Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Crashes Back To Earth Against No. 1 Arizona 77-51

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats' high from beating Iowa State over the weekend came crashing down in a 77-51 loss to No. 1 Arizona on the road Wednesday night.

Cincinnati shot a putrid 30% from the floor and showed just how far this offense has to go when taking on an elite team playing in rhythm. Baba Miller (14 points, six rebounds) and Shon Abaev (13 points) were the only Cincinnati players in double figures as Arizona dominated the paint like they have all season (48-14 points in the paint, 46-33 rebounding advantage).

Arizona rolled in a style it's used to this season to move to 6-0 all-time against the Bearcats. UC went from eight turnovers against ISU to 14 turnovers against U of A.

"It was not one of our better offensive nights," UC head coach Wes Miller said after the team scored a season-low 51 points. "The rebounding was certainly a factor. We pride ourselves on that, and to give up 18 offensive rebounds is very frustrating. I'm not pleased overall, but it's the Big 12, you're on the road, and you've got to regroup and get ready for another game on Saturday."

UC stays in Arizona this week in preparation for a Saturday 10 p.m. ET tip at Arizona State.

Paint Punishment

Arizona has zero clear weaknesses this season and used its best strengths to wash away the Bearcats' hopes. UC couldn't get any close looks to fall consistently in this game, and couldn't come up with any easy points in transition to supplement.

They held strong until the final eight minutes, trailing by 10 entering that stretch, but the depth and consistency from Arizona overwhelmed any comeback hopes. The Wildcats even shot way worse than their 36.5% season average from deep (3-13 from outside on Wednesday), and it still didn't really matter.

Plenty of those misses led to one of the Wildcats' 18 offensive rebounds and showcased why they are one of the three best rebounding teams in the country by overall percentage.

That was a huge key entering this game, and Cincinnati got absolutely worked on that front. Tommy Lloyd's team had five different players haul in at least five rebounds, while UC had only Miller meet that mark. He continues to be the only reliable rebounder on an outfit that was averaging 29 misses hauled in per game this conference season entering the loss (last in the Big 12 in rebounds per game).

Add in the lowest three-point percentage in Big 12 play (26.2%), and you get wildly small margins for error to work with (UC shot 19% last night). Cincinnati had to win on the margins to have any chance in this game, and losing basically all those marginal stats resulted in a complete blowout and the worst final scoring margin of the season for Cincinnati.

UC is now shooting 45.2% of its shots from outside this season (62nd highest rate nationally) and making 30.2% of those tries (328th nationally). The offensive plan has not worked well enough in 19 games.

Bearcats Player Of The Game: Baba Miller

A pick by default in a terrible game overall by UC, Miller was a -25 in this game, but it would've been a lot worse without his impact. The veteran took a team-high 13 shots in large part because no one else could get anything really working.

Abaev popped up with a decent scoring showing for the first time this season as well, but was asked to do far less to keep pace in this game than Miller had to take on. He brought in a team-high six rebounds and scored 14 points, but it was still far from a good overall outing by Miller.

It's hard to pick a Player of the Game when your best efficiency score on UC's side is Miller's 11 overall mark. He's been as high as 40 overall at points this season, showing how much control the nation's best team had over UC. Cincinnati's backcourt was horrendous in this game, with Jizzle James, Day Day Thomas, and Sencire Harris combining for a -3 total efficiency score.

Kerr Kriisa played just two minutes as Cincinnati looks to work him into the lineup more this weekend. Wes Miller noted after the Arizona loss that Kriisa has yet to practice since the shoulder injury against Houston to open Big 12 play.

Catch the Arizona State action at 10 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.

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