TicketsCINCINNATI – The University of Cincinnati women’s basketball team opens the 2025-26 campaign against Lehigh on Tuesday. Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m. inside Fifth Third Arena.
THE RUNDOWN
- Cincinnati tips off year its 55th season on Tuesday, hosting Lehigh at 6:30 p.m. inside Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats hold a 7-3 record over the past 10 season openers.
- Katrina Merriweather enters her third season as head coach at her alma mater and 10th overall as a bench boss. She owns a 180-102 career record and has guided three programs to six postseason appearances.
- Cincinnati enters the 2025-26 campaign with eight newcomers, highlighted by a nationally recognized freshman class ranked No. 15 by ESPN. The class is the highest-rated in program history and the third-highest in the Big 12, behind Kansas and Kansas State.
- The Bearcats’ freshman class features two top-100 players in Dee Alexander and Caliyah DeVillasee. Alexander ranked No. 11 in ESPN’s final rankings, the highest in program history, while DeVillasee came in at No. 62 nationally.
- Big 12 women’s basketball head coaches voted Dee Alexander the conference’s Preseason Freshman of the Year. The five-star guard is Cincinnati’s first Big 12 individual preseason award honoree.
- Alexander will be out indefinitely with an ankle injury, Coach Merriweather announced on Oct. 26. Her status will be updated in the coming weeks.
- Cincinnati is coming off its first winning season in five years. The Bearcats posted their best non-conference record (.800) since 2005-06 and their most conference wins (7) since 2019-20.
- The Bearcats return five letterwinners from a season ago, including key contributor Reagan Jackson, who ranked third on the team in scoring last season at 9.2 points per game. Destiny Thomas, Alliance Ndiba, Delaney Snyder and Ramiyah Byrd are also back.
- Jackson returns as a two-year starter and the only Bearcat to start and play in every game last season. She has led the team in three-pointers made the previous two seasons, making a career-best 46 in 2024-25.
- Senior transfer Mya Perry, a 5-foot-11 guard, joins Cincinnati after spending the past two seasons at Florida Atlantic. She led the Owls in scoring with 15.5 points per game and hit a team-best 76 three-pointers — the third-most in a single season in FAU history.
- Cincinnati took a foreign tour in August, spending seven days in Rome and winning both games against international competition. The NCAA granted the team 10 additional practices as part of the trip.
- Cincinnati returns just 24% of its scoring, 30% of its rebounding and 22% of its assists. Of the 24% of returning scoring, 58% comes from Jackson alone.
- The Bearcats will look to replace the presence of five-year starter Jillian Hayes, who left as the program’s leader in games played, blocks and free throws made/attempts.
- Cincinnati has ranked first in the Big 12 in free throws made per game the past two seasons, averaging 16.8 in 2024-25 (fourth nationally) and 15.9 in 2023-24 (eighth nationally).
- Tuesday’s game will be the first meeting between the Bearcats and the Mountain Hawks, who won the Patriot League title and made the NCAA Tournament last season. The Bearcats will face four non-conference opponents this season that advanced to postseason play in 2024-25.