December 11, 2025 • 12 mins
Chad Brendel of Bearcat Journal on the state of the Bearcats after the loss to Xavier and who will and who will not play in the Liberty Bowl.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tweak.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The Ravens fly into Cincinnati for a battle with our Bengals.
Will sach Taylor's Orange and Black bust Baltimore in the
beak and whip up a win. Find out when you
get the call live from Dan Hord and Dave Lamp.
The game kicks off at one pm, with coverage starting
at nine am Sunday. Stream for free on the new
and improved iHeart Radio app or ESPN fifteen thirty, the
(00:24):
official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, we have to take the rare step of moving
a guest from last hour to this out. Unfortunately for us,
Chad Bredel is very accommodating. I'm awager this is ESPN
fifteen thirty. Hopefully you're having a wonderful Thursday. Chad joins
this on Thursdays to talk you see football and basketball.
The Bearcats basketball team men's basketball team is coming off
(00:53):
the skyline Chile Crosstown shootout loss, getting set ahead to
Atlanta for a game against Georgia on Saturday. Meet and
while Scott Saderfield's team uh preparing for the Bowl, the
Liberty Bowl against Navy on January the second. Get coverage
of all that and more at Bearcat journal dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi, Chad, i'm o. How's it going. Well?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
From the perspective of what you talk about? Not good?
Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah? I got you. I got you. It's a little
a little delayed there for a second. Now things aren't
great right now? Well, what's the what's the one one
gift I use all the time? Not great, Bob. That's
that's the status of things right now. It is.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It is so from a pure basketball perspective, like I
know that the moment the shootout ended, folks advance the
conversation to what's going to happen with Wes and and
I understand that I do. That makes total sense. But
from a basketball perspective, they they do have a high
major game on Saturday, another one a week from Sunday,
(01:58):
and then the entire Big twelve season. How does this
get fixed? What can a coach do with the personnel?
They have to somehow get the season back on track.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Number one, They've got to figure out the execution issue
on offense. It's just bad, like the they're turning it
over too much, they're not shooting the three ball. Well,
they're bad at the free throw line, like there's not
any metric that you can look at that gives you
(02:30):
confidence in the way that they're playing offense right now.
And if they can get that fixed, the defense is
good enough. Contrary to the frustration with Tarzan treating them
like Jane for thirty points, like there is hope if
(02:52):
they can figure things out offensively. It's just not been
a strength of west Miller's in his coaching tenure. So
I don't have a lot of faith in it. But
you know, you've got an opportunity right now. Georgia and
Clemson are twenty four and twenty five and Ken toom
so the opportunity is there to get this thing back
(03:14):
on track. If you go into conference play and you've
got to win over Dayton, who's solid, and you've got
wins over Clemson and Georgia, you've at least got something
to work with. If they go ozh and two, it's
gonna be a long twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Now what is the offense supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
With this group? I'm not sure, Like that's the hard part. Yeah,
you know, with the group that they had last year,
most of those guys have been there two three years.
Like you understood the basics of like what they were
trying to do. Now it feel like pass around the perimeter, Uh,
(04:04):
try to get downhill, usually unsuccessfully, and then shoot a
late shot clock three. And that's just not that's not
good offense. That's you know, there was there was a
little bit in the Tarleton State game where the ball
kind of popped and it looked like, you know, how
(04:25):
you want offense to look, And there was a little
bit in that second half of the Xavier game where
it did. But it's not happening over forty minutes. It's
happening in five and ten minute stretches, and against teams
like Georgia and Clemson, five and ten minute stretches aren't
going to get the job done. So you're not seeing
(04:46):
the defense move side to side. You're not seeing really
any like scramble where you can tell like the defense
is a pass behind, which is where you want things
to be. It just doesn't feel fluid. I know, you know,
you've got a whole new team. But that's that's my
biggest problem though, is yeah, you've got a whole new team,
(05:07):
but if you look around the country, these groups that
are new have had kind of a steady upward trend.
