Bearcats Beat: Wes Miller ‘Not In The Excuse Business’ As Bearcats Try To Figure Out Identity Before Big 12

CINCINNATI — Wes Miller isn’t looking for sympathy.

He knows the followers and boosters of Bearcats basketball aren’t thrilled with losses to regional rivals Xavier and Dayton within the space of eight days.

He knows a 9-2 record somehow feels hollow when you can’t rise to meet the competition.

To do that, you have to fall back on an identity of who you are as a basketball program. That’s hard to do when you don’t have confidence in who you are as a team when you step on the court.

That’s been evident in the two losses to the Musketeers and Flyers.

In Tuesday’s 65-49 grinder over the underrated Merrimack Warriors of the Northeast Conference, the Bearcats looked lost at times but found a way to do the tough things that Miller’s team have done well when they’ve been successful.

“The kids want it as bad as you can want it,” Miller said. “And the kids that have been here wanted as bad as you can want it, and there’s kids crying in locker room after after the Dayton game. “This this isn’t a want-to type of thing. They can’t want it more. They might want it too much. I might want it too much. We all might want it too much type of thing.

“We’re trying to learn what it takes as a team, to win on the road or outside of this building against the best teams and we’re trying to build the habits and what we do every day to do that. We’ve got to learn how to defend with the right mentality as a unit for 40 minutes every single possession. You cannot win on the road in college basketball if you don’t have that approach, you cannot win. So now we’re back at home, or a little more comfortable. But we’ve got to try to build that now. We got to try to build that in practice. So we get back on the road or as the competition gets better and better. We can’t miss an opportunity to work on that. I think our guys are trying to learn what it takes.”

Score in the paint and rebound. Yes, the Bearcats can be potent from 3-point range. But what happens when teams actively take that away or when the shots aren’t falling? Or both? Do the Bearcats have an identity that can translate to the road when they play an incredibly rigorous Big 12 schedule.

“I don’t make excuses. I don’t sit up here and make excuses,” Miller told me. “You guys been around me for three years. I’ll face the fire and admit and when we have faults. We’re not in the excuse business. Nobody wants to hear that crap. Okay, I certainly don’t live like that.”

No one wanted to hear excuses about the absences of Aziz Bandaogo (back) and CJ Fredrick (hamstring), both suffering injuries against Dayton Saturday, keeping them out of Tuesday’s game against Merrimack.

Miller has had two big off-court wins when Bandaogo and Jamille Reynolds, both big men transfers were reinstated and added to his roster. But those two wins came with a condition: he had to re-invent the way his team defends and attacks offensively with the addition of two bigs. So while early on, the Bearcats were running their offense through guards Day Day Thomas and Jizzle James, now Miller has to integrate two big men in the post to get the most of out them.

He also has to be concerned with how this impacts their most effective player, Viktor Lakhin. When Lakhin is on, the Bearcats have an inside-outside dynamic like they did on Tuesday against Merrimack, where they could look inside if the outside shot isn’t falling. When Lakhin isn’t engaged in the game, as was the case on Saturday against Dayton, they look utterly lost.

“It’s been part of the challenge to create an a real identity is like there’s been a lot of changes,” Miller said. “I’m not complaining about but you know adding Aziz changes the makeup of the team everybody, and that’s a good problem. Okay, I’m not complaining about it. But it changes the makeup of the team. He’s a unique player. There’s nobody else on our team that plays defensively and offensively like Aziz. So we got to figure out and he’s a major impact player. So we’ve got to figure out we didn’t have him for however many competitions. I don’t know six or something like that. Now we got to adjust get him involved because we’re going to be better with him and figure and then that affects other guys and so you’re adjusting that identity or that plan and then you add Reynolds.

“And again, he’s a major impact player and he’s unique so it’s not like, you know, you’ve been doing all this stuff that work for Vik and it was their different players. So trying to kind of find this team’s identity whether it’s strategically whether it’s like in competition the chips are down like it’s a process and it’s very important to me, but you don’t snap your fingers and it happens overnight.”

Wins are wins and Tuesday’s win over a team that beat Fairleigh Dickinson for the NEC title last year does show something about winning ugly. Fairleigh Dickinson was the team that shocked No. 1 Purdue in Columbus in the first round last season. If the Bearcats are going to win games ugly in the Big 12, they’re going to need their glue guy – John Newman III – to step up.

Last Saturday, Newman was held to just four points while Daron Holmes II went off for 28 points and Kobe Elvis had 27.

“We’ve been working at that for two years, to change some of the mentality things and so yeah guys like John and I was upset with John’s play defensively in the last game because he understands our defensive identity and he sets the tone for that for this team and the minute he gets away from being John Newman,” Miller said. “That’s going to make us take a step back. (Tuesday), I thought John Newman was John Newman again. I don’t care about his line. I mean John Newman was John Newman on D, and so there are some things that have been established work ethic and approach every day”

The Bearcats have two more chances – Stetson Dec. 22, Evansville Dec. 29 – to refine and define their identity before Big 12 play opens on Jan. 6 in Provo, Utah against BYU.

Miller is just hoping they make the most of it.

Game Recap:

Viktor Lakhin scored a game-high 18 points to go with seven rebounds and three assists to lead the Bearcats past the visiting Merrimack Warriors, 65-49, Tuesday night.

In his second game with the Bearcats, another big man, Jamille Reynolds added eight points and 11 rebounds as Cincinnati (9-2) outrebounded Merrimack, 45-25, and outscored the Warriors 38-18 in the paint.

Merrimack (5-7), playing the first game in 10 days, was led by Jordan Derdack, who scored 18 points and was the only visitor in double figures. Devon Savage added nine points for the Warriors.

The Bearcats were without the services of two regulars as seven-foot transfer Aziz Bandaogo sat out with a back injury and shooting guard CJ Fredrick was unavailable due to a hamstring injury.

Picking up the slack in the low post for the Bearcats was another transfer, 6-foot-11 Jamille Reynolds, playing just his second game since being reinstated.

While the Bearcats struggled to find any rhythm from the outside, Reynolds along with fellow big Viktor Lakhin picked up the slack in the paint. Reynolds had five points and six rebounds in the first half while Lakhin had a team-leading eight points and two blocked shots.

Both teams were sloppy in the first half, with Cincinnati committing 11 turnovers but still managing a 27-17 halftime lead. Merrimack turned the ball over 10 times and was held scoreless for over five minutes as Cincinnati went on an 10-0 run to take a 15-4 lead.

Merrimack made just 7-of-27 shots from the field, including 3-for-13 from beyond arc in the first half.

Cincinnati built its lead up to 17, 47-30, on an 11-4 run. But the Warriors used sharp shooting from beyond the arc to make a run in the second half. Jordan Derdack’s layup with 5:49 left capped a 12-2 Merrimack spurt to cut Cincinnati’s lead to 49-42.

But the Bearcats answered with the next seven points over a 60-second span to restore the lead to double figures.

Both teams were well below their single-game scoring averages, as Cincinnati was scoring 84 points per game while Merrimack came in averaging 71 points.