Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Basketball Falls to Oklahoma State on The Road in Regular-Season Finale

CINCINNATI — Cincinnati's nightmare finish to the 2024-25 regular season capped out with a loss to Oklahoma State 78-67 on Saturday. UC's defense had no answer for the home offense and drove another dagger in a season full of them.

The Cowboys shot 46.8% from the floor and fed their big man Abou Ousmane (24 points, eight rebounds) 18 shots to ride his performance for an upset win. Cincinnati was outscored 12-2 down the stretch to waste away another winning opportunity. they've lost seven conference games this season by double digits.

Cincinnati has consistently fallen short of expectations this season and will almost certainly play in the first annual Crown Tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada unless they go on a miracle Big 12 Tournament run. Cincinnati also lost to OSU last season 80-76.

Comeback Falls Short

The Bearcats' at-large hopes officially ended thanks to a ballooning OSU lead that they never gave up after leading by 18 down the stretch of the first half.

Cincinnati played solid in the second half, but that's been the problem too often this season: One-half games to never gain consistency in the conference. OSU sliced up Cincinnati's defense throughout the game with nasty ball movement and timely threes (7-9 from deep).

OSU moved to 12-3 at home this season and showed why they've been so fierce on that floor throughout. Cincinnati once again shot under 41% in a conference game and finished 1-8 down the stretch after getting things as close as 66-65. Just not enough consistent scoring talent resides on this roster to consistently gain ground in the Big 12.

The final few minutes were basically a microcosm of the whole season and the loss guaranteed Cincinnati will have to play on Tuesday and win five games in five days to have a successful season.

"We got to reset. And it's an unbelievable opportunity," UC head coach Wes Miller said after the loss on 700 WLW. "We can't look ahead, we can't worry about next year, we can't worry about our standing. You know, five days ago, guys, we were like, right there to make the NCAA Tournament, right? So we can't let that affect us. We got to get excited to go play postseason college basketball in Kansas City and that's one of the things I talked about in the locker room, and that'll be the goal here as we get back to Cincinnati for 24 hours or so."

Ousmane Eats

The Cowboys' best scorer lived up to his reputation on Saturday. Abou Ousmane continued exposing Cincinnati's lack of physicality inside this season with an efficient, nasty offensive day.

He broke out the full footwork package around the rim with a NUMBER shooting outing. The 6-10, 250-pound bruiser was a big reason OSU led Cincinnati in second chance (18-14) and paint points (38-26) on the day. He backed down any player UC threw at him and flashed an unpredictable bag of tricks to show why Cincinnati needs similar size to throw at players like that this fall and beyond.

Add in a great start by consistent OSU senior guard Bryce Thompson (16 points, three rebounds) and Cincinnati never really felt close once the game hit a peak 18-point lead. The Cowboys came pretty focused (12 turnovers and 17 free throws) and hungry on their Senior Day, unlike Cincinnati on Wednesday.

James Tries To Dial In

Jizzle James (17 points, four rebounds) was a big reason Cincinnati stayed in Saturday's road matchup against OSU. The dynamic guard is a different player when he gets the three-point jumper going and that almost happened en route to a nearly efficient scoring day (2-9 from deep, 0-4 in second half). Things tapered off down the stretch and James finished an all-too familiar 6-21 from the floor.

Add in a rare multi-free throw showing this season and it was a decent James outing, but he has to get more action at the rim and from the free throw line on days when the jumper isn't falling. He didn't do much distribution, but James was the best option to create a shot in a hurry against the high-tempo Cowboys. No one on OSU could notch a good handle on James defensively and they didn't send many double teams.

Cincinnati ultimately needed more players to step up for a win, but James handled his high workload. The sophomore was a -12 on the day thanks in large part to the rough shooting. UC did get a nice showing from Dan Skillings Jr. (15 points, four assists), but he had a few crucial turnovers that dinged the winning chances.

"If he does the little stuff, if he defends and rebounds and runs and, you know, makes offensive plays," Miller said about Skillings' impact. "That's something that makes our team way more dynamic that we wanted to count on all year and and so he's consistently over the last week and a half, for the most part, played better, and tonight, it was just obvious we're better with him in the game, and that's why we extended his minutes out again. That part was good."

The next game is TBD on Tuesday in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

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