And I don't feel like we've had a steady upward
trend with this offense. I feel like it's actually like
you could make the argument though, the best this team
has looked was in Exhibition number one. Yeah, and it's
(05:30):
been kind of flat to a decline ever since. Then.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Well, and and folks aren't going to like this. Richard
Patino doesn't have an overly talented team. I've watched them
get better. I mean, I can tell you what it's
supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, they have some guys who might not be
great at finishing at the rim, maybe some guys who
has struggled to get their shots off. Like but but
I that's a new group. That's a new group that
is coalescing. And not every group coalesces at the same right,
But like that, to me, that's what was so striking
about Friday Night is over here there is a team
that has severe talent limitations, but I'm seeing it come together.
(06:09):
I'm seeing I'm seeing collective improvement and a bunch of
individuals that are coming together. And that over here, I
watch a team where I ask, what is the suppose?
What it's good? What is it supposed to look like
you in this day and age. I just I don't
think you can. You can play the card all that often. Well,
the group is all new that just in this day
(06:31):
and age, that's not gonna work. And it's really not
gonna work when you're getting beaten by your arch rival
that has figured out a way to make it work,
at least to a degree, with a whole new team.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But here's the bigger concern though, coming into that game,
the way that they had figured out to make it work.
It's not how they won the shootout, right, yes, correct,
that kept them off the three point line. Like, you know,
they had gotten back into to being successful by making thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
(07:01):
well twice they made sixteen threes and Sincnati took that away,
and they still had a counter, They still had an answer.
And you know, if you look at it, Cincinnati shot
way better from three than Xavier did, since that he
only turned it over nine times. Xavier shot terribly from
the free throw line, Like, but then you give them,
(07:25):
you allow them to shoot sixty seven percent from two,
and since that, he's supposed to have one of the
better two point defenses in the country and They took
it right at your strength and beat you and you
didn't have an answer, and that is wildly concerning. And
the other part mo and this has been a thing
(07:46):
for unfortunately, it's been a thing for five years. They
got the lead by one and then crumbled instead of
built our way back, built our way back, built our
way back. And even if it just becomes like a
heavyweight fight of two teams standing in the middle of
the ring swinging at each other, that's not what happened.
(08:09):
They immediately give up a wide open three to let
Xavier go back up two, and from there they're back
on their heels and you've got to be able to finish.
And you know, maybe they play right with Georgia or Clemson,
but from what I've seen, based on the Louisville game,
based on you know, they got back to one on
(08:29):
Eastern Michigan and gave up an eight zero run and
still they're down nine. And what I've seen against Xavier,
I don't have a lot of faith that this group
can grind out that final three minutes of a close
game to get a win, because they haven't given me
confidence in their ability to do that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
When you have been asked about this being a tournament
or bust year for Wes Miller, your response has been,
I need to see what it looks like. So, you know,
I go back to last year. They had one non
league loss before a conference play, didn't come close to
snow in the tournament, already have free one of them's
bad at home, they play two high majors in what
are effectively road games, and so you know, God knows.
(09:07):
I hope they go to Atlanta and win and change
the conversation. But I'm I'm thinking, okay, those are quite
possibly losses in Big twelve play. This does not right
now look like a team that's capable of winning nine
out of eighteen games. And so then I think, okay,
eleven losses, twelve losses, and I start to go, you know,
for for a team, what where a lot of us were,
like the only the only baseline, the only barometer is
(09:30):
make the NCAA tournament. We're talking about seventeen losses something
like that, like well, that that is the right right,
Like that's that's yeah, I mean that that there's the
what does it look like? That's sixteen seventeen, eighteen losses?
