Tonight at 8 on Fox Sports Ohio and whatever carries the Big East Network in your region, the Cincinnati Bearcats play an absolutely huge home game against the Villanova Wildcats. The Wildcats come in at 15-9. The important record is that they are 6-5 in the Big East, the same as Cincinnati. The Wildcats are fighting for their NCAA tournament lives. The Bearcats are fighting to avoid a 3 game losing streak. There is a lot on the line for both clubs. 

Ignoring the Villanova half of the equation, this is a gigantic game for Cincinnati. The rest of the schedule doesn't matter. They need a win. From a confidence perspective, from an execution perspective, from any kind of perspective. It seems like the Syracuse game was a fulcrum. If that game was won, you are 17-3, 5-2 in the conference and you have a shot to win it. Since it has been lost, the air seems to have come out of the team some. Maybe that funky 9 day layoff after Syracuse and before Rutgers messed with the rhythm of the team. You normally never see layoffs like that in the middle of conference play. In their last 5 games, Cincinnati is 2-3. In the last 10, they are 5-5. We are getting to the make or break point.

I believe in this team. You probably believe in this team if you are reading the site. We have to show them tonight. 5/3 needs to rock. If you saw the Kansas game last night, the crowd carried them when things were going well. Kansas State was intimidated and overwhelmed. Cincinnati is not Kansas, but I know UC fans can rock the bitch. Show up and show off. 

If you missed the posts about the Crunch Time Shooting and the Crunch Time Baskets, don't miss them now. 

Stats are conference numbers only. 

Record: 18-6, 6-5 

Home: 10-4

RPI (from Real Time RPI): 35

Vs Villanova: 3-6

In Cincinnati: 2-3

Winning Streak: 2 

Last Meeting: 72-68, March 3, 2012

Spread: Cincinnati by 8

Minutes

• Sean Kilpatrick 35.4
• JaQuon Parker 31
• Cashmere Wright 30.4
• Titus Rubles 23.3
• Cheikh Mbodj 21.7

Scoring

• Sean Kilpatrick 17.5
• Cashmere Wright 12.8
• JaQuon Parker 9.1
• Cheikh Mbodj 5.7
• Titus Rubles 5.7

Field Goal % (Min 15 attempts)

• Cheikh Mbodj 47.8
• Justin Jackson 42
• JaQuon Parker 39.7
• Shaq Thomas 39.1
• Sean Kilpatrick 38.8

Free Throw % (Minimum 15 attempts)

• Cashmere Wright 86.1
• Sean Kilpatrick 74.6
• Titus Rubles 71.1
• Cheikh Mbodj 70.4
• Justin Jackson 63.2

3 Pointers Made (3 point %)

• Sean Kilpatrick 30 (31.3%)
• Cashmere Wright 17 (26.2%)
• JaQuon Parker 11 (34.4%)
• Jermaine Sanders 6 (30%)
• Titus Rubles 3 (18.8%)

Rebounding

• Titus Rubles 6
• JaQuon Parker 4.8
• Justin Jackson 4.6
• Sean Kilpatrick 4.4
• Cheikh Mbodj 4.3

Assists

• Cashmere Wright 31
• Titus Rubles 23
• JaQuon Parker 18
• Sean Kilpatrick 16
• Justin Jackson 15

Turnovers

• JaQuon Parker 25
• Sean Kilpatrick 23
• Cashmere Wright 19
• Titus Rubles 15
• Justin Jackson 15

Steals

• Cashmere Wright 12
• Sean Kilpatrick 10
• Titus Rubles 6
• JaQuon Parker 5
• Justin Jackson 5

Blocks

• Cheikh Mbodj 25
• Justin Jackson 12
• David Nyarsuk 9
• Sean Kilpatrick 4
• Titus Rubles 3
• Kelvin Gaines 3

Record: 15-9, 6-5

Road/Neutral: 6-5

RPI: 63

Minutes

• Ryan Arcidiacono 34.5
• Darrun Hillard 31.6
• Mouphtaou Yarou 29.1
• James Bell 27.4
• JayVaughn Pinkston 23

Points

• Darrun Hillard 14
• JayVaughn Pinkston 12.9
• Ryan Arcidiacono 10.9
• Mo Yarou 10.2
• James Bell 7.5

Field Goal %

• Daniel Ochefu 49
• Achraf Yacoubou 48
• JayVaughn Pinkston 47.8
• Mo Yarou 44.3
• Darrun Hillard 43.7

FT %

• Darrun Hillard 82.8
• Ryan Arcidiacono 81.1
• James Bell 77.8
• Mo Yarou 77.3
• JayVaughn Pinkston 72.2

