Three Man Weave: Cincinnati Bleeds Away Lead Against Georgia In Blowout Loss

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bearcats suffered their worst loss of the season by scoring margin on Saturday 84-65 to Georgia. Wes Miller's team led by double digits down the stretch of the first half, but it slowly fell apart from there, thanks to terrible shooting and 21 fouls.

Georgia got a nice showing from Blue Cain (career-high 22 points) and poured it on Cincinnati during a 47-28 second-half blitz. The pace they brought to the table showed how far Cincinnati has to go if they even want to sniff what real tempo and offensive execution look like.

UGA wore the Bearcats down with an 11-man rotation and showed how difficult Big 12 play will be, facing plenty of defenses as good or better with an offense this bad. UC shot 35% from the floor (just 13-23 at the rim, 3-15 mid range), 26% from deep, and 57% at the line.

The Bulldogs are now tied 2-2 all-time with Cincinnati and will assuredly get ranked in Monday's AP poll.

Offense Degrades With Fouls

Georgia had a ton of trouble matching its near 100-point per game average in this game, but the UC offense had even more issues as the high-paced game wore on.

Georgia's relentless pace was too much for Cincinnati to keep solving all game long. They pressed pretty consistently and just wore out the UC ball handlers, which led to poor fouls and issues with the rotation. Day Day Thomas (eight points, five rebounds, four assists) fouled out with over five minutes to play.

Once Thomas went out, it was basically only Kerr Kriisa (six ppints, three assist, three turnovers) to initiate offense, which has been a rough proposition all season. He was sloppy with the ball and still doesn't shoot inside the arc at all (every shot from outside). All of the offensive tweaks that the team worked on over the past two weeks just evaporated after a 29-18 lead with 8:34 to play.

Georgia had this game served on a platter for UC, shooting just 4-21 on three-point shots and posting one of their lower point totals of the season. Alas, the Wes Miller offensive adjustments and overall system fell short again.

UC has not been able to solve the free-throw line issues ever under Miller, and it's the worst it's ever been this season. There's no explaining it; they obviously practice it all the time, but the UC teams just can't seem to make the ball go in on the easiest shots in the game consistently. They even missed two more dunks in this game.

The team crumbled without Thomas down the stretch; it's frightening to think what they would look like if he weren't playing this season.

Cincinnati Player Of The Game

It's hard to pick one from this slow degradation. Cincinnati had one player score well in Miller, but he was far too sloppy with his fouling to earn POTG. Jalen Celestine (13 points, one assists) can take the honor in this loss as he showed strong fight and some nice shooting rhythm.

The veteran has been returning to full strength from a major injury in the offseason and looked the quickest and healthiest he has been this season.

He hit multiple big threes to help Cincinnati keep pace the whole time and was the only reliable outside shooter for UC. They desperately need him to do it all season to try to turn things around after having by far the best box plus/minus of any UC player on Saturday (.

Overall, Cain was the most impactful Bulldog in this game as the biggest deep threat to worry about against a strong Cincinnati defense. He did a great job getting to the free-throw line and was really the only player to consistently make them all day. It proved to be a huge factor on a day where neither team was over 77% on 47 combined attempts.

Cain kept great care of the ball and was a consistent driving offensive force during a career-best scoring day.

Cincinnati's next game is Wednesday at home against Alabama State, tipping off at 7 p.m. ET.

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