Season Review: Quadri Moore

Three seasons in to his college career and Quadri Moore remains the player Cincinnati fans most love to hate. Jump on Twitter next time Moore checks into a game to see exactly how much venom Bearcats fans spew his way — it’s not pretty. Here are just a few examples from this past season.

On one hand, the criticism is totally justified. Moore was a three-star recruit from Linden, New Jersey that was expected to provide the Bearcats with a reliable inside-outside threat. Cincinnati fans thought they were getting what Kyle Washington would eventually become. Instead, Moore has been inconsistent offensively, with a shot selection of someone possessing more confidence than his game should allow. Every time he misses a three-pointer, a Cincinnati-area Best Buy sells a new television.

On the other hand, he is a very capable role player who works hard on defense and does his best to get shooters open. He has seemingly accepted his role, and understands his place in the system. He’s also never truly been given a chance in in-game situations. He’s consistently averaged around eight minutes per game in his career — hardly enough to allow a player to get into an offensive rhythm.

His best game of the 2016-17 season was undoubtedly his performance when the Bearcats visited Tulane. Moore legitimately won that game for Cincinnati, scoring 14 points in 20 minutes of action. The Bearcats were off to a slow start early, and both Jacob Evans and Kyle Washington went to the bench with two fouls each. Moore came in and hit back-to-back three-pointers, scoring 11 points in the first half and propelling the Bearcats to a 38-22 advantage at the half.

The unfortunate problem for Moore is that whenever he’s on the floor, he’s replacing someone significantly better than himself. Fans are frustrated with Moore relative to that player he’s replacing. I suspect that if Cincinnati didn’t have such a talented frontcourt, and that if Moore was given more time to establish a rhythm, he’d have enjoyed a very different college career.

Moore received offers from Seton Hall, Miami (FL) and Wake Forest before signing with Cincinnati. Few players would benefit more from transferring than Moore. A portion of his minutes will go to Nysier Brooks and Tre Scott next year. They will be expected to take over for Gary Clark and Kyle Washington in 2018-19, and will need plenty of minutes to help prepare them for those roles. Moore could become a solid starter for schools in mid-major conferences. NKU, for instance, could certainly find 25-30 minutes per night for someone with Moore’s skill set. That said, it’s pure speculation on my part, very unlikely to happen and hasn’t been discussed at all. Instead, he’s most likely to finish out a rather pedestrian career at Cincinnati averaging even fewer minutes and less production off the bench next year than he did this year.