Arizona 1/21 9:00 FS1

[Rufus]

quote "Shon Abaev does not jump straight up when he shoots his jump shot, he jumps sideways towards the basket. It is very fundamental that not jumping straight up makes shooting much more difficult." unquote

Gypo, his shot does not look comfortable and he does a little positioning ritual to get his feet set before he shoots. He looks extremely off balance every time he shoots. We do have a shot doctor on the staff, I don't what he actually does, but we have one.

Day Day was 0 for 4 in the first half. That to me was the harbinger on how this game was going to unfold. And typical of Miller he stands pat on his schemes, refuses to make adjustments and has no one that can be counted on to make shots when they revert to jacking up trey shots. In short he was out coached again. I turned it off with 12 minutes left in the game because I didn't want to go to bed pissed off. I did observe UC attempted to be physical with Arizona but on several occasions took it too far. The refs did make some bad calls against us but most of it was to get control of the game. That's to be expected when players get punched in the throat.There was one point where we got called for a foul on 4-5 trips down to defend. But it did not cost us the game imo. So we knew the chances of winning this game were slim, therefore were no better off or worse than where we already at. On to the next game.

[leo from jersey]

Miller needs to be in the game. Rest tomorrow.

Miller was the worse player on the floor. He was absolutely destroyed inside on both sides of the court. When the game was close he got easily beaten for a rebound which was put back up. He ran down the court and when he got the ball he didn't look to see if the team was set, but he jacked up a hero ball 3 attempt. Before that when the game was very winnable, he got beaten again for the rebound when if he had put effort and a body on the player he would have gotten it. Folks this ain't play station. It isn't always the rebounds that you get, but those you don't get. Not against you gman as I was going to vent about Miller anyway. They are taught to tip the ball on a contested rebound. That is good but if you have no court awareness you tip to the opponent for an open shot or the start of a break. Sorry GMan but I was totally frustrated with Miller.

[leo from jersey]

Maybe the scoring drought starts at 7 minutes instead of 4.

It did. At the break at the 7:27 mark i watched the Cats body language as thy went to the bench. They were done for the night and the rest of the game showed it.

[leo from jersey]

Now the rest of my thoughts -- the good -- Shon had his best action in parts of the first half. He was passing ad he was seeing the floor. Instead of calling him shooting Shon I was shoot it Shon.
The bad --- How do you expect to beat the #1 team in america with such incredibly wretched guard play. I am not just talking about their grade school shooting/shot selection and out of control passing, but their court awareness. In the first half JJ had no clue to the shot clock and when someone yelled clock clock he threw up a crazy. You can't win with such play. Tillery had some improvement but his passing on breaks are out of control. Day Day showed that a good defender can stop him. What's up with Harris? Enough said. Thiam doesn't want to get hurt. It is not about stats as they don't tell the whole truth and often little of it. The pressure on the inside by UA took what little fight the Cats had away. They were confused and that destroyed their offense. No substitute could help. Tyler was a very big negative and Celestine not much better. The Cats have not turned the corner. I hope they do, but we saw them fold when playing the best in the country on their home floor. I could go on and on, but the play and attitude when pressured is unacceptable. Sadly, many are satisfied with mediocrity in Clifton.

[leo from jersey]

Just saw this stat what my eye saw . UA dominated in points in the paint, 48-14 and outrebounded the Cats by 13 giving UA 18 offensive rebounds.. Let's hold down the talk about Miller and Thiam as first rounders. --- Let's stop the talk about our guards. How well did they run the floor on TOs --- 17-1 points off tos. Let's talk about court awareness, anticipation and hustle because talk is all that there is.

Here is CWM talk:

The rebounding was certainly a factor. We pride ourselves on that and to give up 18 offensive rebounds is very frustrating. I'm not pleased overall, but it's the Big 12, you're on the road, and you've got to regroup and get ready for another game on Saturday."

I don't know after that game what else he could say. CWM I am with you as I am not pleased either. You had five years. You had good NIL money. This is your team and not Brannen's.

[D.A.H.]

Just saw this stat what my eye saw . UA dominated in points in the paint, 48-14 and outrebounded the Cats by 13 giving UA 18 offensive rebounds.. Let's hold down the talk about Miller and Thiam as first rounders. --- Let's stop the talk about our guards. How well did they run the floor on TOs --- 17-1 points off tos. Let's talk about court awareness, anticipation and hustle because talk is all that there is.

Here is CWM talk:

The rebounding was certainly a factor. We pride ourselves on that and to give up 18 offensive rebounds is very frustrating. I'm not pleased overall, but it's the Big 12, you're on the road, and you've got to regroup and get ready for another game on Saturday."

