WVU Basketball Hosts Red-Hot Cincinnati in Rematch

It was only 17 days ago when WVU basketball beat Cincinnati on its home court, and yet the Bearcat team West Virginia will face in Morgantown this evening looks completely different.

After losing to the Mountaineers on Feb. 2, Cincinnati (15-10, 5-9 Big 12) has rattled off three straight wins and nearly beat No. 10 Iowa State in Ames on Saturday.

“They’re playing very well,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said Tuesday. “They’ve kind of found themselves, it’s felt like, over these last four games.”

When WVU (15-10, 6-8) took down Cincinnati 63-50 earlier this month, the Bearcats shot 31.5% from the floor and star guard Jizzle James did not record a single point. Since then, Cincinnati has averaged 83 points per game with James supplying 22.3 points per night.

“They’re playing with a lot of confidence,” DeVries said. “I think most of it’s James, he’s been playing at a high level. That’s a big difference for them and then everybody else gets freed up a little bit.”

The turnaround was immediate for the Bearcats, as they recovered from the loss to West Virginia to beat UCF 93-83 just three days later. Cincinnati then returned home and beat both BYU and Utah.

The Bearcats have recently looked much more like the team that started the year 10-1 than the team that went 2-8 to start conference play.

“Their talent is really good,” DeVries said. “They’re a very good team and we certainly know that and understand that.”

DeVries said the Mountaineers aren’t foolish enough to think they’ll be able to play the same kind of game and beat Cincinnati a second time. The odds the Bearcats shoot as poorly as they did and WVU keeps James off the board again is very small.

“From the way that game played out, it’s awesome,” DeVries said, “but going into game two, I don’t know that we can count on that again so we’ve got to make sure we make the proper adjustments we need to make defensively.”

It’s also not a given that WVU will shoot 49% from the floor and 50% from three again. Joe Yesufu and Javon Small hit a few low-percentage shots in the first meeting that DeVries said cannot be counted on to happen again.

The former Big East foes will tip off inside the Coliseum tonight at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.

For a related story, Darian DeVries believes WVU basketball is an NCAA Tournament team.