Cincinnati basketball is getting back to its roots, and maybe the NCAA Tournament

CINCINNATI — There’s a line Wes Miller often uses to remind his players and enlighten recruits about what it means to play basketball at Cincinnati.

“This is a place where the fans will cheer louder for you diving on the floor for a loose ball or blocking a shot than they will for dunking the ball or hitting a 3-pointer,” says the Bearcats head coach. “That’s the kind of place you should want to play at.”

It’s been that way for a long time at Cincinnati, the type of decorated and storied program where teams of the 1960s and 1990s still cast long shadows. Where players like Oscar Robertson and Nick Van Exel and Kenyon Martin aren’t just nostalgic bits of hoops trivia, but enduring beacons of “Bearcat basketball” — of how it was and how it should be.

Miller knows this. It’s a big part of why he wanted the job in the spring of 2021, even if it meant inheriting the remnants of that decorated, storied program. Cincinnati is one of only 15 schools that can claim multiple Division I national championships in men’s basketball since the NCAA Tournament began in 1939, but those were way back in 1961 and 1962. The Bearcats have reached six Final Fours, but none since 1992 under Bob Huggins. (Though any respectable Cincinnati fan will remind you they should have — would have — made it in 2000 if Martin hadn’t gotten hurt). They reached the NCAA Tournament 23 times in 28 years between 1992 and 2019 under either Huggins or Mick Cronin, but haven’t been back since, and have only made the Sweet 16 twice since 2000. A decorated and storied program, sure, but one receding farther and farther into the past.

It’s both the challenge and expectation Miller took on in the wake of John Brannen’s abrupt dismissal, a change in direction that went awry after just two seasons. A former walk-on and 2005 national champion for the North Carolina Tar Heels under mentor Roy Williams, Miller spent 10 seasons as an up-and-coming coach at UNC Greensboro prior to Cincinnati. His first two years with the Bearcats were constructive but incremental progress, lifting a hollowed-out roster to 18 and then 23 wins, yet still mired in a broader, March Madness-missing irrelevance.

The reward? A transition to the Big 12. Big picture, the move was an aspirational godsend for the university and its athletics department; from the hoops standpoint, it felt like one more potential detour in an ongoing rebuild.

Instead, Miller and the Bearcats have elevated alongside their competition. Despite being just 4-5 in conference play, Cincinnati is currently 15-7 overall, ranked 31st at KenPom on Thursday and remains in the thick of a crowded Big 12 race. And the standings only tell part of the story. The Bearcats have logged quality wins over BYU, TCU and Texas Tech, and all five of their league losses have been by five points or fewer, including road trips to Baylor and Kansas, all while playing with a brand of physicality and defensive toughness (and nagging offensive constraint) that resonates with a hungry fan base.

At the midway point of the conference schedule, it’s good enough to have the team on the bubble and back in the NCAA Tournament conversation once again, battling the sport’s best conference for a chance to return to its biggest stage. It’s no accident that these Bearcats look a lot like the ones you remember, either.

“What has traditionally been successful here aligns with exactly how I want our teams to play,” Miller told The Athletic. “That might not always factor into what we’re preparing for on a day-to-day basis, but in a broader sense, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to be here. A place that values the same things I value.”

It’s an interesting dynamic. From a purely on-court perspective, there’s no reason for Cincinnati’s success to be predicated on rediscovering this erstwhile style of play. There’s nothing binding Miller or this team to the past. New coach, new players, new conference. College athletics in general exist in a vastly different reality than even five years ago. Yet it’s tough to deny that certain identities seem to fit better at certain places. Think Wisconsin football or North Carolina basketball. That often stems from a long-tenured coach or continued coaching lineage, something Miller understands as a former Tar Heel. But particularly at the college level, it can be easy to overlook the fact that these programs are vessels for larger, more entrenched universities, fan bases and communities. Maybe Bearcats basketball can succeed without a gritty, defensive-minded approach circa the 1990s. It also makes sense why that same persona appears to be taking root again under the right circumstances.

“I do think when you’re somewhere with alignment — with the leadership, the community, the institution — I think there’s a certain cohesiveness that becomes a factor to success,” said Miller. “Those values align here. I feel that more strongly now than when I got the job.”

Wes Miller had no previous ties to Cincinnati but is embracing the culture of the program’s past. (Aaron Doster / USA Today)

It took Miller a couple years to build up to this. Only three players on the roster have been with the program for more than two seasons, including seven newcomers added this offseason. In Year 1, Cincinnati ranked 75th in KenPom’s defensive efficiency metric. Last year it was 57th. This season, the Bearcats are 17th, their best since winning 31 games and earning a No. 2 seed under Cronin in 2017-18. They’re one of the best rebounding teams in the country on either end of the floor, ranking top 15 in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage. Cincinnati is currently plus-41 in rebounding margin in conference play alone and has only been outrebounded twice all season.

