The Bearcats are in their first season with head coach Wes Miller at the realm of the Bearcats basketball program and we are going to talk about the first half of the season as conference play arrives this week.
The Bearcats overall sit at 10-3 as they were set to kick off conference play this week. However, that was before the Houston Cougars had to call of the AAC opener due to Covid Protocols within the Houston Program. Lets take a look back at those first 13 games for the Bearcats.
The Bearcats came into the season with first year head coach Wes Miller leading the program, like Miller, the Bearcats had a lot of new faces around the program as many people know, after last season the Bearcats saw six players enter the transfer portal leaving 1 member from the 2020 recruiting class on the active roster as that was Viktor Lakhin. Two of those players in the transfer portal, Mike Saunders and Mason Madsen decided to return to Cincinnati to play for Coach Miller as they bought in to what Miller was looking to establish and build here at Cincinnati. Nobody knew what to expect at the beginning of the season besides the Bearcats were led by one of the best young coaches in all of college basketball and you could sense the program he wanted to be from day one in Clifton. Nobody knew what to expect from freshman Viktor Lakhin coming into the season as he missed all of 2020-2021 with an injury. Lahkin has been a big suprise for the Bearcats this season however, he has been a shining light for the Bearcats early in the season, averaging 6.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, while shooting 57.2% from the field, Lakhin saw his best game versus Bryant back on December 5th where he scored 13 points, while grabbing 11 boards for his first career double-double.
The Bearcats started the season 4-0, as the Bearcats welcomed in Evansville, Georgia, Presbyterian, Alabama A&M to Fifth Third Arena before the Bearcats would go on the road to Kansas City to take on Illinois and Arkansas in the Hall Of Fame Classic. The Bearcats would improve to 5-0 with a dominant win over No. 14 ranked Illinois in the first game of the season for superstar Kofi Cockburn who was serving a three game suspension to start the season, where they dominated Illinois 71-51 on a neutral site which really brought some attention to the Bearcats program as they knew it would be a battle versus one of the top teams in the country, but did anyone thing the Bearcats would just flat out dominate that game, I think a lot of people would say they weren’t expecting a 20 point victory over the 14th ranked team in the country. The Bearcats were led by sophomore Mike Saunders, Jr., who really changed the pace of this game with his speed and ability to push the ball up the court. Saunders finished with 20 points, on 5-of-6 from the field, and 9-of-10 from the foul line.
