BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Louisville @ Cincinnati

January 31, 2007


One of the best rivalries in the history of Conference USA reunites tonight in the Big East as Louisville travels to meet Cincinnati. Louisville has turned things around lately, winning five of their last six contests, highlighted by their come from behind stunner over Syracuse on Saturday night. Cincinnati have found things tough going in the Big East, winning just once in conference play in Mick Cronin's first season as UC's coach.

Here are the links to the pregame stories and previews found on the internet this AM:

Cronin to Face Mentor Pitino (Cincinnati Post)
Shooting Isn't Everything (Louisville Courier-Journal)
UC, Louisville Friendly Rivals (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Cronin's Seen Pitino Before (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Cronin is Another Pitino Protege (Lexington Herald-Leader)



Click below for our brief preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

READ REST OF PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW



Much of the focus of tonight's match-up between Louisville and Cincinnati has been on the coaches as the pupil (Mick Cronin) meets the teacher (Rick Pitino). New Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin served as a Pitino assistant at Louisville where he helped build the Cardinal final four team of a couple years ago.

However, maybe the focus should be on the Cardinals play of late. Louisville entered Big East play with a lot of questions and after a 16-pt loss at Notre Dame to open conference play, many were ready to write off Louisville once again. However, five wins in their last six games have brough Louisville back into consideration for the NCAA Tournament talk and into contention in the Big East. With road games at Pittsburgh, Marquette and Villanova and a home date with Georgetown, tougher games are ahead, making this game at Cincinnati very critical.

Cincinnati narrowly missed a road upset at Syracuse and followed that up with an exciting OT win over West Virginia. Things looked to be getting better, but Pittsburgh and Georgetown ended any momentum the Bearcats hoped to build. However, Mick Cronin was happy with the Bearcats improvements even in those losses. The Fifth Third Arena should be charged up for this rivalry,but do the Cincinnati players know this is a rivalry? Afterall, only Cedric McGowan, Ronald Allen and Conor Carwin have ever faced Louisville and they only played them last year. However, the oddsmakers have certainly placed a line on this game that sayys RIVALRY as Louisville is a 3.5-pt road favorite over the Big East's 16th placed team.

Louisville finally looks to be healthy with Brandon Jenkins, Juan Palacios and David Padgett playing minutes that were expected of them before the season started. They will still be without sophomore Andre McGee and who knows if freshman Derrick Caracter will ever suit up for the Cardinals again, but this looks to be the most cohesive Louisville has been all year. Their freshmen backcourt duo of Edgar Sosa and Jerry Smith have been solid and sophomore wing Terrence Williams continues to lead the team in scoring, rebounding, assists and turnovers and is 2nd on the team in blocks. He remains the key, because when he hits shots, they are a tough team to beat!

Both teams play a similar style, but Cincinnati doesn't quite have the depth to compete for the 40 minutes, but look for them to play zone and hope the atmosphere can rattle Louisville into some missed shots. Cincinnati will try and use their athleticism inside, but their inconsistent shooting from deep will have to be on to keep pace.

In this rivalry game, I am going with the better team, but I think the home team keeps it closer than many would expect.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Louisville 66 Cincinnati 63

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Cincinnati @ Georgetown

January 27, 2007



Last weekend the Cincinnati Bearcats finally broke through and got their first Big East win under Mick Cronin when they defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers in overtime. The win streak did not last long as they were shot out of their own building on Wednesday when Pittsburgh turned back the Bearcats 67-51.

Georgetown has won three consecutive games coming off their win over DePaul from Wednesday. The Hoyas continue to shine on the defensive side of the ball, holding five of their six Big East opponents 58 points or under and did the same to eight of their previous nine out of conference opponents.

