Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Rips Through NJIT for Fifth Win of Season

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats led wire-to-wire on Monday night in a 94-67 win over the NJIT Highlanders. It wasn't pretty, but UC worked out the easy victory without one of its top players, Baba Miller.

The defense continues to be really nasty, allowing NJIT to hit just 35% of its shots, but the Highlanders covered the 33.5-point betting spread in large part due to better tenacity on the boards and strong free-throw shooting. The second half was much more like what fans expect to see from this team, with Cincinnati winning that frame 52-39.

Moustapha Thiam (15 points, 10 rebounds, one block) continues ot show he can power the Bearcats on both ends of the floor with another solid game from the 2026 NBA Draft prospect. All while Shon Abaev showed his sweet shooting skills with a UC career-high in points (20 points).

Cincinnati is now 2-0 all-time against the Highlanders and has a quick turnaround for a Wednesday night game against Eastern Michigan at home.

Fastbreak Storyline: Second Half Stifling

The Bearcats' offense reached some stagnant points in the first half of this game, and they were lucky enough to hit 12 threes to never leave the result in doubt, but this is one of the 20 worst teams in the country, and they never really put the pedal down and ran over them in the first 20 minutes.

Cincinnati has to clean up its box-out keys and hit the glass better as a team. NJIT is a horrific rebounding team, averaging seven fewer per game than their opponents this season (42.7 boards allowed, 358th). They didn't have anyone that matched Cincinnati's size, but that doesn't matter when you don't have five guys committed to snagging misses off the glass (40-38 NJIT board advantage).

Those extra opportunities helped them keep things closer than the betting line suggested they would be. Thiam was the only Bearcat to swallow misses at will; everyone else had a miscue or two at least. All in all, they added a win, though, and strong on-ball defense was the biggest reason why. The outmatched Highlanders couldn't find any success in the paint (42-14) and had to take nearly half their shots from deep to even keep it respectable.

Eastern Michigan is much more well-tuned on either end of the floor and could give the Bearcats real problems like Mount St. Mary's did, if they don't get a collective effort going on the glass. You have to rebound well if you're going to shoot under 32% from deep on high volume like the Bearcats have been, and so far that's not happening at a rate that will post a winning Big 12 record (40.6 rebounds per game, 84th nationally, 36.4 allowed, 232nd nationally).

Star of the Game: Moustapha Thiam

The Bearcats' best NBA draft prospect continues to show why so many scouts are intrigued by his skill set. Thiam was fantastic all game in this one, taking the right shot diet to shoot 7-12 from the floor and cleaning the boards at will.

He had a major size advantage in this game and did exactly what you're supposed to do against the 349th-ranked team on KenPom. Thiam ended up a whopping plus-28 on the night as Cincinnati dominated his minutes as the offensive and defensive focal point. He got the teardrop floaters inside rolling in this one and made his only free throw attempt, which has been an issue this season (2-5 entering tonight).

Thiam runs the floor with great, sound pace and is a terror when he gets the ball rolling to the rim. Monday's double-double showing was just what the doctor ordered as one of the only reliable bigs left in the rotation.

Cincinnati now prepares for the Wednesday matchup against Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+.

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