Scouting report for Arizona men’s basketball vs. Cincinnati

G Jaden Bradley (6-3 junior)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F Anthony Dell’Orso (6-6 junior)

F Trey Townsend (6-6 senior)

C Tobe Awaka (6-8 junior)

G Jizzle James (6-3 soph.)

G Dan Skillings Jr. (6-6 junior)

F Simas Lukosius (6-8 senior)

F Dillon Mitchell (6-8 junior)

C Aziz Bandaogo (7-0 senior)

The series: Arizona is 4-0 against Cincinnati but has faced the Bearcats only once since Miles Simon hit a three-quarter-court buzzer shot to beat them 79-76 on Feb. 11, 1996, in Phoenix. In the first round of the 2022-23 Maui Invitational, Arizona beat Cincinnati 101-93.

Cincinnati overview: After losing five Big 12 games by four points or less last January, ultimately sinking their 2024 NCAA Tournament hopes, Cincinnati stumbled again to begin its second go-round in the expanded conference when the Bearcats lost 70-67 on Monday at Kansas State.

But the difference this time is the Bearcats have a stronger overall team that went 10-1 record in nonconference play. Cincinnati lost 68-60 at Villanova on Dec. 3 but beat local rivals Xavier and Dayton, while picking up road wins at Northern Kentucky and Georgia Tech.

Cincinnati does it with the nation’s fifth-most efficient offense, allowing their opponents to score just 92.4 points per 100 possessions while running a balanced offense.

The son of NFL Hall of Fame running back Edgerrin James, point guard Jizzle James not surprisingly runs the Bearcats’ offense with skillful athleticism. Shooting guard Dan Skillings, the Bearcats’ leading scorer last season while averaging 12.9 points, suffered a knee injury in Cincinnati’s opener and missed six games but has improved while playing the past five games. He had 18 points while hitting 4 of 8 3-pointers against Kansas State.

Lithuanian wing Simas Lukosius takes 62% of his shots from 3-point range and hits them at a 41.2% rate, while he’s also shooting 56.0% from two. At power forward, Texas transfer Dillon Mitchell is active and effective on both ends of the floor, with the 96th-best defensive rebounding percentage nationally (23.7). Mitchell shoots 72.2% from two and steals the ball on 4.0% of opponents’ possessions when he’s in the game.

The 2022-23 WAC Defensive Player of the Year at Utah Valley, center Aziz Bandaogo has transformed into one of the Big 12’s top rim-protectors. He blocked 7.5% of opponents’ shots when he was on the floor last season (ranking 55th in block percentage) and is swatting away 7.8% of them this season so far. He also shoots 68.2% from 2-point range.

He said it: “They play a lot of man-to-man and try to really pressure you and make it difficult for you to run your offense. They’re athletic, and they’ve got good size. They’ve got a rim protector as well as guys that can get out into passing lanes and make it tough for you to catch the basketball.

“They’re not a helter-skelter team by any means. There’s a lot of organization about what they do and how they try to attack. They’ll extend it some, but for the most part, it’s more half-court pressure.”

“They can score the basketball, they share the basketball. They have good balance. They can drive the ball to the basket, they can make shots from the outside. You have to be able to defend all five positions.

“(Jizzle James) is a physical athlete. He’s a big-time athlete like his dad. He’s very skilled. I think (Skillings is) rounding into shape. I’m sure they’re looking for that same production that they got out of him last season.

“(Lukosius) is a wing who can play multiple positions. He’s a threat because he shoots the basketball from the outside, and has the ability to put the ball down on the floor. They certainly know how to find him and he has the green light so he can let it rip.”

“(Mitchell) is a really good offensive rebounder. He’s a high flyer. They try to get him the ball. He can bust out on the dribble in transition and attack you that way. So he poses the problems. He’s capable of making some shots from the outside and he uses his athleticism to succeed.” — UA assistant coach Steve Robinson, who scouted the Bearcats

Cincinnati — Simas Lukosius

The son of a Lithuanian coach who has lived in seven countries because of his father’s career, Lukosius has developed a well-rounded game and a knack for hitting clutch shots. He’s shooting 46.9% overall, 41.3% from 3-point range and, when he draws fouls, hits 81.3% of his free throws.

Arizona — Jaden Bradley

In UA’s conference opener against TCU, the junior point guard had the sort of game the Wildcats need to thrive in the Big 12 — he had 10 points, two rebounds and six assists. But he also played 38 minutes, which won’t be easy to sustain in a conference with two potentially difficult games every week.

Simon’s shot still resonates

Because he watched the Arizona Wildcats rally to the 1997 national title as a 14-year-old in North Carolina, Cincinnati coach Wes Miller says he remembers Final Four MVP Miles Simon pretty well.

Only his memories changed a little bit Thursday after he was told at a Cincinnati press conference that Simon also hit a three-quarter court buzzer shot that beat the Bearcats in Phoenix during the 1995-96 season.

“You guys know I care about my basketball history, and certainly my Cincinnati basketball history,” Miller said. “I just remember watching that Arizona team making the run through the (1997) NCAA tournament with Mike Bibby and Miles Simon and Jason Terry and some others. As great a team as that was, it actually probably wasn’t as good of a team all year as it was a great team through that run. That’s what makes March Madness special.

“I do remember that as a kid for sure. But I didn’t know he hit a shot on Cincinnati. So now I don’t like Miles as much.

Miller actually has helped inflict a little pain in Arizona basketball history himself: He played 14 minutes off the bench for the North Carolina team that embarrassed the Wildcats at McKale Center with a 92-64 romp during the 2006-07 season.

Especially because they lost their conference season opener at Kansas State, a team they were expected to beat, Cincinnati could actually view Saturday’s game as something of a must win if the Bearcats want to win the hyper-competitive Big 12.

But that’s the sort of scenario Miller found could be applied to just about any conference game upon arriving in the Big 12 last season. Arizona’s appearance just makes for another big game.

“I think you could create a spin for all 20 league games of why it’s the most important thing in the world – and you wouldn’t be wrong all year,” Miller said. “When you’re playing in one of the elite leagues in college basketball, everybody’s good, every game matters. So the next game is going to feel that important all year long. That’s one of the neat things about competing in a league like this. They all matter.”

Over 11 years in the NFL, Edgerrin James rushed for 12,246 yards, made four Pro Bowls and went on to become inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But he did have one regret.

“I always wanted to be a basketball player,” James told Cincinnati’s WCPO. “I’m reliving it through him.”

That is, through his son, Edgerrin James Jr. Or, as he’s known at Cincinnati, Jizzle James.

Edgerrin the senior says he was called Jizzle or “E-Jizzle” as a running back and “handed it down to him so he could take it to another level.”

Jizzle says it has become his “on-court persona.”

“It means playing hard and being myself, especially having the same name as my dad,” Jizzle told WCPO. “I use that to play with an extra edge on the court.”

3: Power conference programs who played three nonconference games at true road sites this season: Cincinnati, Alabama and Marquette

9: Cincinnati’s rank in 3-point percentage defense (27.7)

13: Cincinnati’s rank in 2-point percentages defense (43.0)

69.9: Percent of Cincinnati’s scoring that returned this season, the second-most behind Houston in the Big 12.