Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball 2025-26 Season Record Prediction

 The Cincinnati Bearcats basketball team fires up the 2025-26 season next week, trying to break through in the Big 12 for the first time under Wes Miller.

The 31-game slate is chock-full of big-time matchups as UC faces seven 2025 NCAA Tournament teams in its non-conference schedule and seven more in the Big 12 slate, including national runner-up Houston to open league play. 

It's a massive season for Miller, who holds an 82-59 record at Cincinnati. His teams have won 20-plus games total in seven of the last nine seasons and will likely have to hit that mark in the regular season for a realistic chance at making the NCAA Tournament.

As for the players, the Bearcats brought in a total of 12 newcomers to the roster in addition to three returners from a year ago. The only returning rotation player being Day Day Thomas, who I expect to be a major rotation piece along with Kerr Kriisa, Baba Miller, Buck Harris, Moustapha Thiam, Shon Abaev, Keyshuan Tillery, Tyler McKinley, and more.

UC may use a flurry of different starting lineups to start non-conference play after experimenting a bunch in the two exhibition games. Getting it fine-tuned ahead of Big 12 play is priority one.

"It sounds like coach speak, but it's not. I've learned a lot in my two years in the Big 12. I designed our preseason to try to set us up for success in the Big 12," Miller said this week about the preseason.

Let's get to our record predictions for both sections of the schedule.

Non-Conference Record: 11-2

Things don't get tough for Cincinnati until a home matchup against Dayton on Nov. 11, but they should win that game and at least finish with 11 wins on this slate. I have losses coming in the neutral site game against Louisville and the neutral outing against Clemson.

Both teams project as better outfits than Cincinnati this season, and there will be a ton of opposing fans at both games, especially against Clemson, which is basically a road game (played in Greenville, South Carolina, which is a 40-minute drive from Clemson).

As for the Crosstown Shootout, Cincinnati has its best chance yet to win inside the Cintas Center for the first time since 2001. Xavier is outside the top-60 on KenPom with new coach Richard Pitino and has just as much turnover to deal with as the Bearcats, albeit with lesser talent.

Big 12 Record: 9-9 (Final Record: 20-11)

I don't see Cincinnati having blistering success in the conference this season, but they should be able to mine out a .500 record or better in Big 12 play for the first time under Miller.

This point of the schedule is when the rotations should be pretty firm, everyone knows their role, and the diversity and depth from the new-look roster can start to shine against much tougher competition with a split home-road diet. I think the exit of Jizzle James will make Cincinnati's offense much more efficient in this part of the calendar. He and Day Day Thomas took far too many midrange jumpshots last season. 

James shot a paltry 40.6% on 180 non-rim two-point shots and Thomas shot 41.6% on 101 non-rim twos, all while he shot 40.3% from deep on 112 threes. Firing those no-man's-land shots into the sun from the jump will instantly help Cincinnati's offense efficiency (outside the top-75 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency each of the last two seasons).

Cincinnati will be a top-50 offensive team this season, boosting them to enough Q1/Q2 wins to go dancing for the first time under Miller.