time at UC.

[sedz]

Fighting through screens is killing this team. It leads to giving up a lot of threes. Why would Miller play James (6'2") on Demin (6'9")? Why not play Skillings on him.

A couple of great points here. Number one, we shouldn't be fighting through screens against a three point shooting team. They should all be hedges or trailed over the top. We were trying to fight through instead, which even if you fight hard, the shooter is going to gain a bit of space which is all they need.

Second, Jizzle and Day Day combined for 56 minutes. So we had both of them out there for a good chunk of time and they had to guard a BYU team that plays a bunch of big wings. I agree that Skillings probably should have been on Demin, but that means an undersized guard having to cover the best offensive player in the Big12 in 6'5" wing Saunders. We chose to go small so we were going to have issues regardless of the matchups.

[zykarious]

It's obvious using both the eye test and analytics that Day Day is outplaying Jizzle and Page is outplaying Aziz. At a minimum, I would make those two changes to the starting 5. We also have to cut out the failed two PG experiment and give those minutes to Reed.

I would start Reed as well for at least the next game, just to send a message.

I think we have to change something up, the only option for a big change would be benching Mitchell or Aziz and going small ball with Simas at the 4.

[sedz]

It's obvious using both the eye test and analytics that Day Day is outplaying Jizzle and Page is outplaying Aziz. At a minimum, I would make those two changes to the starting 5. We also have to cut out the failed two PG experiment and give those minutes to Reed.

[zykarious]

Mitchell seems more a wing player.

Mitchell is a big wing who can't shoot or dribble all that well. I wonder how much real competition there was in his recruitment. He might be better off in the roll of energy guy off the bench.

[sedz]

Really bad on both sides of the ball. We again didn't get close to a point per possession, only putting up 0.87. And we gave up 1.33 points per possession.

Simas was our best player with 2.4 net points, hitting 4 of 8 from three. Day Day was our only other positive impact player, leading with a 4.7 defensive BPM.

Skillings was again our worst player with negative 5.1 net points. He committed 3 turnovers trying to bully his way through double teams. Skillings also had a team worst negative 4.9 defensive BPM. He has mentally regressed to streetball in the last couple games. Betsey was the worst in his time on the court with a negative 17 BPM.

This is going to break some brains around here, but we had a slightly higher rebounding rate despite being outrebounded by 6. The reason is we missed so many more shots. We rebounded 32.5% of our misses, BYU rebounded 31.8% of theirs. We won the turnover battle, outscored them and converted a better rate from two, and blocked more shots. We knew this game would be all about the three point line and we got torched there.

The problem on offense isn't that we took too many threes. It's that our threes aren't open catch-and-shoot set shots. The strategy to break a zone for decades has been to get the ball in the middle of the zone to collapse it and then kick it back out to wide open shooters. We didn't do that at all. Our threes were contested and off the dribble. BYUs weakness on defense is the three point line. You're not going to win without a strategy to exploit that, no matter how tough you are.

It's funny how people like Kevin Johnson will say they don't care about what analytics say, then in the same breath talk about strategy informed by analytics. Guarding the three point line means means going over the top of screens or hedging them, and staying on the shooting hip of drivers rather than staying in front. Those are things that can be coached. It requires awareness and discipline by the coach and players. To me, that's more strategy than grit. Blaming analytics for failing to implement a strategy is just silly. If Wes is using analytics for coming up with gameplans, he's doing a terrible job.

[longtimefan]

Time to light a fire under guys.
My starting lineup for Utah

Page
Betsey
Frederick
Reed
Hickman

Let the other guys come off the bench and earn their spots back.

[Gypo O'Leary]

This was a sad Loss. For me....Cincinnati just has no consistent post play. Aziz can dunk dunk a lob now and then, but he can not really play with his back to the basket. Page actually seemed effective somewhat. I noticed with DeJulius and Adams-Woods... Wes Miller seems to feel he owes guys and plays them because they are program guys. You have to have some inside play to get 3 point shooters open.

BYU's offense is obviously constructed around shooters coming off screens. Saunders for them, not just a spot shooter like Lokusius...He can actually come off a screen dribble and pull up. And Cinci in the second half obviously was not fighting through screens effectively. Lokusius got burned a lot trying to defend outsider shooters just threw headfakes and drove to the basket.

The bad things are that no perimeter player on Cincinnati is any better than they were last year. I thought Skillings and Jizzle would be even better integrated into an offense. Now it seems they have lost Lahkin and Reynolds and their inside play is worse than last year. Mitchell seems more a wing player.

I know it is not Wes's style...but this offense needs structure and plays. Texas Tech seemed to run an offense around Toppin. BYU seemed to run an offense to spring it's shooters. Cinci just seems to run up and down the court and throw the ball around.

[longtimefan]

The last minute of the first half really decided the game, after getting even at 23-23, a couple of really bad decisions by veteran guys and we go to half down 5. Wes mentioned that in the post game, and seemed as mad as I’ve ever heard him.