Then I think we know the outcome, right.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It looks really really bad, I mean from and it's
just so hard to fathom with how competitive they we're
against Louisville, to go from that to where we are now,
Like it's hard to get your brain around that. Things
have kind of just skidded to a complete halt in
(10:16):
the momentum of you know what, is a critical season
for Wes Miller and if he doesn't get this thing
turned around, like you've already in a lot of ways
lost the fan base. John Cunningham has given him a
lot of rope, right, like, Okay, we reset the clock
essentially going into the Big twelve, like we're going to
(10:38):
give you a chance to get this thing course corrected.
And last year like that was supposed to be the
year and they fell short. And it just doesn't feel
like there's any momentum moving forward in the program right now,
and that's not a good sign for year five of
(11:00):
the West Miller era.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
They do they do, I got like ninety seconds here.
How many how many players who make the backbone of
Scott Sadderfield's team will be on the field when they
play Navy in the Liberty Bowl.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Probably not many. I don't think I would be. At
this point, we haven't heard anything from Brendan Sowersby that
leads me to believe like if he was coming back,
that would be front and center, or at least a
decision that's still being made, which tells me if a
decision is still being made, I wouldn't count on him
(11:41):
for January second. Per se Christian Harrison's already in the portal.
I would assume Dante Corleone announcing his intentions for the
draft is a subtle way of saying, I've been banged
up all year. I'm probably not gonna want to get
chopped blocked for you know, sixty plays on January second.
(12:07):
It doesn't feel great, and I think, you know, the
line has reflected that Cincinnati was a favorite. It has
swung all the way to Navy and feels like probably
will continue to do. So I'm gonna go to Memphis,
but really, I'm just I love Guss's Fried Chicken, so
I'm probably just going for that. And Rendezvus in the
(12:29):
press box. Rendevou in the press box, right, No, that
was that was the last time we were at the Liberty Bowl.
Rendezvous in the press box.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, rendevou in the press box.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, I will.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I will have gusses, I will have rendezvous and probably
a few libations. We'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Thank you as all the same mouth, same, see you there.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Chad Brendel Bearcat journal dot Com on Twitter at Chad Brendel.
We had to move him because I don't know how
to read a clock. But we're right on time right now.
Robert Wintroub on the Bengals Next
Tweak.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The Ravens fly into Cincinnati for a battle with our Bengals.
Will sach Taylor's Orange and Black bust Baltimore in the
beak and whip up a win. Find out when you
get the call live from Dan Hord and Dave Lamp.
The game kicks off at one pm, with coverage starting
at nine am Sunday. Stream for free on the new
and improved iHeart Radio app or ESPN fifteen thirty, the
(00:24):
official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, we have to take the rare step of moving
a guest from last hour to this out. Unfortunately for us,
Chad Bredel is very accommodating. I'm awager this is ESPN
fifteen thirty. Hopefully you're having a wonderful Thursday. Chad joins
this on Thursdays to talk you see football and basketball.
The Bearcats basketball team men's basketball team is coming off
(00:53):
the skyline Chile Crosstown shootout loss, getting set ahead to
Atlanta for a game against Georgia on Saturday. Meet and
while Scott Saderfield's team uh preparing for the Bowl, the
Liberty Bowl against Navy on January the second. Get coverage
of all that and more at Bearcat journal dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Hi, Chad, i'm o. How's it going. Well?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
From the perspective of what you talk about? Not good?
Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah? I got you. I got you. It's a little
a little delayed there for a second. Now things aren't
great right now? Well, what's the what's the one one
gift I use all the time? Not great, Bob. That's
that's the status of things right now. It is.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It is so from a pure basketball perspective, like I
know that the moment the shootout ended, folks advance the
conversation to what's going to happen with Wes and and
I understand that I do. That makes total sense. But
from a basketball perspective, they they do have a high
major game on Saturday, another one a week from Sunday,
(01:58):
and then the entire Big twelve season. How does this
get fixed? What can a coach do with the personnel?
They have to somehow get the season back on track.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Number one, They've got to figure out the execution issue
on offense. It's just bad, like the they're turning it
over too much, they're not shooting the three ball. Well,
they're bad at the free throw line, like there's not
any metric that you can look at that gives you
(02:30):
confidence in the way that they're playing offense right now.
