Cincinatti visiting

Basketball
1

Preseason both teams were considered to be in the middlish of the B12.
Non-con Cincinatti was a metrics darling, a poll favorite, and got a couple of solid wins: xavier and dayton.
as an aside, BYU playing instate competition could have vastly improved its strength of record too.
Cincinatti also started out ranked in the popularity polls and stayed ranked until the conference nose-dive.
They have a bunch of motivation to get their season back on track, another one or two losses in the first half of the conference season and they will be struggling for an NIT bid instead of a comfortable seed in the big dance they were expecting.

BYU is finally starting to string some solid games together and they tend to do well with the MAC crowd behind them so not much chance that Cincinatti pulls this out.

BYU has an improving defence: thank you KY for getting Mag more time on the floor. Cin has conference worst offense…
BYU has among the nations best offenses for 2s and 3s. Cin defence was the reason they were a metrics darling non-conference…but only middling in conference.
Rebounding and in the paint generally, BYU, thanks to Foos, Keita, and now Mag and hopefully Bosko, are among the best in the nation…
Of course the paint strength comes largely because KY has his boys shooting so much from 3land. Saunders and Knell leading the charge. Demin, Catchings, and Hall need to get some mojo here
Baker keeps earning his floor time: a team of Baker and Saunders with the upside of Demin and Catchings would be competing for the conference instead of for a decent seed in the conference.
My head says BYU for a low double digit win at minimum…though my emotions truly expect them to be pushing a 20 point blowout…

2

Cinn came into the Marriot and beat BYU last year…they have the same players.

So this game boils down to BYU’s offense vs. Cinn D…
BYU Basketball Looks To Keep Momentum Against Cincinnati

I’m assuming you read this one to get the stats?
Me: Cinn has only broke 70 points once in Big 12 (they lost to TTU) so that is a big key.
Mitchell, James and Licosious are going to take the most shots…I think BYU will slow Aziz down (Aziz Bandaogo has a long history vs. BYU, he beat us when he played for Utah Valley and Cinn last year)

1 BYU has to get the offense going at home from the get go. score over 70

2 On D, BYU has got to slow Aziz down inside and keep track of James, their point

3 Cinn is a poor 3 point shooting team, one reason why they have not won big 12 games.

4 Mag for Catchings at the 4 has been good for BYU, If Catchings can have a 10 point game, I would be ecstatic. Seeing Bosko get some minutes was also good to see. He is long and just needs time on the court to get into his scoring going…I noticed that guys aren’t looking for him because he has not played enough mins.

Cinn has really struggled scoring, BYU is going to fire away from outside…if BYU can hit the long 3, this game will be a blow out (over 6 points) if not, grind out a tight win.

BYU gets 72-66 Cinn.

3

My go to for stats is

  1. Kenpom
  2. teamrankings
  3. warrennolan
  4. evanmiya
4

Watche second half of KU va red cougars
Wow
Great game
Both so athletic
I expect losses to both
Do we play Houston at home?
How’d they lose 3 games?
BYU pulling ahead of the Skyline Chili Eaters
We don’t look bad

5

Now that was some defense! Oh, the offense finally woke up. Demin and Catchings finally looked a lot better. The only negative was turnovers. 14 is too many.

6

Crawford is going to get an ear full

7

He never makes it so why not :rofl:

8

What Crawford did reminds me of when the BYU punter went rogue a few years ago did a fake punt late in a game where BYU had a huge lead. Sitake really gave it to him after he got to the sideline.

9

Truer words were never spoken!

It looks to me like the team is finally figuring out the speed and physicality of B12 play…though going 3 of 4 against the bottom of the league is admittedly not great proof.
The meat of the schedule is finally here. Can’t wait.

10

That was the first game this season where BYU took over on both sides.

1 Egor had his best game as a cougar. just got a huge jump on the NBA draft boards

2 Catchings got 9 so still ecstatic. But it was the way it did it…last 3, he alters the shot defensively and gets the reb… then boom, the 3. The coaches mobbed him on a TO. Just what the doctor needed.

3 As Tom puts it…Richie Saunders is all big 12. Shooting over 45% from 3 and defends like a Rottie.

4 Getting Mag in the starting lineup was a game changer. He always takes on their best player. He did not score much be he altered maybe 10 possessions.

5 another guy, Hall did not have numbers but his assists along with Egor’s OOPs to Keba were rim breakers

6 BYU was at home, 3s fall and I noted that Cinn has an elite D but stuggled on O so…get a lead, defend the middle and let the road team brick away. BYU’s 62% from 3, game over.

7 With one minute remaining in the first half, this game was tied at 23. Over the final 21 minutes of game play, BYU outscored Cincinnati 57-29.

In the 2nd, Cinn could not get a look closer than 10 outside the 3 and once BYU locked down on Lukosius, their only outside threat, game over…We also locked James with out 6’9 Demin and 6’7 Mag at the top. See, with guys like Demin, Mag and Saunders, you can hide Knell pretty well out there, BTW, Knell is playing great ball right now.

These guys have the look and feel of a Dance team. Get by Baylor and BYU will jump leaps and bounds

11

I thought I was going to go to the game. I was in Utah for a second funeral for my Dad and a graveside service/dedication with military honors. It was freezing cold in Fillmore but so worth it.

Went to Provo later that evening and parked, walked to the MC and asked how much 5 tickets for the game would be. Just wanted to get in, nosebleed seats would have been fine. The girl at the window says $65 a seat, behind the basket and the view wasn’t great. That was the best she could give me. Told me it was a Big 12 game so the price was more.

What has happened? Is that how much every Big 12 game is? Needless to say I wasn’t going to drop $325 for the five of us to watch the game in person. I thought I’d be able to get seats at the top for around $20. Am I missing something?

Really disappointing.

12

And that 2023 football game against Notre Dame and they were not come to Provo and instead to go to Las Vegas and we had to pay 10 or 20 times the price to go there never play against Notre Dame again!