Go Back   BearcatTalk.com > Cincinnati Basketball > Bearcat Basketball

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-31-2022, 09:22 PM   #1
Queens_NYC
Epic Member
 
Queens_NYC's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 1,655
Queens_NYC is on a distinguished road
Temple

Sunday, January 1st, 2023
3:00 PM
The Liacouras Center
ESPN

The Bearcats (9-4 [1-0 AAC], #67 KP, #103 NET) kick off the new year with a visit to Temple (7-7 [1-0 AAC], #132 KP #179 NET). The contest will mark the Bearcats' second road game of the season - some 46 days after they lost at NKU in mid-November.

UC will hope to continue the trend of beating teams that got the better of them in 2022 as the Owls won two close match-ups last season by a combined 7 points.

Temple is led by 4th-year head coach Aaron McKee who helped guide a shorthanded squad to a 59-57 win at ECU on Wednesday that snapped a 3-game losing streak.

4th-year 6'5 wing Khalif Battle is the team's leading scorer at 18.6 ppg but has surprisingly only started in 8 of the team's 14 games so far. Another 4th-year 6'5 wing, Damian Dunn, is their next leading scorer at 14.7 ppg but missed the ECU game due to being in concussion protocol. Temple will play their fourth straight game without 6'8 starting forward Jamille Reynolds (11.1 ppg, 6.3 rpg) who suffered a thumb injury several weeks ago and is expected to return after surgery in February.

Temple appears to be a very inconsistent team as they've already beaten Rutgers, Villanova, and VCU this season but have also lost to Wagner, Penn, and Maryland Eastern Shore.
Queens_NYC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 10:39 AM   #2
sedziobs
Senior Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 2,395
sedziobs is on a distinguished road
Last year they posted up DDJ with Dunn down the stretch. Let's see if we learned anything.
sedziobs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 03:43 PM   #3
Bcatfollower
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Cincinnati
Posts: 2,218
Bcatfollower is on a distinguished road
Davenport should never play any significant minutes again. He is terrible. Miller continuously playing shows how incompetent he is.
Bcatfollower is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 03:45 PM   #4
Bcatfollower
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Cincinnati
Posts: 2,218
Bcatfollower is on a distinguished road
Also Miller seems not to care how poor the bearcats effort level on rebounding is. This guy is a joke… media keeps talking about most wins 40 and under but fail to acknowledge he was gifted a head coaching job at 30 yo with zero credibility to get the job. Other than Roy Williams and daddy’s money.

Last edited by Bcatfollower; 01-01-2023 at 03:50 PM.
Bcatfollower is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 03:55 PM   #5
TheLongHaul
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,036
TheLongHaul is on a distinguished road
People are finally starting to realize that he is not a good coach.
TheLongHaul is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 03:59 PM   #6
skyblade
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 1,790
skyblade is on a distinguished road
I haven't given up on Miller, but this is part of why I was calling to bench Davenport and/or Nolley early in the season. Show that if you aren't giving it your all on the boards, you aren't going to play.

Instead Miller established that he's okay with it. Perhaps he will change after we get blown off floor by Houston.
skyblade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 08:00 PM   #7
sedziobs
Senior Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 2,395
sedziobs is on a distinguished road
It wasn't just effort and rebounding (which was indeed awful as we were outrebounded 46-28). We also took 29 midrange shots. The midrange accounted for almost half of our shot attempts. I hate that I have to repeat this so often, but you can't consistently win games when you aren't getting to the rim or getting open three point looks. And that's what's so concerning about Miller. All of his teams have been midrange heavy. We can fix rebounding issues with better rebounders (Skillings and Reed look pretty good), but I expect the bad shot selection will always be a problem.

We only scored 0.94 points per possession, which is terrible against a defense ranked outside the top 150. We didn't seem to be running anything. It was like a pickup game.

On the defensive side, Temple was isolating and posting up all of our weaker defenders just as they did last year. DDJ, Nolley, and Davenport especially. Temple clearly had a plan and were executing it. The only real bright spot of the game was we forced 15 turnovers while only committing 7.
sedziobs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2023, 09:43 PM   #8
TheLongHaul
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,036
TheLongHaul is on a distinguished road
Quote:
Originally Posted by skyblade View Post
I haven't given up on Miller, but this is part of why I was calling to bench Davenport and/or Nolley early in the season. Show that if you aren't giving it your all on the boards, you aren't going to play.

