Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Storylines: At Oklahoma State Cowboys

CINCINNATI — UC basketball (17-13, 7-12) travels to take on Oklahoma State (14-16, 6-13) for the first time this season as Wes Miller's team wraps up the 2024-25 regular season.

The Bearcats enter this game ranked 45th in the NET rankings and 53rd on KenPom. OSU is 99th in both as they try to pull off a home upset over Cincinnati. Bart Torvik gives the Bearcats a 60% chance to win with a projected score of 71-68 Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is 2-4 all-time against the Cowboys.

Offensive Storyline: Any Fight Left?

The Bearcats posted a second sub-50 point outing at home this season in Wednesday's 54-49 loss to Kansas State. No one brought strong intensity on the offensive end, save for a few moments by Day Day Thomas, who was only matched in double-scoring figures by Jizzle James.

That lack of intensity on both ends, but especially on offense, came when Cincinnati was still fully in the mix on a bad NCAA Tournament bubble. Now, they basically have to win the Big 12 Tournament to have any realistic bid into the field. How will they play when there is even less of a reason to fight for each other?

"I was shocked by the effort tonight," Miller said on Wednesday. "It's on me. I've got to do a better job of preparing my team. I didn't do my job. Everybody should be mad at me."

Miller clearly wants to win, but it's unclear how badly his players do. No vocal leader has seemingly emerged to fully turn this ship around, but they should be able to find offensive success on Saturday.

OSU is rather shaky on that end of the floor.

They rank 81st in adjusted defensive efficiency while allowing 77.5 points per game in conference play. The Cowboys play at a blistering tempo (21st in adjusted tempo this season), allowing Cincinnati's rough shooting offense plenty of chances at volume. Add in the fact they have a clear size disadvantage and are allowing 54.6%/35% conference shooting splits from two/three, and you get a nice opponent to possibly bounce back against.

Still, Cincinnati's players have to show they want it as much as their coach, and this time do it on the road at a place where OSU is 11-3 this season.

Defensive Storyline: Don't Foul, Win The Glass

Saturday brings up another conference opponent that highly relies on free throw shooting. OSU's offense is one of the worst in the Big 12, and definitely the worst at shooting the ball.

The Cowboys are shooting 47.5% from two-point range (last) and 30.1% from deep (13th) in conference play. They don't have any microwave scorers to worry about with big man Abou Ousmane (12.1 points, 5.3 rebounds) the only player in the rotation shooting over 43.1% from the floor.

He also leads the way on the one thing OSU does pretty well: Get to the free throw line. Ousmane has a team-high four free throw attempts per game to help round out 23.1 per outing in conference play (first among Big 12 teams).

It's a massive roadblock for OSU with how disciplined Cincinnati's been with their fouls this season. They are the best fouling team in the Big 12, averaging just 13.8 fouls per game (second-best in conference play), and 13.5 free throws allowed (first). Add in 13.3 turnovers per conference game from OSU (second-most) and the math gets really hard for the Cowboys.

That is if Cincinnati can shoot over 40% from the floor, which they failed to do on Wednesday (36.8% shooting) and outpace OSU on the glass. The Cowboys are also averaging just over 29 rebounds per game to pace with UC in the bottom half of the conference. If they show home pride and grit on the glass they may be able to pull off another home win.

Prediction: 69-68 Cincinnati

Season Prediction Record: 24-6

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