I don't know after that game what else he could say. CWM I am with you as I am not pleased either. You had five years. You had good NIL money. This is your team and not Brannen's.

wes has been saying the same thing after every game, for weeks now. The message just isn't something, that the fan base wants to hear. to me, offense comes and goes, but rebounding = heart and will. defense = heart and will. does anyone think that this team has any / much of either. any pride? lets face it, this team has no direction, and that comes from the head coach. not to pull the wayback card, but would a bob huggins put up with the play of this team? would a mick cronin put up with it?

[bearcatbret]

Back to earth. They are not going to win many games with the stats that they had last night. The free throws were good though and I hope they keep that up. It may win games for them down the road.
Cincinnati Drops Road Contest to No. 1 Arizona - University of Cincinnati Athletics - Official Athletics Website

[red_n_black_attack]

wes has been saying the same thing after every game, for weeks now. The message just isn't something, that the fan base wants to hear. to me, offense comes and goes, but rebounding = heart and will. defense = heart and will. does anyone think that this team has any / much of either. any pride? lets face it, this team has no direction, and that comes from the head coach. not to pull the wayback card, but would a bob huggins put up with the play of this team? would a mick cronin put up with it?

I agree with you completely. This team gets up for big time teams and builds off success. We had success/heart/gritty play in the Houston game, but they were too strong in the end. We had success/heart/gritty play in the ISU game and it almost slipped away. We had success/heart/gritty play in the 1st half and few minutes of the 2nd half against Arizona. I haven't observed that level of determination and effort much in any other game this year. If the players take it upon themselves to get up for top ten teams, then they are capable of giving that effort in every game. Not playing hard 100% of the time is on the coaching staff. Sorry Wes, you ain't got yhr "it factor" to tap into a player's effort and drive. The coach has to get them fired up and let the team leaders propel that energy to everyone on the team. This coach and this coaching staff is providing that spark. If this team played with 100% effort in every game, they would have at most 4 losses (AZ, UH, and two forgivable games where the shooting is just off - hey it happens). This team has too much talent to lose this many games. Unless a miracle happens and they get to 20 wins and make the Tourney, we need to start thinking about the next coach. My vote is Jerrod Calhoun at Utah State.

[leeraymond372@gmail.com]

UC got a chance to see up close what a championship team looks like when it was hammered by Arizona last night. UC fell apart in the second half. No need to go into details. However, coming into this season, I thought that Thomas would take on the role as the guy who demanded the ball when the team needed something to happen. Steve Logan was the best bearcat I have ever seen that could carry a team when the chips were down. Sean Kilpatrick was like that (he had very little help his senior year). Dan Fortson, Cumberland, Kenyon Martin, Van Exel, DeJulius, and etc. all wanted the ball when the team needed something positive to happen. These guys all had the heart of a lion. I thought Thomas would take on that role. Man, was I wrong. When things are not going well, Thomas seems to disappear.

Nevertheless, I like Thomas. With his speed and athleticism, you would think that he could get the ball into the paint any time that he wanted. Instead, he settles for threes. Thomas shot the ball only 8 times last night. That is not nearly enough. Thomas does not have a big enough ego to lead the team to wins. That is what is needed. No one else on the team comes close to be being a leader.

The last time I saw a bearcat get in another bearcat's face for poor play was during Brannen's time as coach. Cumberland got in Chris Vogt's face for missing free throws at a crucial time in the game. That is what it takes to win games. Sometimes, teammates must challenge each other to do better. I do not see that with this team. These bearcats can make mistake after mistake and nobody, even the coach, challenges them to do better. It is hard to win when a team accepts poor play from its players.

Where have all the bearcats gone?

[leeraymond372@gmail.com]

There were some harsh comments after the Arizona loss. Did we actually expect that UC would win that game? Arizona is head-and-shoulders better than UC. A better measurement of UC's development on the season will be the Arizona State game. The biggest problem is that UC is 0-7 away from Fifth-Third. UC has no away wins. All of its wins have occurred at home.

I cannot remember a UC team ever being winless on the road. This team is 0-7 away from home.

[Gmann]

I had no illusions that UC would come away with the win last night. AZ has much better talent and a superior coach. When the refs began calling it much tighter in the 2nd half and it took away all our aggressiveness on defense and the rebounding was atrocious. The offense remains a trainwreck and always has been under Miller. However I was most disappointed that from about the 8 minute mark left to go they just rolled over and quit. Any effort to compete was gone. It made the final score look much worse than the competitiveness was for most of the game.