Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball 2025-26 Storylines: No. 13 Texas Tech

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats injected life into this basketball season over the past couple of weeks and now face another tough road test in the Big 12 to keep those heads above water. No. 13 Texas Tech is up next after Cincinnati just handed Kansas its largest unranked home loss since 1973 on Saturday.

Cincinnati is up to a 2% chance to make the NCAA Tournament on JThom Analytics and has to keep stacking wins towards 21 or 22 victories when Selection Sunday arrives. Texas Tech enters its home game with an 80.8% chance to win on ESPN's Matchup Predictor.

The Red Raiders are ranked 16th on KenPom, while Cincinnati is now 46th after the big win. TTU won't have star forward JT Toppin for the rest of the season, but they won 100-72 against Kansas State over the weekend without him.

"I think I just feel so much joy for our players, obviously, and for our staff," UC head coach Miller said to the media after beating Kansas 84-68. "It's a big time win, that says a lot about Kansas and Coach Self that you know, when you feel that way after a game like this, it says a lot about the program you played against, but I just feel a tremendous amount of joy for our staff and our players, and my biggest concern now is we can't enjoy it too much, because, again, the Big 12 doesn't stop."

Cincinnati is 2-1 against Texas Tech since the start of the 1949-50 season.

All traditional statistics are from conference play unless noted otherwise.

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This past weekend was a lot of fun for the UC program and its fan base, but the job has really just begun on Cincinnati's pursuit of an NCAA Tournament bid to save Miller's job.

His team's playing much better over the past few weeks, ranking 19th on Bart Torvik's efficiency ratings across the past 10 games. The Bearcats brutal first half of the season meant Saturday's win didn't do much to change their fate.

They went from 1% to 2% to make the tournament largely because the other at-large bubble teams won a lot this past weekend. UC likely needed 21 wins to dance entering the weekend, and now JThom Analytics puts them at a 48% chance to make the field with 21 wins and UC's guaranteed to get in at 22. The site gives them the highest chances of finishing with 18 (34%) or 19 wins (27%). UC is 15-12 this season.

Another upset win on Tuesday has two glaring factors at play: Red Raider outside shooting and turnovers.

Grant McCasland's team is one of the nation's best three-point shooting outfits and rarely loses when they hit 12-plus triples in a game. Tech is shooting 40.9% from deep (first), taking 29.9 per game (first), and making 12.2 (first). They have seven losses this season, and six of them saw TTU check in below its made threes average.

Cincinnati has to slow down sharpshooting snipers in guard Christian Anderson (17.6 points, 44.8% from deep on 8.1 attempts) and forward Donovan Atwell (14.9 points, 48.4% from deep on 8.9 attempts). Slow being the operative word over shut. The shooting acumen is just too high to expect a full cratering from this offense, even without Toppin (made 13 of 28 threes on Saturday).

The Bearcats bring a pretty strong three-point defense to the table (33.2% allowed, fourth-best) and have a clear turnover advantage to work in this game. Like Kansas, TTU doesn't force many turnovers (8.9 per game, 14th), leaving the door open for UC to take a possession advantage again on the road.

Flipping to UC's offense, things must continue to work through Moustapha Thiam and Baba Miller, who combined for 46 points and 15 rebounds on Saturday. They got fed the ball quickly by young guard Keyshuan Tillery, who had a game-high plus-21 outing. He keeps earning more playing time in his first season.

Tillery's logged double-digit minutes in each of the past four games and just looks better and better with experience growing. He gets Cincinnati into its best big-man sets early in the clock and keeps the offense on a better track than other parts of the backcourt.

If Tillery can continue facilitating this offensive rise through the big fellas, UC keeps Tech to 11 threes or fewer, and wins the turnover battle by a good margin. Well, then another upset is in play for Wes Miller's rising outfit.

Check out the action on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

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