UC 77, South Dakota 46

I thought South Dakota was a D2 school, but I guess they made the jump to D1 this year, as part of the Great West conference. You can call them D1, I guess, but they are probably about as close to D2 as you can get. Either way, Cincy has to play the games on the schedule, and it looks like they did about as much as you could ask tonight.

According to the formula for estimating possesions in a game, the Cats had about 65 possessions in the game. They scored 77 points, so that's like 1.18 points per possession. For some context, last year the NCAA average efficiency (points per 100 poss.) was 102. The number one team, IUPUI, was at 118. Cincinnati had a very efficient offensive game vs. South Dakota, but obviously we must consider the competition.

South Dakota had 69 possessions and they scored 46 points. That's .67 points per possession or 67 per 100 possessions, depending on how you want to look at it (it's the same thing, of course). That's also ... pretty bad. Again, for some context, the leader in defensive efficiency last year was Kansas at 83. So, we'll have the best offense and defense in the nation ... if we keep playing Great West teams : )

Some other random notes:

• Yancy Gates had quite a debut: 16 pts, 11 reb, 3 blks, 7-11 from the field. What's more impressive is that he only played 20 minutes. So that's 32 points, 22 rebounds, and 6 blocks per 40. Yeah, not a bad start.

• Also a nice start for Mike Williams, having not played in two years. He had 8 points and 9 boards in 26 minutes.

• Junior transfer Steve Toyloy had a good, under-the-radar-type game: 8 points, 7 rebounds in just 16 minutes.

Okay, I'm runnin' out of bullet points here. It was a nice game all around. Quick turn around Tuesday against Texas Southern, who brings back all five of their starters ... though, they went 7-25 last year.