With the bigs not having their best seasons, it seems the best move for success is playing small ball for the majority of the game with Tari Eason at center, Jeremiah Davenport playing power forward, Keith Williams at small forward, David DeJulius at shooting guard and Mike Saunders, Jr. at point guard. They can mix in Zach Harvey and Mika Adams-Woods to play uptempo, Gabe Madsen could steal some minutes as well, but I think that is the way to go to play uptempo, create more driving lanes and easier shots. I wouldn’t go completely away from Vogt and Ivanauskas, but if they don’t have it going and the small core isn’t in foul trouble I’d go small.
A lot of people dismissed Mamoudou Diarra opting out of the season due to covid reasons because his stats didn’t jump off the page, but he was an athletic asset that had potential. Eason currently leads the team in rebounding at 5.6 and he’s only averaging 18.9 minutes a game. He has started four games, but like a ton of Bearcats he is having foul trouble. If Eason can stay out of foul trouble, he will be the key to be slightly big during the small ball lineup and it will allow them to be more athletic, especially during the press. The young man has been a huge bright spot and because of his skill small ball can have long term success. This team can’t afford to have their big men finish the game with only one or two rebounds.
The Bearcats will have to lean towards small ball if they want to right the ship this season. If they don’t it could be their first sub .500 season since 2007-08.
