Iowa State 2/15 4:00 pm ESPN2

[Jeff Burk]

this team played hard for this game on the road and could have won if they had some positive contributions from DayDay, DS and Simas. I don't blame this loss on Coach. They are playing with a renewed confidence over the past 4 games. Go Cats!

[leeraymond]

UC had two glaring flaws today, rebounding and too many fouls. If you take a good look at the rebounding stats, the three Iowa State bigs accounted for 16 rebounds and more surprisingly the three guards (Lipsey, Gilbert, and Jones) accounted for 16 (sixteen) rebounds. UC's bigger wings (Reed, Skillings, Betsey, and Simas) accounted for only 7 (seven) rebounds. To me, that is a coaching issue. If you are 6'3" or taller, why can't you rebound? Miller does not demand it. Skillings used to rebound. Not sure why he does not put much effort into rebounding this season. Houston also sends its guards to the boards.

The other glaring problem was UC could not guard without fouling. Here is the free throw discrepancy: Iowa State 26-30; and UC 9-11. It is hard to win when the other team is shooting 30 foul shots. UC actually hit more field goals and three-point shots than Iowa State. The real difference in the game was at the foul line.

UC has those big wings. Miller should DEMAND that they rebound. By the way, Utah just beat Kansas.

[Bearcat93]

Well the SEC may be the best league in the country this year, but the point would be how often a school moves up to a power Conference and immediately in their second season competes for the title? Granted Houston is doing it, but Kelvin Sampson has had that program at an elite level for six years now. Wes picked up a mess, hobbled together a team for AAC play, and now he has to upgrade to compete in a league that had six top 20 teams in it. Not an easy task. What has been his best big man? Vicktor Lahkin.

And I would agree, that the class he brought in this season has not impressed anyone. But thinking you are going to jump over Baylor/K-State/Iowa St and become regularly one of the top 4 teams in a league like this is not realistic. And now with NIL money...I"m not even sure it is possible. He is going to have bring in some bangers to go along with his team of guards to have any chance. Aziz Bandaogo - great guy but lacking the skills needed to play at this level.

I’d only add that we weren’t surprised by the B12 move-Wes had 2 years to evaluate, learn and determine what a competitive roster should look like. ****, just look at the leaders and copy the pieces that seem to work. I still do not believe this is a talent gap issue-yes, that’s part of it and I look to Wes to have built this team better-this is a coaching & effort issue. The rebounding and overall IQ of this team is poor. That’s recruiting & coaching. What we have coming next year isn’t going to change the trajectory here. Failure in the paint, lack of muscle down low, will continue to hold this program back. I see no reason to believe UC makes the NCAA Tournament next year.. 23-9 rebound margin in the 2nd half. That’s totally inexcusable and continues a trend across how many games - the last 6? 10? Come on, that’s coaching.

[longtimefan]

I’m not going to point any fingers, but directly after Mitchell went to the bench with four fouls, and roughly 12 minutes left, we took some horrendously bad, low percentage shots on consecutive possessions, blew the lead, and we never got it back. Guys have to be smarter, put the team first. That stretch was the game.

[Rufus]

Didn't get to see the game. Grandson in bball tournaments. His season ended tonite. Sounds like the same old wash, rinse, repeat game for the 'cats. If it's true that DS was laughing on the bench while we were losing then Miller needs to sit him on the bench for the remainder of the season. If we're going dwell at the bottom of the conference standings then I want to see players who want to win. Get some experience for Page and Griffin. It's been a policy not to disparage players on this forum and I agree with that policy....... when the players were student athletes. But now they are pros. For all intents and purposes they are getting paid to play bball for the University. Whoever is not willing to play in a way that is conducive to winning then sit them, do not renew their contract and wish them well. The guilty party( s ) are stealing Cincy reigns funds. And I don't understand why you keep playing a player that is too one dimensional and even that dimension is not working. I agree with Bearcat93 I've seen enough of Miller. I too will tune back in when he's gone.

.

[Gypo O'Leary]

Well, we can certainly hold Wes accountable for not building a B12 worthy team. Honestly, this team wouldn’t be great in the SEC or B10, either. Find the money and make the change.

Well the SEC may be the best league in the country this year, but the point would be how often a school moves up to a power Conference and immediately in their second season competes for the title? Granted Houston is doing it, but Kelvin Sampson has had that program at an elite level for six years now. Wes picked up a mess, hobbled together a team for AAC play, and now he has to upgrade to compete in a league that had six top 20 teams in it. Not an easy task. What has been his best big man? Vicktor Lahkin.