In their win over DePaul, the Georgetown frontline led the way with Jeff Green scoring 19 pts and Roy Hibbert and Dajuan Summers coming up with key contributions. This is the strength of the Hoyas and they will look to go right at the weakness of the Bearcats. Cincinnati spent so much time worrying about the mis-match that Pitt's Aaron Gray enjoyed over the Bearcat frontline that they let the Pitt shooters free and paid for it. Look for a similar result with Jonathan Wallace finding room outside as Cincinnati tries to slow the Hoya frontcourt.

Cincinnati will look to pressure Georgetown and speed them up. The Hoyas are susceptible to full court pressure, but how long can Cincinnati keep it up with essentially a rotation of six basketball players and one football player? They might cause the Hoyas some discomfort with their ahtletic abaility, but over the course of 40 minutes, the Hoyas will grind them down and make them pay.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Georgetown 71 Cincinnati 54

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati

January 24, 2007

The Pittsburgh Panthers look to rebound from their first conference loss tonight when they travel down the Ohio River to meet the Cincinnati Bearcats. Cincinnait, under first-year head coach Mick Cronin, picked up their first conference win of the season on Saturday when they rallied to beat West Virginia in overtime as Marvin Gentry shredded the WVU defense for a career-high 32 points. The Panthers made a big comeback of their own, but were unable to hold off Marquette in overtime as Dominic James made two free throws with 0:00.9 left in the clock to win ot for Marquette.

Here are the pregame stories and previews found on the internet this morning:


Pitt's Loaded With Weapons (Cincinnati Post)
UC Keeping Enemies Close (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Panthers Will See a Completely Revamped Cincinnati Line-up (Post-Gazette)
Panthers face New-look Cincy (Tribune Review)
Pitt vs UC: The Match-up (Tribune Review)

Click below for our brief preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

READ REST OF PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW


The Panthers are currently 9-pt road favorites tonight when they travel to Cincinnati's Fifth Third Arena to meet the Bearcats. A week ago at this time we were beginning to consider the Bearcats down and out for the season under Mick Cronin as they were preparing to play Syracuse coming off four consecutive losses, which included a 15-pt loss at South Florida, a 54-42 home loss to Rutgers, a 33-pt loss at Memphis and a 13-pt loss to Ohio at US Bank Arena. Then, the Syracuse game looked like much of the same as the Orange raced out to a 30-9 lead in the 1st half. Something, however, changed in these Bearcats as they decided they were not going to roll over and die. UC stormed back and had a 3-pt lead with 35 seconds left, but four Eric Devendorf free throws provided Syracuse with a 77-76 win. On Saturday, the script was similar as West Virginia raced to a 27-10 lead out of the gates, but the Bearcats came all the way back and forced the game into overtime where they dominated WVU and pulled out a 96-83 victory for their first Big East win of the season.

Pittsburgh had raced out of the Big East gates winning their first five league contests to take control of the conference race. However, their cruise to a league championship hit some choppy waters on Sunday as the lethargic Panthers booted the ball around for much of their game against Marquette and trailed by as much as 11 in the 2nd half and by 9 with under four minutes to go on their home court. Pitt did not quite and tied the game in the final seconds to force overtime and twice had a 3-pt advantage in OT, but Marquette went 10-10 from the line in OT and James' winning free throws led Marquette to a 77-74 win.

In their last two games, Cincinnati has found some room beyond the arc against the zone defenses of Syracuse and West Virginia. Against SU the Bearcats were 13-32 from 3-pt range with Marcus Sikes lighting up the Dome with an 8-12 performance from the arc for all 24 of his points. Sikes lines up as the center in the undersized Bearcats line-up and therefore, Pitt's Aaron Gray will have to follow him out to the arc. This pulls away Pitt's best rebounder and should give the athletic forward duo of Cedric McGowan and John Williamson some room to work on the glass, a match-up the Bearcats will look to exploit. Against West Virginia it was Marvin Gentry leading the way as the Bearcats went 9-20 from the arc, including Gentry's 5 of 7 as part of his 32 points. Earlier in the season, Cincinnati was turning the ball over at alarming rates, however they turned the ball over just 13 times total in their last two games. The Bearcats are not the best shooting bunch around and they will not be seeing a zone tonight to allow them to get comfortable, but they are going to have to spread the floor to get Gray away from the hoop and use their size-disadvantage to their advantage by attacking the basket and hustling for rebounds.

