CINCINNATI -- Defense powered the Bearcats to a 66-59 win over rival Dayton on Friday night. The neutral site treated Cincinnati much better this time around as they avenged last year's 82-68 loss to the Flyers and moved to 61-32 overall in the series.
Dan Skillings Jr. (17 points , six rebounds) came out looking for glory from the jump and it channeled through all of Cincinnati's defensive effort. Dayton shot just 39.2% from the floor and never found a consistent answer.
Add in enough three-point shooting from Simas Lukošius (13 points, six rebounds) & Co. and you get a nice win over a Top-25 opponent (UC's first in a ranked vs. ranked matchup since beating Houston in the 2019 AAC Championship game).
Something had to give between two of the 15 most efficient units on either end of the floor this season, and UC's defense owned the night over Dayton's offense.
UD couldn't get any of its patented ball movement into a rhythm against the best rotational man-to-man coverage I've seen a Wes Miller team deploy. The Flyers came into the game with KenPom's 14th-best offense by adjusted efficiency. They never adjusted enough to the Bearcats.
Cincinnati swarmed them in the half-court from the opening tip, allowing just five made field goals in the first half and 20 overall. Skillings had a ton to do with the half-court mayhem. His length forced multiple steals and disrupted Dayton's possessions, while Cincinnati owned the glass with its size advantage.
He and Dillon Mitchell forced nine combined stops on Friday.
Probably the most impressive aspect of these past two performances has been the little shotmaking to support this effort.It's human nature -- defense is a lot easier and more fun to play when shots are falling, but they haven't over the past 80 on-court minutes, and it hasn't disrupted the defensive effort much at all.
That end will drive Cincinnati to its ceiling this season, especially if they can play even more half-court defense amidst better shooting stretches.
The Bearcats are a deep team, but when Skillings is rolling he elevates to best-player status, and Friday was a perfect example. He came out hungry with six shot attempts in the first few minutes to pair with hounding defense that shell-shocked Dayton in the early moments.
Fast starts are crucial against offenses of this caliber and Skillings wasted no time showing he's back to full impact from his knee injury. The jump shot is still an issue (0-4 from deep), but he and the whole team overcame it with relentless energy on the boards and easier looks in transition.
Skillings ended up a plus-eight in the game, all while taking great care of the ball in his minutes. At one point in the second half, Skillings missed an open three but got his own rebound and the And-1 bucket. A perfect encapsulation of his game right now.
Cincinnati is a different team when Skillings plays with his hair on fire like he did Friday night.
Cincinnati's stars had to will the offense to life at multiple points on Friday night. Skillings, Lukošius, and Jizzle James (14 points, three assists) were the knights in shining armor for an otherwise ice-cold lineup.
The latter two hit seven of Cincinnati's eight threes in the game, shots UC needed quite a bit given how stagnant everything else got in the halfcourt. Things went especially cold down the last stretch of the game, but UC had built enough of a cushion to weather the Flyers' late storm.
The playmaking from those three was impressive, but it looked far too hard for a second consecutive game and tough against all three top-100 KenPom opponents in conference play. UC didn't eclipse 70 points against Xavier, Dayton, or Villanova. That defense is good enough to consistently win games in the 60s, but to compete for the Big 12 title, Cincinnati has to start finding more half-court consistency against good opponents.
Their next one is one of the few light matchups left on the 2024-25 schedule. UC faces a quick turnaround in a home matchup against Grambling on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET.
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