3 Pointers Made (3 Pt %)

• Ryan Arcidiacono 22 (32.8%)
• James Bell 17 (36.2%)
• Darrun Hillard 16 (33.3%)
• Achraf Yacoubou 9 (50%)
• JayVaughn Pinkston 2 (20%)

Rebounding

• Mouphtaou Yarou 9
• Daniel Ochefu 5.4
• James Bell 4.8
• JayVaughn Pinkston 4.5
• Darrun Hillard 3

Assists

• Ryan Arcidiacono 35
• Darrun Hillard 20
• JayVaughn Pinkston 19
• Mouphtaou Yarou 15
• Tony Chennault 15

Turnovers

• Ryan Arcidiacono 31
• JayVaughn Pinkston 30
• Darrun Hillard 22
• Mo Yarou 18
• Daniel Ochefu 18

Steals

• Darrun Hillard 17
• James Bell 17
• Ryan Arcidiacono 12
• JayVaughn Pinkston 8
• Daniel Ochefu 8

Blocks

• Mouphtaou Yarou 10
• Daniel Ochefu 10
• JayVaughn Pinkston 5
• Maurice Sutton 5
• Darrun Hillard / James Bell 4

Cashmere Wright needs 3 assists to tie Steve Logan for 3rd all time. 

Cash needs 3 steals to tie for the all time lead in steals. 

With 15 points, Sean Kilpatrick will pass Lenny Stokes and move into the top 20 in points scored. 

Villanova plays one of the fastest paces in the league at 69 possessions a game. Cincinnati is one of the slowest at 62. I think it would be better for Cincinnati if they sped it up. 

Neither team are great shakes offensively. Both average 0.99 points per possession. That's middle of the pack. 

This may surprise some of you, but Villanova has been better than Cincinnati defensively. The Wildcats are holding teams to 0.93 ppp, which is the same as Georgetown, and is tied for 3rd in the league. Cincinnati is tied for 6th with St John's at 0.97 ppp. 

Villanova's opponents have shot 38.2% from the field. Cincinnati is shooting 38.2% from the field. Villanova shoots 42% from the field. Cincinnati's opponents shoot 41.8% from the field. It appears these teams are tailor made for each other. 

When you watch a Villanova game, you see a lot of free throws. The Wildcats lead the conference in free throw attempts and free throw rate. They pretty much shoot 1 free throw for every 2 field goals. That's a lot. The Wildcats give up a ton of free throws. They have allowed the 3rd highest free throw rate in the league. Cincinnati has the 3rd highest, while allowing the 3rd lowest. 

Both teams shoot a lot of 3s, UC is 1st, Nova 4th in attempts. Nova has made 2 fewer than UC. Villanova can be exploited from 3. The Wildcats give up a fair number of attempts. 

This is the 3rd straight game Cincinnati has played a team that leads the league in rebounding percentage. Providence and Pittsburgh both led in offensive rebounding percentage. Villanova is the best defensive rebounding team in the league. They pull in 71.4% of missed shots. Cincinnati is the second best at 70.7%. Offensive rebounds will be at a premium. Villanova doesn't hit the offensive glass that hard, so UC should be able to keep them off. UC needs to get boards. Especially if they keep missing shots. 

Villanova hurts their offense because they turn the ball over a lot. They turn it over on 23% of their possessions, the second most in the league. Mick has been talking about defense starting the offense, well this is a good team to put that plan into motion with. Cincinnati only forces turnovers on 17.5% of possessions. Nova doesn't force a lot either, 18.8%. 

Villanova has caused 11 players to foul out. Interesting note. 

JaQuon Parker is going for at least 15 tonight. Watch. 

I'm going to keep track of the late game possessions for a post on Thursday. UC has to close tonight. They've been brutal lately. Look at the post again if you want to be sad. I think they finish tonight. Big win coming. 

Cincinnati 69 Villanova 63

Continuing in the theme of the earlier post where I broke down the crunch time scoring, I thought it would be a good idea to focus on the baskets the Bearcats scored. There are only a baker's dozen of them, so we can do this with pictures. 

Basket #1

Situation: 64-52, 4 minutes remaining

Cincinnati got out a little off a DePaul miss. Sean Kilpatrick used a nice screen to drive. DePaul didn't guard JaQuon Parker, circled. The ball is in the white circle. It would be a rather easy layup that was practically unchallenged. 

Basket #2

Situation: 71-66, 21 seconds remaining

Cincinnati has scored 12 crunch time baskets the last 7 games and one of them was on a press break layup. I think any of us would give a small amount for this one to not count and one from, I don't know, the Syracuse game to fall. 

