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Men's Basketball Takes on DePaul Tuesday in Las Vegas

The Cincinnati men's basketball team is back in action for the inaugural College Basketball Crown when it takes on DePaul at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

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Men's Basketball Takes on DePaul Tuesday in Las VegasMen's Basketball Takes on DePaul Tuesday in Las Vegas
CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati men's basketball team is back in action for the inaugural College Basketball Crown when it takes on DePaul at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The winner advances to play Oregon State or UCF at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday.

THE RUNDOWN
  • No. 12 Iowa State pulled away late for what became a 20-point defeat in the second round of the Big 12 Championships. It was a single-digit game with 8:03 and 4:18 left, but the Bearcats ran out of gas.
  • Jizzle James led UC with 17 points. The All-Big 12 Honorable Mention member has scored in double-figures 11 of the last 12 games. He averaged 10.5 shots per attempt over the first 21 games and 16.0 over those last dozen.
  • James leads the Bearcats in scoring (12.8 ppg) and assists (120 and 3.6 per game). His 749 pts through his freshman and sophomore seasons trail only Jacob Evans (765) and Sean Kilpatrick (867) for the most over such a stretch at the school since 2010. He averaged 19.0 ppg in three NIT games last year, scoring 25 against Bradley and 21 at Indiana State.
  • Dillon Mitchell has played more and more of the 5 in this latter stretch of the season. He has been asked to play multiple positions within the 4 and 5 to go with the expanded trust for him to take 3-pointers. His 18-point, 15-rebound double-double against Oklahoma State in Kansas City was a culmination in those efforts, swishing his only deep attempt and pulling down eight offensive boards to go with a career-high five assists. It was his fifth double-double of the year, with UC going 4-1 in those, and all against power-conference opponents.
  • Josh Reed scored 19 points in that tourney opener (career-high 15 by halftime) against OSU on 8-of-12 shooting, then followed with 10 points against Iowa State. Six of his seven-career games in double-figures have come since Feb. 8, with Feb. 19 marking his first-ever start. He has also played career-highs of 33 and 34 minutes in back-to-back games.
  • Day Day Thomas' 10 steals in the Big 12 Tournament included six against Oklahoma State, tied for fifth in school history. Aziz Bandaogo (977 career points), also has seven blocks in the last three games. He is fifth in the Big 12 with 1.52 bpg.
  • Dan Skillings Jr., last year's leading scorer at 12.8 ppg, had 13 points and 8 rebounds against OSU in the Kansas City win. It was his highest-such combination since Jan. 4 against Arizona, when he went for 18 and 6.
  • Cincinnati has won at least one conference tournament game in each year under Wes Miller and has gone 2-1 in each of its two NIT appearances. The Bearcats join Utah (BYU) and UCF (Texas Tech), all from the Big 12, as teams in the Crown to defeat Sweet 16 foes.
  • DePaul is No. 327 in KenPom for offensive free-throw rate, while Cincinnati is 13th on the defensive side, which includes committing a Big 12-best 13.9 fouls per game. Sixteen of UC's 18 wins have come when allowing 69 or fewer points.
  • The ISU game was UC's first in which it had more 3-point attempts (30) than two-pointers (28), and it was also its most  deep attempts in any of its 22 games against Big 12 competition.
POST-BIG 12 TOURNEY TAKEAWAYS

Cincinnati defeated Oklahoma State in a redemption game to open play in Kansas City, leading by as much as 22 and outscoring the Cowboys 48-24 in the paint.

Wes Miller, when asked after the Iowa State loss about his immediate takeaways from two years in the Big 12, specified physicality, particularly with Iowa State's heavy bigs providing a difference in the game. The No. 12 Cyclones won 41-23 on the boards and 36-16 in the paint.

"There is a laundry list, but with rebounding, there is a physicality in this league that's different that be other leagues and you gotta have a level of physicality.

"I don't think our effort to the board was any different tonight than it was yesterday. I don't think it was any different. I think Jizzle would tell you the same thing. But the teams that are in the top half of this league, it's a different deal. That's where we expect to be. So there is just one example. Like we have to make sure that we have the right level of size and physicality when we put line-ups out on the court, and tonight, again, it wasn't a fight thing, but you're looking at line-ups where -- Dishon Jackson look at his numbers, 15 rebounds. He's 260, 270 pounds. Joshua Jefferson, he's 6-9. I'm guessing, but he looked like he's 245, 250 pounds. There is a level of physicality that we gotta make sure that we have."

SERIES HISTORY
  • These two programs have met 50 times previously, with a bulk of them coming as rivals in the Great Midwest, Conference USA and Big East from 1991-2013.
  • DePaul assistant coach and general manager LaVall Jordan was Simas Lukosius' head coach at Butler his freshman season.
  • Wes Miller and Chris Holtmann have gone head-to-head only once previously, with Ohio State defeating Cincinnati in the 2022 Maui Invitational.
  • Of the teams' three mutual opponents (Texas Tech, Villanova, Xavier), UC went 1-2 while DePaul was 0-5.