Quick Hits: Cincinnati Preview, Free Throw Disparity, Life on the Bubble + More

The West Virginia Mountaineers (15-10, 6-8) host the Cincinnati Bearcats (15-10, 5-9) Wednesday night for the second meeting between the two teams this season. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. EST and the action will broadcast on ESPN2.

A look at Cincinnati since the Mountaineer’s win earlier in the month

They are playing with a lot of confidence. Even the other night at Iowa State, that game was right there late in the game. After our game, they went to Central Florida, won, played very well, especially offensively. Came back home, beat both BYU and Utah and then lost a tough road game at Iowa State. So, they’re playing very well. They kind of found themselves it kind of felt like the last four games.

Cincinnati sophomore guard Jizzle James averaging 22.3 points in the last four games

He’s been playing at a high, high level. I think he’s averaging 22 a game over his last four [games]. So, that’s a big difference for them. Now, everybody else gets freed up a little bit. But he’s getting hard ones. He’s coming off and getting step backs from 15 and step backs from three and getting to the rim and just putting a lot of pressure on you to try and slow him down.

Free throw discrepancies

Our identity is to be physical and tough, and they’ve done a good job of that. We’re one of the better defenses in the country for that reason. Its just a matter of cleaning those little reach fouls. That’s not being physical, nots not being tough. You got to have a little more disciplined at the end of it just to fight that urge to try and get that last little reach and again, that’s four to six points. That’s it, that’s all we’re talking about. So, we’ve had four games, one win and three tough losses and when you’re talking about a games being decided by two, four points, where can you find those two to four points from? That’s an area right now we can go to find it. We got to keep them off the line we got to get to the line more.

Better performances during midweek games

I don’t care if its Tuesday or Saturday, we need to play and play well. We just haven’t played as well on a couple of games, couple of tough losses in midweek. Certainly, on the weekends we have bigger crowds, and the atmosphere is really lively, and we’ve had a little bit of bad fortune this year with just some bad weather days on the weekday games that’s impacted a little bit of the people being able to get here but that’s not why we’ve lost. We got to just do our part and go play well.

Life on the Bubble

Whether I was at Drake or Creighton before that or here, the mindset is still ‘the next game’ and that’s kind all you focus on. The losses, they hand with you a little longer, but you can’t let it hang on too long. After a game, I’ll always immediately, whether at home or road, try to go watch the game we just played and then flip it right to the next game and next opponent because by that next morning, you have to have a scouting report and a game plan ready. So, I think you just have to stay super disciplined in your preparation and we try to do that after a win or a loss.

A look at Cincinnati since the Mountaineer’s win earlier in the month

Cincinnati sophomore guard Jizzle James averaging 22.3 points in the last four games

Free throw discrepancies

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