Basket #3

Situation: 47-46 Cincinnati. 6:48

Sean Kilpatrick basically is like "I'm shooting this bish." That was a very deep 3. 

Cincinnati has played a lot of close games in a row. 7 to be exact. The last time we were able to breathe easy enjoying a win was when Cincinnati topped Rutgers 68-58 one month ago. Since UC has played a lot of close games, people have been very upset with the crunch time offense.

Since I am a man of the people, and have nothing to do tonight, I thought it would interesting to look at the UC possessions in the 8 minutes of these games. By the last 8 minutes, I mean just from the media timeout. This is going to be a 2 part post. This post will feature the numbers during the last. There are only going to be pictures of the made shots. 

This post is about the numbers. There will be a breakdown of who took the shots, free throws, who turned it over and what the other team did as well. We are going all the way with this. The numbers are harsh. 

The big thing coming off the 10 point loss to Pittsburgh Saturday night has been the offense. The fans have been upset about the offense for a rather long time. I'm sure the coaches and players have as well. Mick has constantly said that Cincinnati needs to score 70 points. They haven't scored more than 65 points in regulation for a month. They've only had 2 Big East games where they have hit 70 points in 40 minutes. One of those was against DePaul. Do you know how many teams have scored 70 points against DePaul? All of them but 1. And that team scored 69 points.

Mick has said the offense isn't the issue. Well if the offense isn't the issue, that means the players are the issue because they can't make shots. If the players can't make shots, that means the offense is an issue. I know Cashmere Wright and Sean Kilpatrick can shoot the 3. Cash was great in November and December. It's February though. The things that worked against Maryland Eastern-Shore don't work against 20 win teams. Last year had 3 evolutions of the offense. We had the slow down and dump the ball in the paint offense, we had the press like hell on defense and run on offense stretch and we had the run and dump hybrid. I know that college coaches love the high screen because that's what every single team runs, but this team needs something different. I don't know if it's just as simple a case as they need shots to fall. I think they need a better way to get those shots. 

Cronin questioning the toughness of the team is a big time call out for the game tomorrow night. This is a huge week with Villanova and Georgetown in the span of 4 days. I was pretty adamant about the game tomorrow being a game Cincinnati has to win. I still believe that. Villanova is searching for another big win and might have some confidence after crushing DePaul and South Florida. Cincinnati is probably still a lock for the NCAA tournament, but you don't want to be locked as an 8 or 9 seed. A 3 game slide this late in the year is not good. Time to turn the ship around. 

The Bearcats have a losing record at home in Big East play. 

Cincinnati had 5 assists on their first 8 made field goals. They finished with 8 assists for the game on 16 field goals. There were a ton of missed shots, but the ball movement stopped. Pitt went zone and Cincinnati seemed to have no answer. Which is odd because they tore up the Syracuse zone in the second half of that game. 

Cincinnati was 5-25 in the second half. 1-16 from 3. They made 41% in the first half shooting 9 threes in 27 attempts. The over-reliance on the 3 ball showed. And it hurt. Charles Barkley always says "You don't live by the 3, you die by the 3." UC died a horrible death on Saturday night. 

No field goals the last 9:21 is still hard to get over. It was 45-39 after Rubles had a 3 point play. The game ended on a 22-7 run. Awful. 

The Cats hit 10-14 free throws in the second half and 16-22 for the game. They've now lost back to back games with 20 free throw attempts though. They had lost none before last week. When you make as many free throws as field goals, that'll get ya. 

12 turnovers to 8 assists is pretty awful. 2 assists to 6 turnovers in the second half. 

Sean Kilpatrick pretty much summed up the game with his performance. He was 5-8 for 15 first half points. He was 0-7, 1 free throw, 4 turnovers in the second. He made 1 basket after his hand injury. I don't know if it was a cut, a jammed finger or what. SK didn't station himself behind the 3 point line as much as he had been doing. He took 9 attempts, but he also took 6 two point attempts and 6 free throws. That's a pretty decent balance. He's just got to get the shots to fall. 

Cashmere Wright was 2-12, 1-11 from 3. He had 2 assists against 3 turnovers. He had back to back 20 point games before his injury. One of them was on 17 shots, but it was still 20 points. He hasn't scored more than 6 points but once since his return. He's had 3 games where he's only made 2 field goals. He had a game where he made 1. His high since returning is 4 made shots in 13 attempts. He is a tough guy for playing hurt. He's just cold as hell right now. If anyone needs to park their ass at the foul line, it's him. He's 11-12 at the foul line since coming back. That's really good, but that's 12 attempts in 5 games. 7 of them were against Seton Hall. I said this a lot about Cash last year. He is too good a foul shooter to not get to the line. I know he's hurt with his knee and shoulder and god knows what else. He's not going to be what he was his sophomore year when he would fly at the basket. He's gotta score though. He's too important. The team is lost without him. 

