Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball 2025-26 Storylines: Georgia Bulldogs

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats basketball squad has had a week to set its offense straight and try to turn this season around, starting tomorrow in Atlanta against the Georgia Bulldogs.

Cincinnati is taking on the fast-paced SEC squad in the Holiday Hoopsgiving played at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. UC will be a betting underdog in the game and holds a 29.8% chance to win Saturday's bout on ESPN's Matchup Predictor. The Bearcats are ranked 75th on KenPom while Georgia is 24th.

Mike White's team is 8-1, has a clear identity, and will likely be ranked in the AP top 25 if they win this outing.

The game will be the fourth all-time meeting between the Bearcats and Bulldogs, with Cincinnati winning two of the previous three. Cincinnati won the last matchup, 73-68, on Nov. 13, 2021, at Fifth Third Arena in one of Wes Miller's first games as head coach.

He's trying to avoid a 6-4 record and bag the program's first Quad 1 win of the season to start getting out of the Big 12 basement. Utah is the only Big 12 team slotted lower in the NET Rankings than Cincinnati.

"It's all perspective," Miller said. "We had a really disappointing loss to Eastern Michigan. There's no way around it, but that's a 1-2 possession game. We're in a 1-2 possession game pretty much the entire game against Louisville, and a 1-2 possession game in the last minute at Xavier. I think if you've won a couple more possessions, people may feel a little different about us."

Great Defense, Great Offense, What Gives?

The Bearcats crumbled under the offensive pressure from Louisville last month, and they have to weather another high-paced, high-powered offensive storm on Saturday.

Georgia sports the top scoring offense in the country at 99.9 points per game and is doing it in a pretty efficient way (21st in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency). Cincinnati should have Baba Miller and Jalen Celestine close to 100% health at this point, and they'll need every horse in the stable to be ready to keep up in this race.

Georgia cooks the pace books all game long, ranking sixth nationally in adjusted tempo and second in total shots per game (69.8). Cincinnati has to funnel them into their weaker shot spots and put a cap on the rim with Miller and Moustapha Thiam. The Bulldogs destroy teams inside with Jeremiah Wilkinson's (17.1 points, 2.3 steals, 2.2 rebounds) and Bue Cain's (15.4 points, 5.7 rebounds, 72.1% from two) knifing ability to find driving lanes.

Those two drive the offensive bus, and the whole team works together to push that pace. Everyone in the rotation can box out soundly, and all 11 rotation players average at least two rebounds per game. There is no rebounding funnel to target; Cincinnati has to translate the board acumen it showed in the Xavier loss.

UC needs to force those guards and the whole offense into as many outside shots as possible. It's UGA's one big offensive weakness, shooting 30.8% from deep (293rd) on a whopping 32.4 tries per game (14th). Forcing them to shoot close to 40 of their roughly 70 shots from outside should be a winning path for the Bearcats, unless they just have a wild outlier make rate, and you tip the cap at that point.

The two-point trap is just too easy to fall into for UGA's opponents, especially with how many turnovers they force (11.1 steals forced, eighth nationally, 17.2 turnovers forced, 11th nationally).

UC kept the turnovers down in the Cintas Center, but they still rank 314th nationally with 14.3 per game.

"They're generating a lot of things off of their defense," Miller said about that end of the court. "They're jumping into the press after every made basket. They're really converting turnovers, long shots, or quick shots at the rim. They're turning them into baskets at a crazy-high frequency. They'll shoot early in the clock from three, but the difference is so much of their attack in the open court generates from turning people over defensively or making people take difficult shots early in the clock."

UC is bringing an answer on the other end, ranking ninth nationally in KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency and 27th in points per game allowed (65.1). Can they play strong enough defense to boost their horrific offense is the question.

Cincinnati cannot leave many points on the table and expect to win this game. Shooting much higher than 63% from the free-throw line (350th) and making more shots from two-point range (16.1 per game, 324th) likely has to happen for a win here.

UC is shooting just 62% at the rim and has missed five dunks already this season. Add those marks to a putrid 37.5% mark on long twos, and it's not hard to see why this is Miller's lowest-rated offensive efficiency team at UC (225th on KenPom). Two players consistently showing up to take on the high-level scoring duties need to start arising this week.

We are about to hit the 33% mark of the season, and one player has shot over 40% on a diverse shot diet: Miller at 56.7%. One or two more players have to start joining those ranks soon, or this season will never get off the mat.

The game tips off at 2 p.m. ET on ESPNU.

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