Some of that improvement is personnel-related. John Newman III, a sixth-year, 6-foot-5 wing in his third season, missed all of last year with a knee injury. The former Clemson transfer is a lock-down defender on the wing, consistently pestering the opposing team’s best perimeter player in addition to providing 10 points, five boards and vocal leadership. Day Day Thomas, a first-year junior-college transfer point guard from Kilgore College, has been a complementary nuisance as an on-ball defender, averaging 1.6 steals per game. Aziz Bandaogo, a 7-foot transfer from Utah Valley and reigning WAC Defensive Player of the Year, wasn’t eligible to start the season as a two-time transfer and has battled injuries. But when he’s on the floor, he gives Cincinnati a strong rebounder (8.4 per game) and elite rim presence (1.4 blocks).

There’s a cultural element as well, Miller steadily compiling a roster built in his preferred image in terms of talent and mental makeup. That remains a work in progress too, whether due to injuries — Kentucky transfer C.J. Fredrick, the team’s best outside shooter, hasn’t played since Dec. 22 — ineligibilities, or a lack of cohesion and consistency. The team played two quality opponents in nonconference (at Xavier and Dayton on a neutral court) and lost to both, and has yet to string together back-to-back victories in league play. But on the floor, the process is beginning to deliver results.

“For the most part, I’m really proud of the way this group has handled the tough moments,” said Miller. “When you’re trying to build a program with a very specific identity, you need to take a step every year in that way, and this group has taken those steps. The combination of character and ability is where it needs to be at Cincinnati, even if the combination of experience, wisdom and time together isn’t quite there yet.”

Opponents feel it: Big 12 teams are 0-9 in games after facing the Bearcats, something Tom Crean alluded to while commentating on Cincinnati’s road win over Texas Tech on Saturday for ESPN. The former Marquette head coach recognizes a similar trend from his days facing Huggins’ Bearcats in the old Conference USA. The fans at Fifth Third Arena do too.

“We got 16 tough guys. It’s infectious,” said Newman. “Our fans are incredible, it’s always electric. But I love it here because you get the honesty. If we’re not playing well, they pretty much let us know. It goes both ways, which I appreciate.”

You put so much mentally and physically preparing and then playing Bob’s Cincinnati teams that it was hard to just move on. Those games took heavy physical and emotional tolls. In old C-USA you were measured by those games and the Championship ran through Cincinnati all the time. https://t.co/mTE9C0h3Ba

— Tom Crean (@TomCrean) February 5, 2024

Still, this return to a baseline level of competitiveness and relevance is far from an arrival. Cincinnati has a long way to go in both the big picture and coming weeks if it expects to elevate above that “last four in/last four out” line for NCAA Tournament projections. Going dancing next month will require a newfound consistency, most notably on offense. Sophomore Dan Skillings Jr., the leading scorer at 12.1 points per game, had one point in a home loss to Oklahoma. Big man Viktor Lakhin, the second-leading scorer (11.7 pts) and best post option, went scoreless in a late collapse at West Virginia. Butler transfer Simas Lukošius, the team’s best shot creator who hit the game-winner at Texas Tech, went 1 of 9 from the floor in the loss at Kansas. Between Thomas and freshman Jizzle James, the point guard position is inexperienced and untested, which has been a hindrance at times. The team shoots a dreadful 68.5 percent from the line.

All of it leaves a number hurdles left to clear, relentless schedule included. That continues with back-to-back home games against No. 5 Houston on Saturday and No. 14 Iowa State on Tuesday. With nine regular-season matchups remaining, at least splitting the next two feels imperative to staying on that bubble. Toppling Houston this weekend would finally provide a conference winning streak and massive boost to the tournament resume, but the Bearcats know as well as any how tall an order that is, losing their last nine meetings against the former AAC foe and KenPom’s top-rated defense. Cincinnati hasn’t been here before in terms of enduring the Big 12 meat grinder, but it’s well-versed in the Cougars’ particular brand of torment.

“The mentality to rebound and defend and give relentless effort every possession,” said Miller. “People nationally talk about Houston in that way, and I want us to get to the point where we’re doing that in our own Cincinnati way.”

As far as what this next stretch means to their postseason hopes, Miller knows better than to fret over the bracketology of it all. He believes he has a tournament-caliber squad, especially if it can pair that glass-cleaning toughness with some offensive stability. But he also experienced the 2018-19 season at UNC Greensboro, during which the Spartans won 28 games before losing in the conference tournament title game to a top-25 Wofford crew that went 18-0 in the league. If not for Washington upsetting Oregon in the Pac-12 championship to steal a tournament bid, UNCG would have made the tournament as an at-large. It ended up as the committee’s last team left out on Selection Sunday.

“You don’t give yourself a real opportunity to get there by worrying about something that’s more than a month away,” said Miller.

At the same time, Miller knows his history. He fully understands what a March Madness bid would mean to the program — to the institution, the city, the community — and how intensely the pressure will mount if this season falls short.

“That’s where Cincinnati is supposed to be,” he said. “There was a standard set long before I got here. That’s the expectation.”

And if these Bearcats do make it back there, it should look rather familiar.

(Top photo of Day Day Thomas: Justin Rex / AP)