CINCINNATI — Wes Miller heard all the boos serenade his team Saturday in the closing minutes of a 54-40 dismal offensive showing against No. 11 Kansas. Now, he wants his team to use those boos to remind his team of the doubters.
Hunter Dickinson had 14 points and 12 rebounds and the 11th-ranked Kansas Jayhawks again displayed stifling second-half defense to post a 54-40 Big 12 win over the host Bearcats Saturday at an overwhelmingly unhappy and unsatisfied Fifth Third Arena. It was Cincinnati’s fourth straight loss.
“I told the guys the only thing we have to do is continue to stay together, continue to work, continue to grow,” Miller said. “And we can say thank you to two groups of people out there when this is all said and done. We can say thank you to the people that stuck with us and believed in us and kept supporting us, and we can say thank you to the people that didn’t, because one of the greatest things in the world people wrong.”
Miller would love to prove people wrong but they were right to be dismayed by the Cats’ inability to shoot straight. They were 18-for-59 from the field and 3-for-22 from three-point range.
“So we’re not going to let four games define us,” Miller added. “We’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep working, and this is a good basketball team, and we’ll get our rhythm again offensively if we continue to defend and fight. We’re going to be in games like we were tonight, and eventually the lid will come off.”
Kansas (12-3, 3-1) overcame 2-for-21 shooting from beyond the arc to record their third straight win and fifth in six contests.
Dillon Mitchell had 10 points and was the only player in double figures for Cincinnati (10-5, 0-4), which remains winless in Big 12 play.
For the second straight game and third time in four outings, Kansas faced a halftime deficit. But as they did in their previous win over Arizona State, when they held the Sun Devils to 13 second half points, the Jayhawks turned up the defensive intensity in the second half. Kansas outscored Arizona State 38-13 on Wednesday and outscored Cincinnati, 30-15, on Saturday.
“Needless to say, it’s been disappointing couple of weeks, there’s no doubt about that,” Miller said. “Every part of our team and our program feels that disappointment, I thought our guys came out and played with the kind of energy and the kind of effort and the kind of approach that we should expect, and they played to our standard in that way, coming out of the gates, I was proud of that fight. They’ve responded well this week to a really disappointing game at Baylor because we didn’t have that and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of the way they’ve stuck together, proud of the way that they’re working. I’m proud of the way that they care.”
Both teams went through ice-cold stretches in the second half as neither team could find an offensive rhythm. Cincinnati didn’t register a second-half basket until Arrinten Page hit a jumper with 14:28 left in the game while Kansas went five minutes without a basket early in the second half.
“We didn’t make enough plays in the second half,” Miller added. “At the end of the first half, and second half, we didn’t make enough plays to get over the home tonight. It certainly was frustrating, because some of the mistakes that we made felt very controllable. Not only did they hurt us from converting offensively, they let the baskets on the other end, and that’s where the game gets away from you. The offensive board for Kansas.
“What was a little frustrating there to start the second half, and at times, because we get them to miss, and we couldn’t clear some defensive rebounds. Again, the way we finished the first half and some of those aspects of the second half, I’m very well aware of it. There’s a little on it for us right now. We’re not making shots and we’re not converting. Well, even if we do get easy shots, it’ll come off. We’ll find our offensive rhythm again. We’ll find our swagger again offensively.”
An alley-oop dunk by Shakeel Moore on a lob by Zeke Mayo highlighted a 14-0 Kansas run that helped the Jayhawks seal the game.
After Cincinnati raced out to an early 8-2 lead before an energized capacity home crowd, the Jayhawks answered with eight straight points to take a brief lead.
Trailing 12-10, Cincinnati went on an 11-2 spurt to take its biggest lead of the first half, 21-14. The Bearcats capitalized on six first-half steals to take a pair of seven-point leads but they missed 7-of-8 to close the half and converted just two field goals in the final six and a half minutes.
Both teams were badly off the mark from beyond the arc as Kansas converted just 2-of-9 while Cincinnati drained just 1-of-9. Kansas closed the first half on an 8-2 run that narrowed Cincinnati’s lead to 25-24 at the break. The 24 points were the second-fewest by Kansas in a half this season, second only to the 20 they scoring in the first of a 62-61 home loss to West Virginia on New Year’s Eve.
“I think it’s just all the little things and we have to stay together,” Dillon Mitchell told me. “I told the team the other day that we have 16 games left in the conference. I don’t even think we’ve played that many games so far. There’s still a lot of season left, and I think we just got to continue to stay together and keep working hard every day in practice, and then translate, bring what we do at practice to the game.
“It’s all the little details that we work on. I mean, there’s so much basketball left, and we trust the coaches and trust each other. We know the shots are going to start to fall and when they do, everything’s going to open up for us. We just have to continue to lock in, stay focused on the details and stay together. That is the biggest thing. It’s all about the 15 other guys in that locker room and all the coaches. That’s all that matters. There’s a lot of basketball left. We just have to keep fighting and we will respond.”
Jizzle James and Simas Lukosius burst onto the scene last year in their first season with the Bearcats, which was the program’s first season in the Big 12. As a result, those two players are now going to be featured at the top of the Bearcats scouting report for opposing teams. We’ve seen that to have a clear effect on how those two players are performing through the Bearcats first four Big 12 games.
Through four Big 12 games, James’s scoring average has dropped by 1.5 points per game, and he has just 10 assists to nine turnovers. Coming into Big 12 play, James had 57 assists to 17 turnovers. On the other hand, Lukosius is in a severe slump. His scoring average has plummeted by 3.4 points per game over his last five games, and he’s shooting just 3-22 from three-point range in that span and 9-36 overall in that span.
Dan Skillings Jr. came into this season as a potential NBA prospect. He’s been really good this season, even raising his scoring average by 2.3 points per game through four Big 12 games. But against the conference’s signature program on Saturday, Skillings had nine points on seven shot attempts.
This team is regressing, badly. Just three weeks ago, the Bearcats won highly-competitive games against Xavier in the Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout and then against Dayton in downtown Cincinnati. Those were two quality Quad 2 wins, and the Bearcats then concluded non-conference play at 10-1. They were ranked just outside the top 15 in the AP Poll. Now, they could fall off the bubble on some bracketologists’ projections next week.
So, where does the source of the problems within in the Bearcats program? Who’s responsible for the Bearcats scoring just 88 combined points over their last two games? Who’s responsible for this team shooting just 13-73 from three-point range and 88-221 overall through four Big 12 games? Who’s responsible for the many unforced turnovers through four Big 12 games, 11+ turnovers in each of the first four Big 12 games? Sure, some of it is on the players. But these are talented players, talented players on a team that was projected to be a shoo-in for the NCAA Tournament in the Preseason.
This program is searching for its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2019. It’s also searching for an identity, now 22 games into Big 12 play over the last season-plus. Highly-rated recruits and transfer commits aren’t playing well right now, and it’s been that way for the last four games. This was the year James, Skillings, Lukoisus and Bandaogo took that next step and be a big reason why this team was making noise in the Big 12. Yes, some of that falls on the players not performing. But eventually, if their performances continue to be subpar, the blame has to shift elsewhere. The development of James, Lukosisus and Bandogo just has not been there this season, particularly the first four games of Big 12 play.
Saturday’s 54-40 loss to Kansas wasn’t just one loss. When a team falls to 0-4 in conference play, after being a top 15 team earlier in the season, it’s time to look at the big picture. The reality is this team is regressing. Players who were supposed to take leaps this season are underperforming. Some of that they are responsible for, but not all of it. If standards keep being not met, there maybe is a bigger problem with this team.
Alex Frank contributed to this column.
