Three Key Questions Surrounding UC Basketball Entering 2023-24 Season

The Bearcats are the 10th-best Big 12 team according to ESPN's BPI.

Author:
Russ Heltman
Nov 4, 2023 10:04 AM EDT

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CINCINNATI — The UC men's basketball team gets its 2023-24 season fired up in a few days as a few key storylines surround the team besides the obvious top issue of transfer waivers for Aziz Bandaogo and Jamille Reynolds.

ESPN's BPI projections are out and the Bearcats are projected to go 18-12 with anywhere from 8 to 10 wins in the Big 12. The new-look group owns the 10th-best BPI rating in the conference entering the first game against the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Let's touch on some storylines that could boost Cincinnati higher in the conference if they play out positively.

Can The Backourt Smoothly Turnover?

David DeJulius and Mika Adams-Woods are out—enter Day Day Thomas and Jizzle James. Thomas brings some experience having averaged 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 3.1 assists across 29 games for Kilgore College this past season. While James was a top-12 point guard in the 2023 class.

Still, neither has any experience at the Division I college level, and there are not many true guard options behind them. How they ease into the D-I ranks will be interesting to monitor and is one of the benefits of a softer, home-heavy non-conference schedule. Building confidence for both players will be key.

"Definitely gonna bring the energy," Thomas said on media day. "Definitely gonna bring the defense. Gonna get my teammates involved first, and whenever my time comes it comes. I can score the ball. I''m definitely gonna defend though."

That defense could make Thomas's life easier by complementing with his speed on fast breaks as UC continues to try and run more and more under Wes Miller.

They won't be alone.

Miller made it clear on Thursday that the team is still working through the right mixes of players to start and will experiment throughout these first few weeks. Maybe Simas Lukosiǔs emerges as the top playmaker alongside one of the two I mentioned, John Newman III has been a backcourt stabilizer in his career, or even CJ Fredrick could slide into more ball-handling duties than expected.

There are plenty of options for UC to initiate offense on the roster, it's just no one has seen it get executed in games yet, as we saw across the DeJulius years. Thomas directly noted how he's watched plenty of DDJ ahead of his first Cincinnati season

"He was just showing me how Dave gets everybody involved and how Dave can score the ball, and certain spots Dave got to, and where he scored at," Thomas said. "How Dave defends and brings the energy on the court."

Can Viktor Lakhin Keep Elevating/Take On A Suprise Workload?

The UC forward is arguably the skeleton key player for this team, especially if Reynolds and Bandaogo cannot play. The three-point shot is an option now, which could unlock new heights for a player who led the AAC in shooting percentage last season (61.7% FG rate, No. 1 in AAC)

"I'm a three-point threat now," Lakhin said this week. "Making really good percentages in scrimmages and practice. Against other teams against each other throughout the whole time we worked on it."

Lakhin also mentioned NBA shooting coach Joey Burton came in this past week to fine-tune everything before tip-off. Get ready for a barrage of three-point attempts from a UC system that's (smartly) focused on rim attempts, free throws, and outside shooting.

UC ranked 19th nationally last season with 894 three-point shots. That's a big way this squad can knock down some of the talent barriers it still faces in the Big 12. Lakhin will give them more versatility than ever now, especially if he has to play center early on (or throughout the season) while Reynolds and Bandaogo are sidelined.

Who's The Go-To Scorer On This Team?

When the chips went down last season, it was clear UC would try to work actions with either Landers Nolley II or DeJulius. Both are gone leaving Lakhin (11.6 PPG) as the top returning scorer on the team, along with Lukosiǔs (11 Pts, 4 Reb, 2.9 Ast in 2022-23).

Thomas obviously put up strong numbers in the NJCAA as well. Can one of them take that mantle or will it be a younger player like Daniel Skillings, Josh Reed, Rayvon Griffith, or James?

It's a conundrum that's been touched on throughout this exercise and a fun one at that. The talent level on this team is clearly the highest it's been under Miller, but all that talent raises questions that can't really be answered until they start blowing game whistles.

My money is on Daniel Skillings taking a leap and asserting himself as the go-to scorer on the 2023-24 Bearcats team. He's far from reaching his ceiling, has a great work ethic, fun vibe, and showed nice growth down the stretch of last season.

We'll start getting some answers on Monday at 9 p.m. ET against UIC.

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