To say things aren’t going great for Cincinnati basketball would be an understatement. After the Bearcats 59-54 loss to West Virginia at home on Thursday night, they have now fallen to 11-12 overall and 3-7 in Big 12 play.
Head coach Wes Miller has made headlines recently but not for good reasons. After a loss to the Mountaineers in early January, Miller was angry with fans and media doubting him saying, “Everybody Can Quit on Us”.
Now after the second loss to West Virginia this season, in game where Cincy blew a 14-point lead, Miller was caught on camera after the game apologizing to fans saying “You guys deserve to be frustrated. I understand the responsibilities of this job. It ain’t okay.”
Coming from a guy who was basically throwing shade at the fans and media, I find it funny that he is now apologizing to them. It’s one thing if this were just a one bad season type of deal, but it’s far from that.
Wes Miller’s Cincinnati Tenure
Since Wes Miller took over back in 2021, the Bearcats have yet to make an NCAA tournament appearance. In fact, they really haven’t even been all that close to even making one.
This is his fifth season at Cincinnati, and he has finished above .500 in conference play just one time back in 2022-2023 when the Bearcats were still in the AAC. Other than that, Cincinnati has finished four or more games below .500 in conference action.
When I look at the rest of the schedule for Cincinnati, it doesn’t get any easier. They have eight games left and five of them are against UCF, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and BYU.
The Bearcats will be lucky to finish with 12 losses in conference play, and it very well could be more with the way they are playing right now. If Wes Miller is fired before March 31st, the university would owe him $9.9 million. After March, the buyout drops to $4.69 million. Miller may last one more year, as his buyout drops to $1 million after next season. But regardless, The Wes Miller experiment in Cincinnati has been nothing short of a complete disaster and Thursday night’s game pretty much sums up his time there.
