CINCINNATI — The Bearcats took another ugly turn Wednesday night in their underachieving season, and it was a turn so disheartening that their coach had no choice but to be fully accountable and own the misery his team put on display.
It’s not that the Bearcats lost 54-49 to a mediocre Kansas State team, it’s not that they shot 2-for-18 from three-point range, it’s the fact that they showed little effort and virtually no hustle all night in a game they had to have if they had any realistic hope of making a push to the NCAA tournament in 10 days.
If you thought the 63-50 loss to West Virginia at home was bad, this made that performance look like a basketball clinic. That’s why Wes Miller, after venting on the Bearcats radio postgame show with Dan Hoard and Terry Nelson, was only just getting started.
“It’s an unacceptable performance. The effort, unacceptable,” Miller said. “The (lack of) fight is unacceptable. It’s on the head coach. I did it. I’m the leader of the operation. I got to do a better damn job. And so it’s on my butt. So it’s all my that’s the truth of it. I’d boo our butts, too. I boo myself, too G-damn. That’s unacceptable. Unacceptable, the fight and the effort. I don’t care about missed shots and layups and three. That doesn’t matter. The effort is unacceptable.
“I hadn’t seen that team, I don’t know who that team is, I don’t know who that basketball team is. I hadn’t seen that in a long damn time. This has been a tough fighting group for three to four weeks, and I thought we played as hard as you can play against Houston. It didn’t go our way. Some tough call, like, I don’t know what the heck that was today. And I apologize to anybody that bought a damn ticket they had to watch that. I apologize. And you damn right, you should be on my butt. I deserve it. That is unacceptable, unacceptable, and it starts with the head coach.
“I thought we’d come out spitting fire tonight, the way we looked on Saturday. Again, I don’t care about the result Saturday. We played our butts off on Saturday. We competed on Saturday. We compete tonight and again, we don’t. Don’t blame it on kids. Blame it on the freaking head coach. Blame it on my butt. It’s all me, man, I’m responsible. I’m the leader. I’m the adult in the room.”
David N’Guessan scored 14 of his team-high 18 points in the second half and added nine rebounds to rally visiting Kansas State past Cincinnati in Big 12 action in Cincinnati.
Dug McDaniel added 13 points for Kansas State (15-15, 9-10), which swept the season series and won its second straight after a four-game skid.
Day Day Thomas had 12 points while Jizzle James added 10 for Cincinnati (17-13, 7-12), which lost its home finale and suffered a big blow in their hopes of making a run at an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. The most shocking part was how the Bearcats, on their home court on Senior Night, were beaten all night to loose balls and rebounds.
With Oklahoma State on the road in Stillwater Saturday to wrap the regular season before the Big 12 tournament, is there anything else Miller could say or do at this point to get the message of urgency across to his team?
“It’s March in college basketball. You live for this as a competitor. You work the whole year to be in March,” Miller told me. “I don’t think that I have to motivate competitors to play in March. Are you kidding me? It’s March in college basketball. You live for these moments, these opportunities. Man, we control our own destiny. Like you live for the opportunity to come here and compete and try to show the NCAA Tournament why you belong in the field. I don’t know.
“I don’t have any tricks for that. This, like, I don’t have any tricks. Man, like, no. Like, we’ve been a competitive, hard-playing team for four weeks, a confident team. I don’t know what happened, but I don’t know. I don’t have any tricks. It’s March. Nothing to trick up. We have played 30 games or whatever the heck it is.”
It was an ugly shooting night for both teams, especially from beyond the arc as the two teams combined to convert just 5-of-36 from 3-point range.
Cincinnati took a 35-28 lead on a three from Day Day Thomas and an Aziz Bandaogo free throw with 14:30 left in the second half. But Max Jones knocked down a jumper that sparked an 8-0 Kansas State run and 12-2 spurt that put the Wildcats ahead for good.
Cincinnati managed to cut the lead to three, 52-49, but gave up a foul as the shot clock was winding down on defense. Kansas State managed to run out the clock as boos rained down on the Bearcats on Senior Night.
“Knowing that this is their last year, some of these guys been here for years and gave it all, and then we just didn’t get the job done, and our effort was bad,” said Dillon Mitchell, who finished with two points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes. “It sucks, because that’s something that we can control. Everything else we you know, shots and stuff like that.
“We work hard and we work on our game, but I think that you can’t control if it goes in or not. But effort is something that all of us can control. And hearing that we didn’t give good effort, I mean, it just we got to be better than that. So, we’ve got to get back to it. That can’t be the case. We can’t lose a game because of our effort.”
Oklahoma State (14-16, 6-13) is a team the Bearcats should be favored to beat. But then again, given how Wednesday and so many other games against inferior opponents turned out, nothing is a guarantee.
Kansas State had two key players return from injury, as wing Coleman Hawkins was back in the starting lineup after missing three games due to a right knee injury. Mobi Ikegwuruka returned after a one-game hiatus due to an undisclosed injury.
Hawkins wore a long sleeve on the right leg and a brace on the right knee. He labored at times in the first half before connecting on a three-point field goal. Ikegwuruka was limited to just two minutes of playing time in the first half and did not see the court in the second half.
Kansas State missed 10-of-11 shots at one point, allowing Cincinnati to build leads of 15-7 and 17-9 before the Wildcats rallied.
The first half was uneven and ugly at times for both teams, as Cincinnati managed a 25-22 halftime lead despite converting just 1-of-9 from beyond the arc and 11-of-26 shots overall. Kansas State was 3-for-13 from 3-point range but struggled more from the floor, knocking down just 9-of-28 overall. The two teams combined for 11 turnovers and were just 3-for-6 from the free throw line.
Miller’s exasperation leads to the question how much more can Miller take this season and going forward into 2025-26? Barring a massive buyout in the neighborhood of $9.9 million after March 31 or the 40-year-old coach leaving for a different job somewhere, Miller will be back for a fifth season in Clifton next season.
“We’re playing to try to make the NCAA Tournament, like to not give (effort)… I mean, lose, fine, but like, lose like that. No, man, I don’t,” Miller said. “So again, it starts with me.”
Miller already has a tough job selling UC in the era of an expanded Big 12 that includes Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Utah and Colorado, not to mention Kansas and Houston. Throw in the need to raise NIL money and the last thing Miller needs are prospective players who wonder about the culture that signs off on losing.
That’s what was so troubling Wednesday night. Mick Cronin and Bob Huggins were both fond of saying when losing becomes OK, you’re done. There are many supporters in the Bearcats community – alumni and fans – who expect Miller to start projecting that same message.
