Weekly NET: Bearcats Rise Into Top 100 Entering Big 12 Basketball Schedule

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats posted arguably their best win of the season on Monday night, prompting a rise in our latest Weekly NET rankings check-in. The 89-62 win over Lipscomb vaulted UC basketball up to 91st in the NET from 107th entering the week.

They are still the second-lowest-ranked team in the Big 12, but are now only just behind West Virginia at No. 90. Cincinnati's offense looked the best it has yet this season with Jizzle James in the normal swing of things, along with him and Sencire Harris now in the starting lineup.

“Yeah, I think we're figuring it out," Kerr Kriisa said on Monday night. "We had nine guys take more than five shots today. That’s a pretty good sign. It shows that we moved the ball. I think most of the shots we had today were wide open or close to being wide open shots. I think we're doing a good job of putting it together. Everybody knows the next game is a big one.”

The Big 12 is expected to get eight teams into the NCAA Tournament as of this writing, and Cincinnati has a long way to go to enter that mix. Baylor is the lowest-ranked projected tourney team at 41st overall, and none of the projected teams have more than two losses entering conference play.

The 8-5 record has Cincinnati in a brutal spot right now, likely needing to go at least 14-4 in the Big 12 to have any case with a 22-9 record. Baylor and Kansas made last year's tournament with 19 and 21 wins, but they had 12 and 13 combined Q1/Q2 wins with no Q4 losses on either side.

Cincinnati is 0-4 in Q1/Q2 games this season and already has a Q4 loss to Eastern Michigan. So 19-21 wins will not come close to cutting it unless they somehow only lose Q3 and Q2 games the rest of the way with a conference mark close to .500. It has to start with at least a 6-3 record in January, which has eight Q1/Q2 games and one Q3 home game against Colorado.

Wes Miller getting first win over Houston would be a nice launch point. He is 0-9 against the Cougars at Cincinnati with a -12.7 average point differential.

The contest tips off inside Fifth Third Arena on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET.

Fans can watch it on FOX.

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