On offense, Pitt will likely not lose sight of Aaron Gray like they did for a LONG stretch on Sunday. Look for Pitt to make a concentrated effort to get Gray the ball and run the offense through him at times to free their 3-pt shooters. Ronald Ramon leads the league in 3-pt shooting at nearly 48% and Antonio Graves is not far behind at 46% as Pitt only trails Notre Dame in the league in 3-pt shooting percentage as a team. Cincinnati will likely play some zone and press the Panthers to try to get them out of their preferred tempo and Levance Fields will be the key to Pitt's fortunes. Fields must keep Pitt on track, even with changing defenses and an attempt to make the game end to end by the Bearcats. He needs to make sure Pitt runs their offense and keeps the big man involved.

Avoiding a slow start is a must for Cincinnati. If Pitt gets out early and forces the Bearcats to press on their shots, you wont have a lot of luck catching pItt as they will shorten the game, tighten up the defense and hit the boards. The Pomeroy computer also has this as a 9-pt Pitt win, same as the spread, it does look to be a pretty accurate assessment of the game. I think Cincinnati will scrap with the Panthers, but Pitt pulls away with their depth and gets a big night from someone off the bench when they need it.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Pittsburgh 70 Cincinnati 59

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: West Virginia @ Cincinnati

January 20, 2007


After suffering demoralizing losses to Ohio, Memphis, Rutgers and South Florida, it looked like the Cincinnati Bearcats were going to pull off the upset at Syracuse when everyone was counting them down and out for the season. Coming all the way back from a 19-point 1st half defecit, the Bearcats had a three point lead with under 35 seconds to go, but four free throws by Eric Devendorf and a missed front end of a one and one and a miss at the buzzer left Mick Cronin and the Cincinnati Bearcats still in search of their first Big East win.

West Virginia on the other hand returned home this past week and despite a dry spell from the 3-pt range, they had built up a big enough lead against South Florida to cruise to an 11-point win. The Mountaineers snapped their two-game losing streak, but they have yet to win away from Morgantown in the conference.

Click below for our brief preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

READ REST OF PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW





West Virginia is definitely in the NCAA Tournament mix and a big item missing from their resume is the appearance of quality road wins. While beating a down Cincinnati squad would still not register as a quality win on the road, it would serve as good experience for the young Mountaineers to gain some confidence away from their cozy confines of the Coliseum. When you talk about WVU, you have to talk about their 1-3-1 zone and their ability to make three-pointers. The 1-3-1 zone remains a constant, but the 3-pt shot has been on and off much of the season. In their home win over USF, they missed their last 12 shots from beyond the arc.

Cincinnati will no doubt have some issues with the 1-3-1 zone. The Bearcats are not the best ballhandling team in the conference, but they should be athletic enough to chase the WVU shooters on the perimeter. Their big man, Marcus Sikes, pulled a 'Pittsnogle' on Wednesday night, nearly leading the Bearcats to a win over Syracuse, hitting eight of 12 shots from 3-pt range to account for all 24 of his points in their 1-pt loss. They key will be how PG Jamual Warren and guard Deonta Vaughn handle the 1-3-1 zone and if they can attack the soft spots and make the right decisions. I think John Williamson is a player that can find some scoring space if the right decisions are made.

West Virginia will rely on Frank Young from the perimeter and a flawless game from Darris Nichols running the point. If Alex Ruoff can strike from the perimeter and Joe Alexander can cause problems for the smaller UC guards with his traps in the 1-3-1 zone, WVU will definitely win this game. However, the scrappy Bearcats might have a little shot in the arm with their tough loss at the Dome and will bring a big effort. Too much skill on the WVU side and that wins a close game.