Speaking of lost, UC lost Justin Jackson after just 7 minutes with an ankle injury. His status for tomorrow is up in the air. He will probably play if he can. If he can't, he will not play. Those last  2 sentences were very unnecessary. 

Cheikh Mbodj delivered a class Cheikh Mbodj bust game. 17 minutes, 4 points, 1 rebound, 1 block. He was bullied by Steven Adams in the second half. When Mbodj is good, he's a big boost to the team because it shows with his defense and some with his offense. When he has games like this, it's so tough to win because you are getting nothing from a guy on offense and nothing but fouls on defense.

At least he had a cool picture taken of him.

JaQuon Parker was locked up by the Panther d. He had 7 points on 2-4 shooting, 3-3 at the foul line. Parker had 2 big ones with UC down 5 and 2:37 to go. JaQuon is still averaging 10.5 points a game, which is a career high by a point.  He's averaging 9.1 points a game in conference play. He averaged 8.8 last season. In fact, he's been almost the exact same player he was in Big East action last year. Some things are different, free throw and 3 point shooting, assists and turnovers, but the stats show he's not that much different. He's shooting on 18% of possessions. That number is at 21% for the season. A guy scoring a full point and a half below his average is a part of the reason the offense has been slacking. 

#ParkerTravel. I swear it's been at least 4 games with one. 

Titus Rubles picked things up pretty nicely. He scored all his 8 points in the second half. He was 2-9 from the field, including a missed 3 #clank, but he was 4-5 from the foul line. Rubles had a team high 8 rebounds. If he had any kind of jump shot, he would be a much different player. Instead, his J has abandoned him this year. 

Shaq Thomas only played 9 minutes. He had 2 points on 1-3 shooting. I was hoping he would get some more run with Jackson injured. Oh well. 

Ge'Lawn Guyn played 6 minutes but he was damn good in those 6 minutes. He had a 3 point play, he had a great pass that should have been a layup, he blocked a shot. He played very hard. Hard to give him minutes when you don't have room in the back court though. 

Jermaine Sanders gave some productive minutes. He had that silky smooth 3 ball go down. He had 4 rebounds and an assist. Don't know how he is only a 50% foul shooter with that stroke though. 

Kelvin Gaines and David Nyarsuk played 23 minutes. They had 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 block. They also had 1 foul. Here's the thing, neither one of them attempted a shot. You are playing 5 on 4 with them in the game. Especially with Gaines. If you don't throw an alley oop, neither one of them is going to score. They allowed Adams to play off of them and help out on the other guys inside. 

I talked about them on Saturday night, but they deserve a little run now. Talib Zanna and Steven Adams were 9-12, 6-10 at the foul line for 24 points. Zanna did most of his damage the first half, Adams the second. Zanna had a game high 9 rebounds. Adams blocked 4 shots and changed numerous others. 

Tray Woodall went 4-6 from 3 for most of his 14 points. He missed 2 huge free throws late, but UC couldn't take advantage. The 3 Woodall hit with 3 minutes left to put Pitt up 6 was the dagger. 

Pitt was 18-27 at the foul line, but they made their last 6 to ice the game. Jerks. 

White outs are stupid. I hope UC doesn't do another. Do a black out. Do a red thing. Don't do another white out. They did one last year and UC lost. They did one this year and UC lost. That's reason enough to stop. Another reason is that no one in the expensive seats wears white. Any 'let's all wear the same color' thing is dumb. When the people don't know about it and don't participate, it's dumber. 

Hopefully the short, action packed week coming up gets this bad taste out of our mouths and replaces it with the sweet taste of victory. Go Bearcats.

Photos via Cincinnati.com. Thomas and Mbodj via Go Bearcats 

Cincinnati followed a loss to Providence where they looked horrible offensively with a loss to Pittsburgh where they looked horrible offensively. Cincinnati is 18-6, 6-5.  A large, large, large part of this was because of the excellent Panther defense. There is a reason that Pitt has amazing defensive numbers. They get in your shorts and make you run offense. They go hard. I really like that team. I wasn't high on them in December and thought they were a bit of a overrated bunch. Instead, they rallied hard in Big East play and look like they really belong at the top of the standings. They are good. 

