Your Tuesday Bearcat Bulletin

—Spread check: Men’s Basketball vs. Evansville on 11/9: Cincinnati by 9.5

—Spread check: Football at South Florida on 11/12: Cincinnati by 23.5

—Tonight, fans are hoping the fire will indeed rise:

—On a related note, it’s good to see this coming out of Israel:

He’s averaging 16.2 points per game on the season, second-best on the team.

—And on Wednesday, the UC Women’s Basketball gets underway with a 7 pm tilt at home against Alabama A&M. While there’s no preview or spread check (boo), here’s the brief history of these teams going head-to-head.

—Bearcat Swimming split a dual meet at home against Miami (FL) over the weekend.

—After dropping a five-setter to UCF at home against UCF on Friday, Bearcat Volleyball had no problem taking down South Florida on Sunday, 3-1.

—While some are saying the Bengals are having an “identity crisis” and dropping the proverbial ball, I posit there are many games to go in the season and this loss will turn out to be a good thing as this team moves forward with all these new pieces.

—During the 2022 season, FC Cincinnati matched its last-in-the-league MLS record for wins. Winning only four out of twenty-three matches in 2020 just didn’t feel right for a franchise in its inaugural season with so much hype, but this year’s squad outdid that record - they won four matches out of thirty-four contests. Great stadium, great crowds - just need to score goals. Simple, right?

—UC Clermont Volleyball has high hopes of besting their 2019 third-place finish in Virginia Beach:

—Welp, we find ourselves again waiting to see how the College Football Playoff committee rankings look come tonight around 9 pm. As disappointed as we were to find our Bearcats ranked #6 in last week’s rankings, I can honestly say I was more disappointed with how that Tulsa game went down last Saturday. Did we need style points? Did we just need to continue winning? Did we need everyone around us to just lose? Your answer is as good as mine, but I was hoping an all-of-the-above scenario would play out at Nippert and later in the evening.

It didn’t all come to fruition, save Michigan State’s loss to oft-tricky Purdue. But, most teams around us did have to find ways to win games like we did. Ours was just more drama. That drama, mind you – tough defensive stand in a key part of the game from a scrappy team who gave its all – can also have a major upside. With a target on our backs, we will be dealing with the best effort opposing teams have to give. Arguably, a conference opponent handing UC a loss means more to them than us. It’s the same feeling as when the Cincinnati Bengals took the Baltimore Ravens out of playoff contention a few years ago. Most of us were cheering for that outcome as did most of Navy/Tulane/Tulsa fans during those games.

And so in a way we have to pick our poison. On one hand, we can try to flat out murder our opponents these last few weeks. But given how the committee feels about the other teams in our league aka not ranking them, those blowouts could further boost the narrative that the conference boasts some really bad teams and the cream of the crop may simply not be that great. On the other hand, the Bearcats can perform with grit and determination when our opponents show up with their utmost grit and determination and let the chips fall where they may. No win should be easy, but it also shouldn’t feel odd when we do win but maybe not the “right” way. Winning for the sake of winning holds true pride, but competing to win in style-point fashion just feels…weird and fake. But, I digress.

—And finally, how easily can robots open doors? Apparently, not that easy but UC is figuring it out.