And I would agree, that the class he brought in this season has not impressed anyone. But thinking you are going to jump over Baylor/K-State/Iowa St and become regularly one of the top 4 teams in a league like this is not realistic. And now with NIL money...I"m not even sure it is possible. He is going to have bring in some bangers to go along with his team of guards to have any chance. Aziz Bandaogo - great guy but lacking the skills needed to play at this level.

[daveh]

but, leo, you're not using the mumbo - jumbo, but common sense - you're trusting what your eyes and experience tell you. how can you write what what anybody with half a brain can see

[leo from jersey]

DS did his soul searching as his rival fouled out and he laughed -- was it at the bad calls or because of 5 fouls. Who knows, but he didn't give a damn the whole game and ended it with wretched ball handling. He can't be back next year. If he sat the whole game the Cats would have been up by at least 5 at the half. Of course he didn't start playing till High school -- tell me that one again.All you get are excuses for the next NBA player. As all will say and many got mad at me last year, I never liked his game whatsoever. He is only for DS and if he isn't the star, he doesn't care. I blame CWM for pumping his ego last year for beginners.

[sedz]

We scored over a point per possession against a great defense on the road. So that's a silver lining at least. And we played uptempo, with 69 possessions marking the third highest pace of the conference season. Unfortunately we couldn't stop fouling and couldn't keep Iowa St off the glass - two things we usually do pretty well. They rebounded 46% of their misses, we only grabbed 17% of our misses. As a result Iowa St put up 1.18 points per possession

We have a virtual three way tie for best player statistically. Reed put up 1.8 net points, while Jizzle and Aziz were just behind with 1.7. Reed was good on both sides of the ball, hitting a couple threes while also taking on the toughest defensive assignments. Jizzle did all of his work on the offensive side, scoring a very efficient 23 from the field on only 16 shots, but he also had 5 turnovers and a negative defensive BPM. Aziz had a solid defensive game with a couple of blocks and steals.

Day Day had the worst game with negative 5.5 net points - wiping out the performance of our three best players. He had a negative BPM on both sides of the ball. Day Day scored just 9 points from the field on 13 shots and had zero rebounds and zero steals. Skillings was next worst, having a smaller net score impact because he played 19 fewer minutes than Day Day. But he was the worst player during his time on the floor, putting up a game worst negative 10.1 BPM. He had no offensive rebounds, and if he's not doing that he can't do much else right now. Skillings has been horrible lately in all aspects of the game and he needs to do some soul searching. Betsey also had negative net points, struggling on defense.

Simas and Mitchell were neutral, as Simas made 3 of 6 threes but had a negative defensive BPM, and Mitchell led with 5 rebounds and 3 steals but also had as many turnovers as made baskets.

Part of the rebounding problem is we have two point guards and Simas out there most of the time. None of them are good rebounders and they combined for just 3 today. We went all in on our two guards taking a lot of jumpers recently. It works when they are hitting shots, but when they shoot their normal percentages we're giving up length and athleticism that we need on defense and on the boards.

[Bearcat93]

Well, we can certainly hold Wes accountable for not building a B12 worthy team. Honestly, this team wouldn’t be great in the SEC or B10, either. Find the money and make the change.

[Gypo O'Leary]

You can see in a game like this we are not B12 strong. Teams just push us around. We are getting screwed by the refs though.

^ This. Pretty much overmatched at every position on the floor. Lucky to be even at the half, and in the second half their rebounding and shooting just overwhelmed us. People can blame Wes for what....not magically pulling coaching wins out of his *zz? He doesn't have any big man that can play in the paint. Mitchell hasn't really come through, Page and Betsey are a year away. Iowa St. lot's of screens, lot's of guys rolling to the basket. Cincy just has Day-Day and JJ dribbling around and shooting because they don't have any other options. SL can shoot from 33feet out every once in a while, but he can't guard anybody and he can't do much more than catch and shoot. It is still just a top 3 AAC team playing in a league with Kansas and Arizona.

[London 'Cat]

They played pretty well considering the opponent and the horrible officiating. ISU’s coach whined until he got his way. The technical on CWM was total BS. The ref ran into CWM who had his back to the ref and he gets a technical??? WTF??

[bearcatbret]

UC did not play well enough to win. Lost on the key stats of rebounding, fouls, free throws, etc. However, it also seemed that we did not have friendly refs at any point during the game.

[leo from jersey]

37 to 19 in rebounding

[leo from jersey]

CWM said SL was hurt and couldn't go back in.