After the turnover fest that was a 68-59 loss to No. 10 Iowa State, most have been down on the Bearcats. Before Iowa State, they didn’t win the rebounding battle against No. 5 Houston in a loss at home. Losing two games in a row at home against two Top 10 teams now have the Bearcats 4-7 overall with seven games left in regular season is there a path for the ‘Cats to dance in March?
Bearcats remaining games
Feb. 17 @UCF, Feb.21 Oklahoma State, Feb. 24 @TCU, Feb. 27 @Houston
Mar. 2 Kansas State, Mar. 5 @Oklahoma, Mar. 9 West Virginia (Senior Night)
Mar. 13-16 Big 12 Tournament
If they can go 5-2 in their last seven games they will be .500 in Big 12 play which would give them a strong chance to go dancing. Honestly if they can go 4-3 in their last seven games they would still have a shot because of how good this conference is. The best option would be going 9-9 in conference, but 8-10 would still give them a strong shot, we’ve seen it before just search West Virginia last year. Anything less than 8-10 they will have to make a deep run in the Big 12 Tournament to have any hope, but hopefully the Bearcats will be able to take care of a schedule that would have them play only two Top 25 ranked teams currently. In this conference that can change weekly, they have already played nine games against teams that were ranked in the Top 25 at their time of playing them. Yes, that is a lot of top tier games of their 11 in conference.
They haven’t lost a game in conference by more than 10 points, moral victories, but they will have to clean up a few things if they want to go dancing. Valuing the ball will be key they can’t have games with more than 18 turnovers on a bad day the rest of the season, they also will have to win the rebounding battle or at least tie to finish the season as well, hopefully Viktor Lakhin can break out of his slump as the last five games he’s not been his best, CJ Fredrick has to stay healthy to provide more consistent outside shooting, the combo of Dan Skillings and Simas Lukošius have to keep growing into their roles as scorers and last but not least Jizzle James has to keep getting increased minutes to speed the growth process up.
#BearcatNation the season isn’t over the Bearcats aren’t in the AAC anymore, while you can be mad at the last two losses, even losing to Texas, Baylor and Oklahoma (at home), the quality of this conference keeps hopes alive. The question is can this group take advantage of the remaining opportunities?