Instead Miller established that he's okay with it. Perhaps he will change after we get blown off floor by Houston.
Nolley is one of the few positives of this season so far. Davenport's minutes should have been reduced early on and Wes screwed that up and is still screwing it up.

Hensley should play on this team. There is a reason he came from UNCG. Skillings needs to play more and they need to run the offense through Nolley and Vik. Why Wes continually allows the team to take horrible off the dribble 3 pointers blows my mind.
TheLongHaul is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2023, 07:27 AM   #9
Queens_NYC
Epic Member
 
Queens_NYC's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 1,655
Queens_NYC is on a distinguished road
The 15-0 run late in the first half put us in a hole that we couldn't get out of for the rest of the game.

The offense over the last 10 minutes was horrible as well. We hit 51 points at the 10:08 mark then didn't hit 55 until the 2:23 mark. DDJ hit two meaningless 3s in the final minute, but by then enough damage was done.

The soft December schedule allowed us to find our swagger at home, but we appear to still be the same directionless team on the road that we were last season.

There's a lack of toughness, a lack of composure, and a lack of leadership.

Maybe we're just asking too much of this team with Newman and Phinisee out.
Queens_NYC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2023, 08:25 AM   #10
skyblade
Epic Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 1,790
skyblade is on a distinguished road
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLongHaul View Post
Nolley is one of the few positives of this season so far. Davenport's minutes should have been reduced early on and Wes screwed that up and is still screwing it up.

Hensley should play on this team. There is a reason he came from UNCG. Skillings needs to play more and they need to run the offense through Nolley and Vik. Why Wes continually allows the team to take horrible off the dribble 3 pointers blows my mind.
Yet Davenport continues to lead this team in +/-, both in EvanMiya and most nights, so he must be doing something right.

Using EvanMiya to find +/- per possession, Skillings leads us (+0.21), followed by Davenport, Ody and Vik (+0.16), than MAW (+0.13) and Nolley (0.1). DDJ as was also a theme last year is one of the worst (+0.05) in front of only Reed (0.04) and Hensley (0.03).

The biggest issue I see is that we don't have defensive energy or leadership. Pretty much every Bearcats team prior to Brannen had a couple of guys who might not be great on offense, but they were going to give it their all on defense and at rebounding and demand that other guys do the same. The coach would sub them in for anyone who wasn't giving their all.

Brannen didn't recruit those guys, Miller hasn't recruited those guys (with the exception of Newman).

Nolley has been a positive on offense, but he's not a good defender, he's a bad rebounder and he definitely not a defensive leader. Much like Davenport and DDJ (though DDJ has been stepping up his defensive game lately).

Miller doesn't demand high level defense/rebounding and even if he did, he doesn't have anyone on the bench who brings it anyway. Skillings/Ody are the closest. Hensley is great defensively but horrible at rebounding.

Early in the season I wanted Miller to establish intensity at defense/rebounding as a high priority. Bench Davenport and/or Nolley (our two worst in that regard) and give other guys (Skllings, Reed, Hensley) minutes, even if it made us a worse team to prove the point that energy, defense and rebounding get you minutes.

Miller has been content with poor defense, poor rebounding and just an overall lack of effort on that end of the court. Against competent teams, that means we have to be very good to great on offense to make up for it. We can't afford an off night on offense. But we are going to have off nights (especially on the road it seems).

It doesn't help that our leaders (mostly DDJ and Davenport, less often Nolley) have a tendency to start playing hero ball when things start going poorly.

I'm not sure what the solution for this season (or if there is one). It seems like we are who we are and will be fighting to make the NIT. Miller better start emphasizing rebounding and defense in recruiting though or fans aren't going to be happy with him.
skyblade is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd., - All material on this Cincinnati Bearcat discussion forum is strictly for entertainment purposes only. This site and any pages within are in no way affiliated with the University of Cincinnati. Any images, copyrights, or trademarks used on this site are used under the "Fair Use Provision" of the Copyright Act for purposes of comment, criticism, and news reporting.