Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball 2025-26 Storylines: Kansas State Wildcats

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats basketball team has its best chance yet this season to pull off a win outside of Fifth Third Arena on Wednesday night at Kansas State.

Cincinnati enters the game 12-12 and 4-7 in the Big 12, while KSU is 10-13 and 1-9. The matchup features KenPom's 57th-best team in Cincinnati and the 90th-ranked team in the Wildcats.

ESPN's Matchup Predictor has Cincinnati winning this game 49.5% of the time, which is the tightest matchup projection all season so far for UC.

The Bearcats are 8-3 against KSU since the start of the 1949-50 season and are trying to pull off something they haven't done all season: Win away from Fifth Third Arena.

Cincinnati is 0-9 outside the friendly home confines this season.

"It wasn't an easy couple of days," UC head coach Wes Miller said about the 92-72 win over UCF. "We were frustrated with the way the game finished against West Virginia. I could tell these guys were hurt on Thursday night, and then we show up to practice yesterday, and Kerr (Kriisa) couldn't go, and Tyler McKinley couldn't go, and you know, we just dealt with so much of that kind of stuff. So, just more adversity, and I thought they did a nice job of finding the way tonight, and they played well, so I was proud of that."

Let's look at how Cincinnati can pair together victories in tomorrow's 9 p.m. ET. tip.

Fastbreak Storyline: Limit PJ Haggerty, Let KSU Crumble

The Bearcats have a few clear advantages in this game against arguably the worst team in the Big 12. Kansas State had a solid offense up until the last few weeks, but things have cratered on both ends for them.

They are only posting 72.9 PPG in conference (13th in the Big 12), and all the scoring around lead guard PJ Haggerty (23.8 PPG in conference, 3.9 assists) has degraded. He is the head of this KSU snake. Cut him off, and the whole body flails to death.

The 6-3, 192-pound dynamo is posting an efficient 52.6% effective field goal mark this season overall and balances an even shot diet outside and closer to the rim. Forcing him away from those more efficient areas and into the midrange will help UC's chances even more in this game.

The whole KSU team has been terrible on long twos this season, shooting 32.1% from that range on 19.1% of their total shots. Getting Haggerty & Co. closer to taking 30-35% of their shots from No Man's Land is the goal. Five different KSU players average at least 10 PPG this season, but Haggerty and Abdi Bashir Jr. (14.6 PPG, 3.6 threes made per game) are the only ones in double figure averages during conference play.

This team doesn't do anything very well except jack threes (second in Big 12 makes and attempts) and pass (16.5 assists per game, third). Cincinnati is allowing 35% from outside in conference (seventh in the Big 12), so an explosion there could be too much for UC to overcome, but so many of the margin stats favor the road team.

KSU is the worst rebounding team in the conference (-9.9 rebounding margin per game), the worst fouling team (20.1 per game), and the lowest volume free throw team (12.1 attempts per game). That three-ball likely has to fall 10-13 times, or UC will have plenty of advantage buttons to press all game.

Cincinnati needs to keep pace with the 21st-highest offensive tempo in the country, but they were very comfortable running with the UCF Knights on Sunday en route to their third-highest scoring performance of the season.

There are a lot of paths for UC to win here, and it will be very hard for KSU to find one against KenPom's 10th-best defense nationally if they keep getting smacked on the glass, don't rain threes, or find multiple offensive pillars to step up around Haggerty.

The action tips off at 9 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network Wednesday evening.

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