It has been a tale of two programs because of the historical success of the football season, basketball hasn’t gotten its normal attention. While the football team is 9-0 on the season, the basketball team is sitting at 2-5 in its first seven games. This team hasn’t started this bad in a long time, the last time they started remotely this bad was 2007-08 season when after 12 games they were 5-7, but their seven game record was 5-2.
In John Brannen’s second season he has had to deal with covid, which has made practicing a lot different than a normal year and trying to get a lot of new pieces up to speed in his system. In the first seven games the Bearcats have only lost one game by double digits and that was on the road against Georgia.
Coming into the season most expected big men Chris Vogt and Rapolas Ivanauskas to be key pieces on what the Bearcats would do this season, but so far both have been disappointments. Vogt was tabbed to be second team All-AAC and Ivanauskas was Patriot League second team last season. So far this season Vogt and Ivanauskas haven’t been very productive, especially on the defensive end, they both aren’t rebounding at a high clip and aren’t moving their feet fast enough to be effective against the pick n’ roll. On the offensive end they haven’t been great either, both have been turning the ball over at a high clip and not playing with consistent force. They started the season playing along side each other, but it seems if the Bearcats are going to have success they will have to play center and rotate with each other. Vogt is averaging 6.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.0 blocks and 1.9 turnovers a game while shooting 65.6% from the field. Ivanauskas is averaging 6.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.1 turnovers a game while shooting 47.4% from the field.
