Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball 2025-26 Storylines: TCU Horned Frogs

CINCINNATI — The regular season wraps up for Cincinnati Bearcats basketball on the road Saturday afternoon against fellow bubble team TCU.

Both teams really need this game to add another Quad 1 gem to their NCAA Tournament cases. Cincinnati enters the game with a 44.7% chance to win on ESPN's Matchup Predictor, but is favored to win 69-68 on Bart Torvik.

One of these teams is likely going to get the final bid into the big dance on Selection Sunday. TCU is ranked 45th on KenPom, while UC is 42nd in what could be a super-tight battle all afternoon. According to Bart Torvik, Cincinnati has played like a top-five team in the country since Feb. 6 and has a chance to win seven of its final eight games to close the regular season.

If UC wins its next three games they should be a lock to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Wes Miller.

"We talked about it after the Kansas game, because I knew that would create some of the NCAA Tournament talk," Miller said about the tourney hopes after beating BYU. "We agreed as a team that we weren't going to get caught up in the things that are put out there for clicks and for interest. They talk about the NCAA Tournament bubble in January now. I mean, when I played, they didn't start talking about it until about right now. And they do that because it generates interest.

"And I love that people are interested in college basketball, but I'm not going to participate in that. The only thing that we're doing is trying to win the next day. And I do believe in my heart, when it's all said and done, we'll play in the NCAA tournament, but we're not putting pressure on ourselves that we have to win this game or not, like we're just trying to win the next day. Have joy playing the game. Have joy competing. And we did talk about that a week and a half ago, and I think these guys have done a good job not getting caught up in all that crap."

Bart Torvik currently gives Cincinnati at 48.6% chance to make the dance.

All traditional statistics are from conference play unless stated otherwise.

Keep Up Your Strengths, Limit Fouls

Cincinnati faces another nice matchup on the fouling front in this game.

TCU is solid pretty much across the board, especially rebounding the ball (80th in total rebounding nationally, UC is 101st), but they aren't great at anything besides getting to the free throw line and forcing turnovers (12.1 per game, second in Big 12).

The Horned Frogs get their opponents to foul more than any other team in the Big 12 (19.9 fouls per game), and they also make and take the second-most free throws in the conference. It's the biggest reason they've been able to stack 10 conference wins in some tight scenarios (minus-0.5 point differential in conference play).

Getting to the charity stripe has been the biggest success marker for their season. TCU is 9-1 this season when making 18-plus free throws and 11-9 when they don't. Their balanced roster will have to keep up with a UC team that's played top-12 defense nationally all season, and is now scorching the nets from outside (40.3% from deep in past 10 games, 19th-best nationally).

TCU has three players averaging double scoring figures in Big 12 play, led by 6-8 forward Xavier Edmonds (14.9 points, 8.8 rebounds) and 6-7 forward David Punch (13.1 points, 5.9 rebounds). They will try to outmuscle a taller UC team on the glass and use the home crowd momentum to fluster Cincinnati into more fouls than normal, but it won't be easy.

UC commits just 15.1 fouls per game (third) and 9.6 turnovers per game (third). The two biggest TCU strengths are just as strong for UC. Add in the fact that this TCU shooting defense is primed to get smoked, and Cincinnati is set up very well to respond on the road after losing its last trip outside Cincinnati to Texas Tech.

Cincinnati has shot a poor 49.1% from inside the arc over the last 10 games (249th nationally), but TCU is giving up a putrid 54.4% two-point hit rate in Big 12 play, adding another stable post in the ground for the hottest team in the country to lean on.

If UC limits fouls and turnovers like it has all season, keeps hitting threes around 35-40%, and stays close to even on the rebounding front, then they should win this game by double digits against the 13th-best shooting team in the conference (43.3% from the field).

Check out the action at 2 p.m. ET Saturday on TNT and HBO MAX.

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