Georgetown 62, Cincinnati 55: Bearcats Offense Fails Again In Frustrating Loss

32% from the field, 17% from three, 57% from the stripe. Those three stats pretty much sum up my frustrations this evening. But I’ll throw up a couple more numbers that sent them over the top: 6 – 7 and 0.

In the final three minutes 6 of Cincinnati’s 7 shots were from three. And the Bearcats made none of them.

Some fans are blaming Sean Kilpatrick and Cashmere Wright for hoisting up all of those shots but I’m in the camp that the buck stops at Mick Cronin. His offense is just too vanilla that defenses quickly pick up on it, adjust accordingly, and ultimately stuff it. Obviously his defense is outstanding but that can only take this team so far and it’s been proven in the losses (and some of the wins) that the playsets he’s drawn up just aren’t going to cut it against top competition.

And it was that stale offense that showed up in the closing minutes of tonight’s game. UC’s shooters didn’t have the guidance from the bench to attack a team that was mired in foul trouble. Georgetown was dealing with three players with 4 fouls, one player with 3, and another who had already fouled out. With the Hoyas reeling the Bearcats didn’t force the issue by driving the lane. They continued to hoist up contested three’s with Mick doing nothing to correct their mistake or draw up a play to attack the basket.

This instance is just a microcosm of what has been a problem with this offense all season. If Cincinnati expects to finish the Big East regular season strong and make a run in both the conference and NCAA tournaments, Mick Cronin needs to look inward to fix this offense.