TicketsCINCINNATI – The Cincinnati men’s basketball team takes on No. 6 Louisville in the Hoops Classic in partnership with CareSource at 6:30 p.m. Friday night at Heritage Bank Center. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and broadcast on 700 WLW and the TuneIn app.
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Bearcat Bits
- The 2025-26 campaign marks the 125th season of competition for Cincinnati men’s basketball, and the Bearcats will commemorate the milestone with a year-long celebration honoring the program’s rich history, iconic players and cultural legacy. Cincinnati men’s basketball, which was named a top-10 program in college basketball history by the Associated Press, boasts 44 All-Americans, 41 conference titles, six Final Four appearances and back-to-back national championships across its history, which dates back to the 1901-02 season.
- Cincinnati head coach Wes Miller is in his fifth season as the University of Cincinnati’s men’s basketball head coach, poised to take the Bearcats to the next level in their third year of the nation’s best basketball conference, the Big 12. The 42-year-old Miller already boasts 15 years of head coaching experience. He spent a decade at UNC Greensboro, posting five-straight 20-win seasons and appearances in the 2018 and 2021 NCAA Tournaments before taking the helm of the Bearcats. Miller boasts seven 20-win seasons (two at Cincinnati) and a 271-194 overall record. He has mentored 25 All-Conference players as a head coach, including six over his first four seasons at UC.
- Cincinnati’s six scholarship transfers (Jalen Celestine, Sencire Harris, Jalen Haynes, Kerr Kriisa, Baba Miller and Moustapha Thiam) come to Clifton averaging 80 career games played at the college level.
- Cincinnati, allowing just 61.0 points per game defensively, ranks second nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. The Bearcats’ 91.1 rating sits only behind Houston at 89.6 and just ahead of Gonzaga at 92.1.
- The Bearcats rank second in the Big 12 in blocks per game (6.3), opponent field goal percentage (35.6%) and turnovers forced per game (17.75), along with third in defensive rebounds per game (30.75) and fourth in scoring defense (61.0 ppg).
- Baba Miller was honored on the Big 12’s Starting Five, the conference office announced Nov. 10. Miller was joined on the Starting Five, which is new this season, by Arizona’s Koa Peat, Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Kansas’ Darryn Peterson. Miller opened the season with 18 points and 10 boards in the Bearcats’ 94-63 victory over Western Carolina before tallying 24 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks on 8-of-9 from the field in a 74-64 win over Georgia State. He became the first Bearcat with consecutive double-doubles to open a season since Bobby Brannen in 1997-98.
- With just one starter and a pair of letterwinners returning from the Bearcats’ 2024-25 squad, Cincinnati retains only 13.3% of its scoring, 7l.6% of its rebounding and 17.5% of its assists from a season ago.
- Cincinnati has found itself playing with pace offensively and forcing its opponents to play more deliberately on the opposite end. The Bearcats sit 18th nationally in average offensive possession length at 14.5 seconds and their opponents are taking 17.1 seconds per possession on the other end, good for 216th-fastest nationally.
- Cincinnati trails the all-time series with the Cardinals, 56-44, but holds a 24-22 edge in games played in Cincinnati. The teams have split the last 20 meetings. In the last matchup Nov. 23, 2022 in Maui, David DeJulius (tied career-high 26 points) and Landers Nolley II (21) helped Cincinnati shoot 53.2% and defeat Louisville, 81-62, to close the Maui Jim Maui Invitational. The contest was the 100th between the longtime rivals, as well as the first meeting since Feb. 22, 2014 in Fifth Third Arena. It was Cincinnati’s largest margin of victory against the Cardinals since Feb. 22, 2003.
- Led by second-year head coach and Cincinnati native Pat Kelsey, the Cardinals are 4-0 on the year, including a 96-88 win over No. 9 Kentucky Nov. 11 in Louisville. The Cardinals are outscoring their opponents by 32 points per contest in the four games. Senior guard and Xavier transfer Ryan Conwell, along with freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr., pace Louisville with 19.3 points per game to lead six Cardinals averaging double figures. Brown Jr. averages almost eight assists per game, while sixth-year guard J’Vonne Hadley paces the Cardinals with 7.0 boards per game to go along with 11.0 points.