And if they can get that fixed, the defense is
good enough. Contrary to the frustration with Tarzan treating them
like Jane for thirty points, like there is hope if
(02:52):
they can figure things out offensively. It's just not been
a strength of west Miller's in his coaching tenure. So
I don't have a lot of faith in it. But
you know, you've got an opportunity right now. Georgia and
Clemson are twenty four and twenty five and Ken toom
so the opportunity is there to get this thing back
(03:14):
on track. If you go into conference play and you've
got to win over Dayton, who's solid, and you've got
wins over Clemson and Georgia, you've at least got something
to work with. If they go ozh and two, it's
gonna be a long twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Now what is the offense supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
With this group? I'm not sure, Like that's the hard part. Yeah,
you know, with the group that they had last year,
most of those guys have been there two three years.
Like you understood the basics of like what they were
trying to do. Now it feel like pass around the perimeter, Uh,
(04:04):
try to get downhill, usually unsuccessfully, and then shoot a
late shot clock three. And that's just not that's not
good offense. That's you know, there was there was a
little bit in the Tarleton State game where the ball
kind of popped and it looked like, you know, how
(04:25):
you want offense to look, And there was a little
bit in that second half of the Xavier game where
it did. But it's not happening over forty minutes. It's
happening in five and ten minute stretches, and against teams
like Georgia and Clemson, five and ten minute stretches aren't
going to get the job done. So you're not seeing
(04:46):
the defense move side to side. You're not seeing really
any like scramble where you can tell like the defense
is a pass behind, which is where you want things
to be. It just doesn't feel fluid. I know, you know,
you've got a whole new team. But that's that's my
biggest problem though, is yeah, you've got a whole new team,
(05:07):
but if you look around the country, these groups that
are new have had kind of a steady upward trend.
And I don't feel like we've had a steady upward
trend with this offense. I feel like it's actually like
you could make the argument though, the best this team
has looked was in Exhibition number one. Yeah, and it's
(05:30):
been kind of flat to a decline ever since. Then.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Well, and and folks aren't going to like this. Richard
Patino doesn't have an overly talented team. I've watched them
get better. I mean, I can tell you what it's
supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, they have some guys who might not be
great at finishing at the rim, maybe some guys who
has struggled to get their shots off. Like but but
I that's a new group. That's a new group that
is coalescing. And not every group coalesces at the same right,
But like that, to me, that's what was so striking
about Friday Night is over here there is a team
that has severe talent limitations, but I'm seeing it come together.
(06:09):
I'm seeing I'm seeing collective improvement and a bunch of
individuals that are coming together. And that over here, I
watch a team where I ask, what is the suppose?
What it's good? What is it supposed to look like
you in this day and age. I just I don't
think you can. You can play the card all that often. Well,
the group is all new that just in this day
(06:31):
and age, that's not gonna work. And it's really not
gonna work when you're getting beaten by your arch rival
that has figured out a way to make it work,
at least to a degree, with a whole new team.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But here's the bigger concern though, coming into that game,
the way that they had figured out to make it work.
It's not how they won the shootout, right, yes, correct,
that kept them off the three point line. Like, you know,
they had gotten back into to being successful by making thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
(07:01):
well twice they made sixteen threes and Sincnati took that away,
and they still had a counter, They still had an answer.
And you know, if you look at it, Cincinnati shot
way better from three than Xavier did, since that he
only turned it over nine times. Xavier shot terribly from
the free throw line, Like, but then you give them,
(07:25):
you allow them to shoot sixty seven percent from two,
and since that, he's supposed to have one of the
better two point defenses in the country and They took
it right at your strength and beat you and you
didn't have an answer, and that is wildly concerning. And
the other part mo and this has been a thing
(07:46):
for unfortunately, it's been a thing for five years. They
got the lead by one and then crumbled instead of
built our way back, built our way back, built our
way back. And even if it just becomes like a
heavyweight fight of two teams standing in the middle of
the ring swinging at each other, that's not what happened.
