Three Man Weave: Bearcats Fall 82-68 Against Arizona State To Lose Both Games Out West

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats concluded their two-game Arizona road trip with a third Saturday 82-68 against Arizona State. A Sun Devils team that head coach Bobby Hurley said he was "failing" a few days ago controlled the contest basically all night to push Cincinnati to 10-10 on the season.

Cincinnati coughed the ball up a bunch just like it did against No. 1 Arizona and is now definitively one of the worst teams in the Big 12. UC had to win out the rest of the regular season entering this game to have any chance of making the 2026 NCAA Tournament in an at-large scenario.

That dream is now dead again this decade as Cincinnati fell to 2-3 all-time against ASU. The Bearcats and Sun Devils had split four all-time meetings, with Arizona State winning the only previous matchup in Tempe in 1973. Cincinnati won last year’s contest, 67-60, at Fifth Third Arena.

"Same thing we're stressing all the time, guys, there's no tricks to this," Uc head coach Wes Miller said on the 700 WLW radio broadcast about what the message is going froward. "This is the best league in college basketball. It's not even close. Go through that game all you want. There's transition defensive errors, there's a lot of them. Couple were bad shots. We did have some opportunities and missed layups.

"Didn't shoot it well when we got good looks from three and we didn't guard well. So, it's very frustrating. I thought there were some really good half court possessions defensively, but we didn't guard well. And again, when you turn it over and you let them loose in the open court, you have a couple breakdowns there, but we're gonna stress the same things, because when we do those things, we play well."

Cincinnati is 1-8 this season across its Quad 1 and 2 opportunities and winless outside of Fifth Third Arena.

Guards Ghost, Odum Eats

UC isn't going to win many more games this season if its guards keep playing as badly as they are right now. Starters Jizzle James (six points, three rebounds, two assists) and Day Day Thomas (zero points, six assists) were no-shows on Saturday night.

They did not get anything going with their shots or passing acumen, and even with a decent field goal mark overall, UC couldn't keep pace with the ASU Sun Devils. They got a career-best day out of Moe Odum (33 points, five rebounds, eight assists), who feasted on their drop coverage all game long and was the latest star player to go off against a Wes Miller team.

The coaching has disintegrated more and more each season under the fifth-year head coach, and they had zero answer for the Sun Devils' leading scorer coming into this game. Add in sloppy ballhandling from everyone on the UC roster (15 turnovers), and you get one of the worst teams in the league.

Cincinnati is just playing for pride down the stretch of this season after Thomas posted his first scoreless game of the campaign after scoring two points against Arizona. UC already had guard depth issues with him playing well early in the season. If Thomas is out of gas, things could get a lot uglier than a 10-10 record feels.

Kerr Kriisa still doesn't seem healthy after posting five points in 12 total minutes during this two-game road trip.

Cincinnati Player Of The Game: Baba Miller

Miller (23 points, nine rebounds) carried the team on the offensive end of the floor Saturday night as the only real consistent hub of attack for UC.

The lanky forward used his size to work some nice touch shots around the rim all night and posted another 20-point outing in a Cincinnati uniform, his fourth this season. UC's guards were terrible at finding their shot in this game, but it didn't hurt Miller's ability to find his hot spots and work some consistent flare at the rim.

He still can't shoot jumpers, going 0-2 from deep, but when he's staying near the hoop, good things happen. Miller can't do it by himself though, and can't be expected to hit the outside shots UC needs to compete in this conference. The Bearcats miss far too many close open shots, and it's clouding over a rising all-conference showing from its best player.

UC tips off a little bit earlier on Wednesday in a 6:30 p.m. ET matchup at home against Baylor.

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