Four Factor Review: Ole Miss 66 Cincinnati 54

-- From now on, any coach that doesn't start the game in a zone defense against the Bearcats could be reasonably fired for dereliction of duty. This Bearcats team approached the zone the same way that every Bearcats team has since that fateful night in Eden has. By aimlessly passing the ball around the perimeter and jacking ever more unlikely bombs from deep. The Bearcats went 2 of 19 from three last night, their third game in six of shooting under 20 percent from deep. You have to go all the way back to March of 2012 to find a less proficient display from deep. Here is the thing though, there is no good reason for this team to struggle this badly against the zone. The Bearcats have not one but three bigs who they can station at the free throw line who are capable of catching, reading the defense and passing out to shooters who find space. UC has shown flashes of tremendous ball movement this year, but on the night when they needed it the most it was nowhere to be found. UC couldn't even manage to get clean entry passes to the high post so Gary Clark, and Octavius Ellis were essentially shut out of the game after the first 10 minutes because UC's guard's looked absolutely helpless to get them the ball.

-- Want to know how bad UC's guard play was last night? Deshaun Morman shot 1 for 7 from the field, 0 for 2 from deep and was, by far, the best guard on the floor for the Bearcats. How is that possible you say? Its possible because he alone got to the line at a high rate (10 trips on just 7 field goal attempts) and he, alone, took care of the basketball (zero turnovers in a team high 33 possessions) not to mention the two assists. Mick Cronin would probably prefer to let Morman be the 8th or 9th guy on this team. With the Bearcats abysmal wing play he might not be able to do that. Morman makes things happen, on both ends of the floor. Not all of them are good, but there are more good outcomes than bad ones.

-- I am not worried about the defense after this game, not yet. It was a weird game where Ole Miss started making some crazy shots early. That got their confidence going and they really never looked back. It has to be said that a lot of those shots are looks that you can live with defensively. I am talking here mostly of the slop that Stefan Moody threw up time and again. Most of Moody's 17 shots were not good shots, but he managed to make 9 of them, which gives it the whiff of efficiency, which it most certainly wasn't.