(08:09):
They immediately give up a wide open three to let
Xavier go back up two, and from there they're back
on their heels and you've got to be able to finish.
And you know, maybe they play right with Georgia or Clemson,
but from what I've seen, based on the Louisville game,
based on you know, they got back to one on
(08:29):
Eastern Michigan and gave up an eight zero run and
still they're down nine. And what I've seen against Xavier,
I don't have a lot of faith that this group
can grind out that final three minutes of a close
game to get a win, because they haven't given me
confidence in their ability to do that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
When you have been asked about this being a tournament
or bust year for Wes Miller, your response has been,
I need to see what it looks like. So, you know,
I go back to last year. They had one non
league loss before a conference play, didn't come close to
snow in the tournament, already have free one of them's
bad at home, they play two high majors in what
are effectively road games, and so you know, God knows.
(09:07):
I hope they go to Atlanta and win and change
the conversation. But I'm I'm thinking, okay, those are quite
possibly losses in Big twelve play. This does not right
now look like a team that's capable of winning nine
out of eighteen games. And so then I think, okay,
eleven losses, twelve losses, and I start to go, you know,
for for a team, what where a lot of us were,
like the only the only baseline, the only barometer is
(09:30):
make the NCAA tournament. We're talking about seventeen losses something
like that, like well, that that is the right right,
Like that's that's yeah, I mean that that there's the
what does it look like? That's sixteen seventeen, eighteen losses?
Then I think we know the outcome, right.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It looks really really bad, I mean from and it's
just so hard to fathom with how competitive they we're
against Louisville, to go from that to where we are now,
Like it's hard to get your brain around that. Things
have kind of just skidded to a complete halt in
(10:16):
the momentum of you know what, is a critical season
for Wes Miller and if he doesn't get this thing
turned around, like you've already in a lot of ways
lost the fan base. John Cunningham has given him a
lot of rope, right, like, Okay, we reset the clock
essentially going into the Big twelve, like we're going to
(10:38):
give you a chance to get this thing course corrected.
And last year like that was supposed to be the
year and they fell short. And it just doesn't feel
like there's any momentum moving forward in the program right now,
and that's not a good sign for year five of
(11:00):
the West Miller era.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
They do they do, I got like ninety seconds here.
How many how many players who make the backbone of
Scott Sadderfield's team will be on the field when they
play Navy in the Liberty Bowl.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Probably not many. I don't think I would be. At
this point, we haven't heard anything from Brendan Sowersby that
leads me to believe like if he was coming back,
that would be front and center, or at least a
decision that's still being made, which tells me if a
decision is still being made, I wouldn't count on him
(11:41):
for January second. Per se Christian Harrison's already in the portal.
I would assume Dante Corleone announcing his intentions for the
draft is a subtle way of saying, I've been banged
up all year. I'm probably not gonna want to get
chopped blocked for you know, sixty plays on January second.
(12:07):
It doesn't feel great, and I think, you know, the
line has reflected that Cincinnati was a favorite. It has
swung all the way to Navy and feels like probably
will continue to do. So I'm gonna go to Memphis,
but really, I'm just I love Guss's Fried Chicken, so
I'm probably just going for that. And Rendezvus in the
(12:29):
press box. Rendevou in the press box, right, No, that
was that was the last time we were at the Liberty Bowl.
Rendezvous in the press box.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, rendevou in the press box.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, I will.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I will have gusses, I will have rendezvous and probably
a few libations. We'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Thank you as all the same mouth, same, see you there.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Chad Brendel Bearcat journal dot Com on Twitter at Chad Brendel.
We had to move him because I don't know how
to read a clock. But we're right on time right now.
Robert Wintroub on the Bengals Next
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