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The Cincinnati basketball team picked up an important win on Tuesday night as they outlasted Baylor at home. The game came right down to the wire, and the Bearcats escaped with a 69-67 win. Jizzle James led Cincinnati with 18 points, which looks like a good amount. However, he did shoot the ball 20 times as he finished 6-20 from the floor. Bearcats head coach Wes Miller said that James reminded him of Allen Iverson.
Even on an off-night, Jizzle James continued to shoot the basketball, and that's the sign of a confident player. Wes Miller compared the shots to an Allen Iverson stat line.
“He's got some Allen Iverson numbers tonight, 20 shots?” Miller said after the game, according to a post from Tyler Easterday.
James is definitely a confident player, and after the big win against Baylor, the entire Cincinnati basketball team is feeling good.
“I think the confidence is high,” James said after the game, according to an article from gobearcats.com. “We're just stacking games, stacking days in practice, and it leads into wins on the court. We're glad to see it all paying off and we're having fun. We're having fun playing basketball as a team and seeing everybody get the love they deserve. We're showing everybody like we belong here.”
This was a crucial win for Cincinnati as they try to work their way onto the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. ESPN's Joe Lunardi currently has the Bearcats in the “next four out” category, so there is work to do, but Tuesday was a step in the right direction.
“It was a big time win for us, and I'm proud of our kids,” Wes Miller said. “I was really pleased with our playing there in the last seven minutes of the first half. That's the level that we can play consistently. Our defense was active. We were getting deflections and steals. Our offense kind of found some rhythm moving the ball and getting more quality shots versus switching and I was really pleased with that. We didn't play our best basketball there in the second half. Give Baylor some credit, and I didn't like us defensively. We stagnated a little bit offensively.”
Even though Cincinnati struggled during the second, they still found a way to get the win, and that's all that matters.
“The part I'm the most proud of is we've had moments like that this year, and we've let it affect us and our teams growing a lot like it didn't affect us like that,” Miller continued. “Our team's getting more vocal amongst each other, which I think is a sign of a team growing like they're talking about it. You enter a time-out, and we talk for a second as assistance and enter the timeout. They talk about how we got to pick up our energy, how we got to pick up our activity, and how we got to defend. I thought that was a really good sign.”
One of the biggest plays of the game for the Bearcats came after a crucial mistake, and that's a sign that this team has no quit.
“The thing I'm most proud of is that it wasn't going our way there in the second half…Day Day [Thomas] the play he dribbles it off his foot, he was down, and you can see it on his face. He wants it as bad as anybody I've coached,” Miller added. “He knows that was a big play. Then he comes back the next time and makes the biggest three of the game. Then he gets the deflection and the loose ball.”
Cincinnati has work to do to get into the big dance, but there are going to be opportunities to improve the resume. The Bearcats have three more regular season games, and their next one is on the road against #4 Houston. A win in that one would give them a big boost, and then there is always hope for a deep run in the Big 12 tournament.
