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This season the Bearcats are allowing an efficiency of 90.7, as stated above that is good for 7th nationally, but the Bearcats have allowed five of the last 6 opponents to score at a much higher clip.
•@ Temple 115.2
•@ Louisville 101.5
•vs USF 84.9
•vs UConn 93.5
•@ SMU 120.6
•vs Houston 114.8

The SMU game can sort of be explained away. Moody Coliseum has become a ridiculously tough environment to play in this season. They have the personnel that gives this Bearcats team fits with big burly interior forces like Markus Kennedy surrounded by long distance marksmen on the perimeter like Nic Moore and guys who can capitalize on collapsing defenses to get to the bucket like Nick Russell. In theory that is a great group to capitalize on the Bearcats weaknesses, by pounding the ball inside, waiting for the Bearcats to over-help and collapse the defense leading to rim runs, lay ups and uncontested three pointers. If enough effort is made that terrible performance can be rationalized away as an outlier.

One last possibility is that opposing coaching staff's and teams have gotten a handle on what they Bearcats are doing. There were several times in today's game against Houston where the Cougars absorbed the pressure and held the ball in situations where other opponents would have coughed it up knowing that they have a numbers advantage if they can move the ball quickly to beat the defensive rotation. SMU killed the Bearcats doing just that, and Houston got most of their points in the paint following the same blueprint.

Stallion wrote:Pitino is growing a beard until they lose.