Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Storylines: Alabama State Hornets

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats basketball team has another easy game on paper Wednesday night, but few things have been easy for this team 10 games into the season. Wes Miller's crew takes on the Alabama State Hornets at 7 p.m. ET.

Cincinnati enters the game just 6-4 this season and 82nd on KenPom, while the Hornets are 3-7 overall and ranked 261st. ESPN's Matchup Predictor gives UC a 95.6% chance to win its final Quad 4 matchup of the season.

UC is 3-0 all-time against ASU entering the game and will likely have to win the Big 12 Tournament to have any chance of making the NCAA Tournament if they somehow lose a second Q4 matchup this season.

Cincinnati just got housed by Georgia 84-65 on Saturday, plummeting them to 128th on the NET Rankings (second-worst in the Big 12). The program needs a dominant home showing.

Last Cupcake On The Plate

UC has started terribly this season in what's supposed to be easily the easiest part of their schedule.

A 60% win rate in this opening third is not encouraging for what lies ahead.

According to KenPom, UC's played the 276th-hardest schedule in the country so far. Only West Virginia's played an easier schedule among Big 12 teams. UC has wasted its clear open win chances against Eastern Michigan and the worst Xavier team Miller's faced at UC. Alas, they've blown those opportunities, and only this final Quad 4 game remains in that quadrant.

Miller is 42-2 at Cincinnati against Q4 teams, with EMU being that second loss, but just 45-61 overall when taking out Q4. Cincinnati has this Q4 game and then three Quad 3 games remaining on one of the nation's toughest schedules the rest of the way (29th hardest on ESPN's Basketball Power Index).

Cincinnati can hardly afford any losses the rest of the three non-conference outings, but will assuredly be underdogs in South Carolina this weekend when they battle 8-3 Clemson.

Finding some kind of easy button option offensively (237th in offensive efficiency on KenPom) is imperative tonight ahead of that massive game for any real hope to build this season.

Miller said his team put new offensive strategies "into play in the first half, and they were doing it, we just didn't sustain it" against Georgia. Well, if they can't sustain it against the 309th-ranked defense on KenPom, hope may be completely lost.

Teams are averaging 81.8 points against the Hornets (333rd) and shooting 46.9% overall (320th). They have one player in the rotation taller than 6-7 and sport a negative rebounding differential. ASU turns teams over 14.3 times per game (83rd), but that should just be a nice test for UC's ball handlers.

No one from this SWAC school should overwhelm the Bearcats with on-ball defense.

This has to be a bounce-back spot offensively for Cincinnati, or they may just be what they've shown us so far all season. Back at home, against this defense, you have to find a way to start making jump shots consistently (41.7% from the floor, 318th) and showing why this roster was ranked 17th nationally on 247Sports by composite talent entering the season.

Fans can catch the action on ESPN+.

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