The Bearcats are not playing good basketball right now. That's safe to say. They were bad against Rutgers. Bad against Seton Hall. Bad against Providence. Bad tonight. Cincinnati was 16-52 from the field. That's 30.8%. They were a putrid 4-25 from 3. Cashmere Wright continues to be in a horrible slump. He was 1-11 from 3 and 2-12 overall. Cincinnati was decent at the foul line, 16-22. The Bearcats missed a lot of shots and only rebounded 31% of their misses.

The Bearcats didn't score a field goal the last 9:21. They scored 7 points in that span. 

We know this team can't score when the guards don't score. Sean Kilpatrick had 15 points on 5-8 shooting in the first half. He was 0-7 the second half and 1-2 at the foul line. He scored 1 point. JaQuon Parker had 2 points in the second half. Cashmere Wright had 5 points total. When you put the clamps on those guys, Cincinnati is sunk. 

The good news, relatively, was that Titus Rubles stepped up in the second half. He scored 8 points on the strength of 4-5 shooting from the foul line. He was just 2-9 from the field. He had 8 rebounds to lead the team. 

One other thing Pittsburgh did was take advantage of the UC big men. In one case, the lack of them. Justin Jackson played 7 minutes before leaving the game with some kind of left leg injury. With a game so close, who knows if he plays Tuesday. The Panthers went right at Cheikh Mbodj with Steven Adams. Adams got Mbodj in foul trouble. Adams also scored 13 points on 5-6 shooting, 3-4 from the foul line. Talib Zanna had 11 points on 4-6. They dominated the second half. 

Tray Woodall deserves a shout out. He had 14 points. He hit 4-6 from 3. Pitt only made 4 of them. He hit the dagger 3 late in the game. He iced the game at the line after temporarily leaving the door open. He's good. 

It's February. There are no must win games. I think Nova on Tuesday is as close as you can get to that right now, however. That's a good team that UC needs to beat at home. Especially with what's coming up. I know all of our faces are like Mick Cronin's in the picture above, but don't give up now. Believe. Believe in the Cats. 

Box score via SI. 

PITTSBURGH(20-5)

	MIN	REB (O/D)	AST	FG-A	FT-A	3P-A	PF	ST	TO	BLK	PTS
Woodall *	35	2 (0/2)	3	4-8	2-4	4-6	1	0	2	0	14
Patterson *	31	6 (0/6)	3	3-9	3-4	0-2	2	1	1	0	9
Adams *	29	2 (1/1)	2	5-6	3-4	0-0	3	0	1	4	13
Zanna *	28	9 (3/6)	1	4-6	3-6	0-0	3	0	1	0	11
Robinson *	18	2 (0/2)	1	0-2	4-4	0-0	0	1	1	0	4
Wright	16	2 (0/2)	0	1-5	0-0	0-0	2	1	0	0	2
Zeigler	15	2 (1/1)	2	1-3	0-1	0-0	4	0	1	0	2
Moore	12	1 (0/1)	0	1-2	1-2	0-0	1	1	0	0	3
Taylor	11	3 (1/2)	1	1-3	2-2	0-0	1	0	0	0	4
Johnson	5	0 (0/0)	0	0-0	0-0	0-0	2	0	0	0	0
TOTAL	0	29 (6/23)	13	20-44	18-27	4-8	19	4	7	4	62
				45.5%	66.7%	50.0%
* Starters

CINCINNATI(18-6)

	MIN	REB (O/D)	AST	FG-A	FT-A	3P-A	PF	ST	TO	BLK	PTS
Kilpatrick *	37	4 (1/3)	1	5-15	4-6	2-9	4	1	5	0	16
Wright *	33	0 (0/0)	2	2-12	0-0	1-11	3	1	3	0	5
Parker *	27	3 (1/2)	1	2-4	3-3	0-2	3	0	1	0	7
Mbodj *	17	1 (0/1)	0	1-2	2-4	0-0	4	0	0	1	4
Jackson *	7	1 (1/0)	1	1-3	1-1	0-0	0	0	1	0	3
Rubles	24	8 (3/5)	1	2-9	4-5	0-1	3	1	0	0	8
Sanders	17	4 (1/3)	1	1-2	1-2	1-2	0	0	0	0	4
Nyarsuk	13	3 (0/3)	1	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	1	0
Gaines	10	3 (1/2)	0	0-0	0-0	0-0	1	0	0	0	0
Thomas	9	0 (0/0)	0	1-3	0-0	0-0	2	1	0	0	2
Guyn	6	1 (0/1)	0	1-2	1-1	0-0	0	0	0	1	3
TOTAL	0	28 (8/20)	8	16-52	16-22	4-25	20	4	10	3	52
				30.8%	72.7%	16.0%
* Starters