Three Man Weave: UC Controls Pace To Beat Tulane 88-77

Even without Rob Phinisee and John Newman III—Cincinnati's backcourt is still powering victories when necessary. Adams-Woods and Nolley were the engines to start AAC play on Thursday.

The improvement and settling from Adams-Woods haven't always popped this season, but those attributes rarely do. He's having his best season in Clifton, and Thursday was arguably his magnum opus. The guard posted a ridiculous 28-efficiency score and created 21.6 points on just 15.9% usage.

Adam-Woods made the most of all his touches.

"Mika Adams-Woods, I thought he was terrific," Miller said. "A lot of guys were terrific, but I thought he was terrific tonight. They didn't pay quite as much attention to him especially earlier in the game and I thought he did a really nice job of attacking off the bounce and making the right decision with the basketball. And I think everybody looked down and go 7-for-8, 18 points, but I thought his decision-making and aggressiveness helped our team."

All of UC's best two-man to five-man lineups this season have Adams-Woods in the mix.

Nolley was a little less efficient and had a team-high four turnovers, but his shot fake earned three trips to the free throw line, and he was a quick bucket from outside all night (5-of-9 3FGs).

He and David DeJulius (13 points, 5 assists) are the best shooters on the team, but Nolley picked up the weight against Tulane as DeJulius shot just 5-of-13 and 1-of-5 from deep.

"He does what good offensive players do," Miller said about Nolley. "They have a weapon, and they have a way to play off of it. He's such an elite shooter. There's sometimes he shot fakes and I want him to shoot it because every time he shoots it, I think it's going in."

Every postgame press conference this season has been hard to get two minutes into without Miller bringing up the rebounding war. Cincinnati dominated the glass in the first half (22-11) to help guide the win.

Lakhin was a rebounding force like I suspected he'd be against the 314th-ranked rebounding team in the country. Kevin Cross (team-high 22 points, team-high 8 rebounds) is the only Green Wave rotation player over 6-foot-6. He won his fair share of box outs, but UC's length was overwhelming.

Ody Oguama (4 points, 6 rebounds), and Dan Skillings (7 points, 6 rebounds) created a trio with Lakhin that swallowed 25 total rebounds. It didn't last the whole game though, as Miller came away displeased with offensive glass results.

“Six offensive rebounds. We missed 30 shots, and we only get six offensive rebounds," Miller said. "You guys know I'm not going to like that. And that's something we were talking about in every timeout it felt like. We had two of the six offensive rebounds in the first two minutes of the game."

The lagging offensive rebounds hurt a lot less when you shoot 50.8% from the field, which UC pulled off for the sixth time this season.

Tulane leading-scorer Jalen Cook (15 points, 6-of-14 FGs, 4 TOs) is a reigning first-team All-AAC talent, but he got stifled after halftime. DeJulius put him through hell all game, and he wore down.

The Bearcats' best defensive guard kept Antoine Davis from a huge game last week, using the same quick man-to-man defense on Thursday. Cincinnati's rotations as a team are noticeably sounder over the past month. It showed against a top-35 pace team in Tulane.

Cook posted 13 points in the first half—but completely lost control of his fouling after the break, committing five in the final 20 minutes. Tulane really missed him in the closing minutes.

"I thought him fouling out had a huge outcome on their possessions down the stretch," Miller said about Cook. "There were a couple offensive fouls that David drew beating him to the position. Those are humongous plays for our team."

DeJulius gets all the headlines for his offense, but his defense has been the most glaring improvement from last season. His 2.5 steals per game and 101.6 defensive rating are his best marks since playing at Michigan as a freshman in 2018-19.

Having a strong point-of-attack guard to defend the best perimeter weapons is vital in college basketball.

DDJ is filling that role nicely in 2022 as Cincinnati keeps building momentum toward NCAA Tournament viability.