Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Concludes 2025 Exhibitions With Trip to Arkansas

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats basketball team took another road trip this week to take on the No. 14-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks in the final exhibition before opening the season on Nov. 3 against Western Carolina.

Cincinnati dropped the exhibition 89-61 on Friday with Halvine Dzellat leading the way at 10 points. He was the only Bearcat to score in double figures on the night. Baba Miller had six points and six rebounds to highlight another outing. UC shot just 28.4% from the floor, while Arkansas hit over 50% of its shots at home.

Arkansas, like No. 7 Michigan last week, is a highly respected team this preseason, checking in at No. 21 on Evan Miyakawa's preseason rankings.

It was another great test for Cincinnati to stack themselves up with and get some great tape to learn from over the next 10 days. UC is facing seven NCAA Tournament teams from a season ago in their non-conference schedule and seven more in their Big 12 Conference run, including national runner-up Houston to open league play.

"I think you said it first, which is why we wanted to play exhibition games, so that you guys could overreact if we played poorly," Miller joked with an interviewer at this week's Big 12 Media Days. "For me, I appreciate it. If we played poorly or had a poor outcome, it's a great opportunity for us to deal with that and how we're going to handle those types of things over the course of the season.

"If we had a positive outcome, it would be a great opportunity to deal with people overreacting. So I think the exhibition games have been great for college basketball because it allows you to get to some of the real things that you deal with day to day in college basketball earlier in the year and prepare for the season."

Cincinnati opens the season at home against Western Caroline in less than two weeks.

Bearcats-Razorbacks Box Score | Stat Broadcast

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