NBE Blogger Prediction: West Virginia 64 Cincinnati 60

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Cincinnati @ Syracuse

January 17, 2007



Things are going badly for Cincinnati and now they have to endure a road trip to the Carrier Dome to play the surging Orange in a Big East conference game. Cincinnati is still in search of their first conference win under Mick Cronin and must face the man with the most Big East wins, Jom Boeheim.


Here are the pregame stories and rpeviews from the internet:

Orange's Harris Still Quite Green (Cincinnati Post)
UC Trying to Turn Up It's Offense (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Bearcats Starting from Scratch (Post-Standard)
Bearcats Test Syracuse (AP article)


Click below for our brief preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

READ REST OF PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW


You know your at rock-bottom when you are coming off a home loss to Rutgers and a 15-pt loss at South Florida. In the midst of their first four-game losing streak in 19 years, things do not look to get any brighter with Syracuse (tonight), West Virginia (Saturday) and Pittsburgh and Georgetown next week. The Bearcats are struggling to score in Big East games, averaging just 52 pts in their three conference games. Playing against the Syracuse 2-3 zone will pose another new challenge for the Bearcats.

At Syracuse, things are looking up. After a conference opening loss at the hands of Pittsburgh, the Orange have won three in a row, including impressive double-digit wins over Marquette and Villanova. Demetris Nichols looked like the player that was leading the Big East in scoring in the pre-conference season, pouring in 23 pts against the Wildcats and Terrence Roberts had his best game of the season with 17 pts and 14 rebounds.

Neither team has much depth, but Syracuse is clearly the better team and they have the size to make it very difficult for the Bearcats to score and the zone will force many long shots from a team that does not shoot it very well. Coming off their bottom, I expect Cincinnati to put forth a strong effort, but winning at the Dome at this point in their rebuilding stage could be the longest of longshots for the 16-pt underdogs.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Syracuse 75 Cincinnati 60

BIG EAST RECRUITING UPDATE: CINCINNATI

January 9, 2007



COMMITMENT ALERT: Jason Henry (F) Harmony Christian (OH).

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports in the article, Is a Losing Season in the Cards? that 6'7 Harmony F Jason Henry, a native of West Memphis, AR, has verbally committed to play for Cincinnati next season.

Projected 2007-2008 Roster:

Seniors: John Williamson (F), Marvin Gentry (G), Jamaul Warren (G), Tim Crowell (PG), Marcus Sikes (BF), Adam Hrycaniuk (PF/C)
Juniors: Mike Williams (PF)
Sophomores: Deonta Vaughn (PG)
Freshmen: Larry Davis (SG), Rashad Bishop (G/F), Kenny Belton (F/C), Jason Henry (F)
Early 2008 Commitment: Darnell Wilks (F)
Early 2009 Commitment: Danny McElroy (F)



Read More...Click 'Read More' Below!!!



An athletic 6'6 forward, Jason Henry has been around the block, but the well-traveled basketball talent looks to have settled in on a new home and a college destination. Last we knew, Henry was at Light of the World School in Decatur, GA and now we read in the Enquirer that he is at Harmony Christian School in Cincinnati, OH. Since arriving in Ohio, it looks like Mick Cronin and the Cincinnati Bearcats turned up the recruiting heat and he liked what he saw and made the commitment. Louisville had also been seen on the recruiting trail tracking his pregress.


A class of Larry Davis, Rashad Bishop, Kenny Belton and Henry is a solid group that will matriculate into the Bearcat program next season and join eligible transfers Mike Williams and Adam Hrycaniuk to give the UC program a much needed lift in depth and talent. Mick Dronin has a big job ahead of him in the ultra-competitve Big East, but he is certain to be out there working hard to get things done.




A great resource on UC recruiting can be found at Bearcat News.