And perhaps figuring out how to win these Big 12 games consistently can be helped by figuring out who the five best players are on this year’s team. Dan Skillings Jr. is for sure one of them. Simas Lukosius is probably number two. But what about three through five? I’ll say this much, and I’ve already said it once before: Jizzle James is one of the five best players on this Bearcats team. Everything he does when he’s on the court is a positive. He was -11 when in the game Wednesday night, but I saw him single-handedly turn a four-point deficit into a four-point lead with both his offense and his defense. He gives this team a much-needed jolt when he comes into games. Imagine the jolt he can give the Bearcats to start games. If he’s one of the five best players, then he should be starting. Wes Miller said he wasn’t in the game for the final nearly six minutes because he’s still not over the hump defensively. Maybe that was the case, but in a game you needed to win to keep your NCAA Tournament hopes alive he was one of the five best players in the game. Why was he not in for the most important six minutes of the game?
I actually liked Wes Miller’s postgame press conference after the game. I thought for the first time this season he said some genuinely positive things about his team and not in a “Whoa is us” kind of tone. After a loss as crushing as it was, he talked about how much he loves this group of players. He says their character is why they’re in every game. With the season at a low point, I thought Wes Miller was genuinely positive about this team. I think that will mean something going forward.
Even at 2-5 in home Big 12 games, even though they haven’t won consecutive games in Big 12 play and even with Quad 3 losses to West Virginia and Oklahoma State, I don’t think the Bearcats are done just yet. There’s enough talent on this team to not completely fade down the stretch. When this team has been down, they’ve gotten up. They did against Central Florida twice, Texas Tech on the road and TCU. They have what it takes to stay on the bubble and just maybe here their name called on Selection Sunday. Here we stand, with the Bearcats still alive despite a crushing loss Wednesday night. Here we stand with the month of March just over a week away, and anything can happen in March.
