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Scouting Cincinnati Home



21-6 (8-6) RPI: 40 SOS: 95

3-6 vs. top 50
Best win: vs. Louisville
Worst loss: vs. WV

5-4 on the road
BE road wins: DePaul, St. John’s, Providence

Kenpom: 26th  Offense: 63 Defense: 14
Previous Opponent Kenpom profile most similar to: Utah State Kenpom 18th  Offense 43 Defense 15.

Cincinnati is still sort of a mystery even this late in the season. How good is this team? It’s still pretty hard to tell. Like Georgetown all their loses are against the top 50 of the RPI in fact RPI wise their worst loss is @ #24 Villanova. On the other hand they’ve only managed to win 3 top 50 games 2 at home Louisville and Xavier and @St. john’s although it should be noted on campus not at MSG. This St. John’s win is their only quality road win and it took a massive choke job by the red storm for them to emerge with a 2pt victory. They have lost every other tough road game: Nova, Cuse, ND, Pitt. OOC they only played 2 road games both within the state of Ohio. They haven’t beaten a ranked team on the road in their last 20 attempts.


That being said Cinci is a very good defensive team. They are very good at getting steals and forcing turnovers. They have active hands and play a high pressure man to man defense often trapping out of it. They are also a very good offensive rebounding team. Boxing out and hitting

 

the glass will be paramount.

They are not a good shooting team from anywhere on the floor(159th in 2pt% 195th in 3pt%), least of all the FT line(66%).  They do have a few guys who hit well from 3: Kilpatrick 41-100 41%, Wright 29-74 39%, Davis 28-76 37%, Bishop 31-89 35%, Dixon 34-100 34%. They are very good at not turning the ball over and they have a deep rotation. They are very balanced their 5 leading minute getters average between 11-6 pts per game.

The majority of their Offensive rebounds come form the center position and they get a higher % of their offensive rebounds from this position than the D-1 average. The other position they out rebound on average is the SG position. This is exactly true of  Georgetown as well except we’re even more reliant on our center for offensive rebounds.  They’re more relient on their center for defensive rebounds than we are. Both teams get the highest % of their points from the perimeter positions SF SG PG.

 

Looking at their losses in each loss they’ve been held under 100 for their efficiency. They’ve only won 1 game in big east play where their efficiency was under 100 the aforementioned choke job by st. johns. Their losses also correspond to their poorest shooting nights in the BE. Their losses also involved poor defense. Their losses all had defensive efficiencies of over 100 except for a loss to st. johns which was 97.3. There were 3 occasions where they were over 100 for defensive efficiency and still won but those were against south floirda, depaul, and providence. All their losses have been to the good teams of the big east especially ones with good offenses. Besides their st. John’s and lousiville wins their other 6 BE wins are against the bottom feeders.

Despite decent big men in gates and Thomas the real people to watch are on the wing: Wright, Dixon, bishop, and Kilpatrick.

I think the most important matchup will be wright vs. wright. Bishop the teams best defender will be on Freeman at 6’6” I think his length will bother freeman and we’ll need chris to step up again. It’s hard to do match ups since a lot of cinci’s best players have been coming off the bench.

The hoyas need to get after it on defense and rebound they do those two things and they will get the win at home. Expect a game in the 60s.


Stay Casual, my friends.

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