Can there be such a thing as a sloppy 16 point win? If the answer is yes than UC just had it. This was far from the best performance of the year from UC. The offense at times reverted to the form of the last couple of years. Some one on one isolation and terrible shots that. Yancy Gates had a huge advantage inside against the smaller, weaker Miami front line, but he only got 9 shots on the night. I don't know why a point is not made to get Gates 15 shots a game.
Miami started out the game with some hot shooting.Through the first 10 minutes they were shooting well north of 50 per cent from the floor. Accordingly Miami built a 7 point around the midpoint of the half. As with most teams UC has faced to date, Miami simply didn't have the depth to sustain that kind of effort for the full 40 minutes. Miami gave it a solid 10 minutes of high caliber play and then Dion Dixon took over the game offensively.
The cumulative effect of the full court pressure the Bearcats play with really wears teams down, especially a team like Miami. 4 Redhawks played 31 minutes or more, Julian Mavunga played every second of the game. Those guys played so much and had to work so hard to get the ball across the halfway line that by the second half their offense boiled down to swinging the ball and taking bad shots. Miami's quality is something of an unknown quantity to me. They have played a pretty rough non conference schedule and have taken their lumps, but the MAC is wide open and this could turn into a decent win for UC come March.
- Easily Dion Dixon's best game as a Bearcat, 23 points on 16 shots, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and no turnovers.
- Ibrahima Thomas quietly came back to life with a strong double double going from 11 and 13.
- Yancy Gates with and 8-8 showing, I would have liked a bit more given the match ups, but Dion Dixon was so good that he rightfully got most of the looks.
- Cashmere Wright simultaneously had a good and bad game. From the perspective of just scoring he was fine 12 points on 8 shots, and he had some good moments on defense with a couple of blocks and 3 steals. But he was playing out of control on the offensive end hence the three turnovers and he struggled coping with the speed of Quinten Rollins in the half court.
- I was all set to complain about the diminishing playing time for Sean Kilpatrick in recent games. But if Dion Dixon is playing like he did tonight it is hard to justify Kilpatrick playing extensive minutes.
- Team shooting was sort of bad again 38 per cent from the field and 25 per cent from three.
- 1:1 assist to turnover ratios aren't something to strive for but thats what UC had last night 7 dimes and 7 turnovers.
Not the greatest of games from UC as a team, but they keep racking up the wins so it is hard argue with the results.