Cincinnati Bearcats Host San Francisco Dons in First Round of NIT

Cincinnati is hoping to make a deeper run in the NIT this season after making the quarterfinals last year.

Author:
James Rapien
Mar 20, 2024 6:49 AM EDT

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CINCINNATI — The Bearcats are back on the hardwood on Wednesday night, as they play the San Francisco Dons in the first round of the NIT.

Tip-off is at 9 p.m. ET. Cincinnati is hoping to make an NIT run for a second consecutive season. They made the NIT Quarterfinals last year.

If the Bearcats beat the Dons, they'll play the winner of Bradley vs Loyola Chicago this weekend.

Check out the official release from the University of Cincinnati Athletic Department below:

THE RUNDOWN

Cincinnati is making its 46th postseason appearance and 12th of its past 14 opportunities (omitting 2020 and COVID). Nine of those were NCAA Tournament bids. Wes Miller is UC's third coach since 1974 to win 20 games and make the postseason in his third year.
Big 12 teams finished 3-16 in games immediately following the Bearcats. The only wins came via league champs and AP top-4 teams Houston (twice) and Iowa State.
The Bearcats have won 11-straight 9 p.m. or later home games, beginning in 2013-14. Only two of those wins were by single-digits for an average of 16.5 ppg. They are 5-0 in such games under Miller.
All-Defensive Big 12 honoree John Newman III (547 points at UC) is six away from 1,000 and is having his best offensive season yet in FG% (50.2), 3FG% (34.9), FT% (72.9), and scoring (9.6 ppg), plus career-highs in rebounding (5.2) and steals (43). He had his third double-double, and second this year, against Kansas.
Aziz Bandaogo averaged 12.3 points and 11.5 rebounds per game in Utah Valley's NIT Final Four run last year. The Wolverines beat New Mexico and Colorado on the road, followed by Cincinnati at home.
Dan Skillings Jr. has scored in double-figures five-straight games, including 25 against No. 14 Kansas. Last year, he played 16.0 mpg in the three NIT games (14.8 for the year) and parlayed it into a breakout sophomore season.
Simas Lukosius (31 points) and Day Day Thomas (29) became the highest-scoring Cincinnati duo since at least 2010 in the 16-point, first-round comeback win over West Virginia. Thomas went 7-for-10 from deep, with that and the Jan. 31 game at WVU serving as his only two games with 3 or more deep balls.
Lukosius has 97 assists this year (and 17 the past 4 games) after leading Butler with 92. With three more, he and Thomas will mark consecutive years of two Bearcats with 100-plus (David DeJulius 192 and Mika Adams-Woods 115). The last prior occurrence came in 2018 among Jacob Evans and Jarron Cumberland. Lukosius' team-high 83.6 FT% makes for three-straight years above 80 percent as well.
Viktor Lakhin played 5 minutes against Baylor and scored on both his field goal attempts. It was his first action since spraining his ankle late in the March 2 K-State win. Cincinnati players have missed 44 games this year among its rotation due to injury, illness or transfer waiver processes.

SERIES HISTORY

The only prior meeting was an overtime Cincinnati win in 1976 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Eventual NBA All-Star and three-time champ Bill Cartwright was a freshman on that Dons team. The two leading scorers on that UC team were future NBA players Bob Miller and Pat Cummings.
The Bearcats won the Metro Conference in its inaugural season as well.
San Francisco boasts student-athletes from Georgia, Mongolia, Serbia, Australia, England, Ukraine and China, marking 10 total countries represented in Fifth Third Arena along with Cincinnati's Lithuania, Russia and Senegal.
USF claimed the 1955 and 1956 national titles with the great Bill Russell, making for the two programs combining for four of eight national titles during that stretch. Cincinnati won in 1961 and 1962 after Oscar Robertson had graduated and begun his storied NBA career.

CARDIAC CATS' COMEBACKS

The 16-point, second-half comeback against West Virginia in the Big 12 Tournament marked the eighth game under Wes Miller in which it came back from 10-plus points to win. Three of those were against ranked teams, and five of the eight are this year.
In the WVU game at the Big 12 Championships, Cincinnati wiped out its 16-point deficit in only 4:21. It even came in the same arena as the Illinois game.

Game (Year) Largest Deficit (Half)

vs. No. 14 Illinois (2021-22) 15 (11:56 in 1)
at Wichita State (2021-22) 10 (8:50 in 1)
vs. Temple (2022-23) 10 (13:15 in 1)
Evansville (2023-24) 10 (19:44 in 2)
at No. 12 BYU (2023-24) 10 (19:43 in 2)
No. 19 TCU (2023-24) 11 (7:33 in 1)
UCF (2023-24) 12 (Halftime)
vs. West Virginia (2023-24) 16 (11:45 in 2)

POSTSEASON RUNDOWN

Cincinnati has 33 NCAA appearances to its name in addition to 12 NITs and one CBI appearance (2008). The 2022-23 team was also in the NIT, defeating Virginia Tech at home to start things off after 13 lead changes and 11 ties. It then went on the road for its next two, due to pre-determined court resurfacing ahead of the Big 12, defeating CAA champ Hofstra and falling to Aziz Bandaogo’s Utah Valley team in the quarterfinals.

VALUABLE TIME IN 2022-23 NIT

Cincinnati’s NIT appearance last year, while not the ultimate goal of the program, proved to pay some solid dividends for the future. The Bearcats defeated ACC foe Virginia Tech in a raucous affair while going coast-to-coast with games in New York and Utah.
Ody Oguama averaged 8.7 points and rebounds per game, including shooting 76.5 percent from the field against Virginia Tech, Hofstra and Utah Valley.
Dan Skillings Jr. also got 16.0 mpg of run while averaging 14.8 for the year.

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