Cincinnati Basketball: Bearcats Continue to Impress on Road in Big East

Not many teams can say they beat the No. 11 team in the country on the road twice in the span of 10 days. The Cincinnati Bearcats can, however.

After a thrilling 70-67 win over No. 11 Connecticut on the road Wednesday night, the Bearcats find themselves in sole possession of second place in the Big East standings.

They also won their eighth straight Big East road game.

Once again, they did it with defense and excellent guard play.

The four-guard offense now only starts the game with three, but when the game is on the line, there are usually four on the floor and they all delivered in a big way Wednesday night.

Those four guards all finished with between 12-16 points, and Cincinnati only turned the ball over five times the entire game. 

That helped them overcome a rebounding deficit of nine.

The Bearcats won in all-too-familiar fashion, hanging on in a close game against a team with more size and talent.

The grind of the Big East will not get any easier as Cincinnati will travel to Morgantown to take on West Virginia on Saturday before returning home to take on No. 1 Syracuse on Monday.

Continuing their winning ways will be nearly impossible given the games coming up, but if Cincinnati can win the games they are supposed to, they will have no trouble getting back to the NCAA Tournament. 

The win over Connecticut, who has an RPI of No. 8, moved Cincinnati up from No. 101 to No. 85 in the standings, and they will have two more big chances with West Virginia at No. 13 and Syracuse at No. 1.

Getting those two wins would not only put Cincinnati back in the rankings, but would also start chatter about the possibility of winning the Big East.

But, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Cincinnati still has a lot to prove and has to continue to beat good teams, but the way they are playing now, they are extremely tough to beat, particularly when they are on the road.

That is perhaps the best quality to have in college basketball.