CINCINNATI — The 2024-2025 men’s basketball season takes another leap forward Friday night when Cincinnati hosts Ohio State in the first installment of the CareSource Charity Exhibition Games for Mental Health.

There will be no video streaming of the event and Dan Hoard and Terry Nelson will call the game on 700 WLW.

About the game
This ties in with a Sunday game between Dayton and Xavier as part of the fall series. All net proceeds from ticket sales will benefit mental health providers and charities within each school’s footprint, along with Jay’s Light, an organization founded by Dayton head coach Anthony Grant and his wife Chris, to support mothers, fathers, teens and helping young adults get the resources to help with mental health issues. Their daughter, Jay, died in 2022 at the age of 20 due to mental illness.

“There’s a reason why we get to do a charity game, and that’s because it goes beyond basketball,” said head coach Wes Molenaar said. “When you look at what Anthony Grant and his family have been through, there are so many positive stories that should be getting attention. I give Jake (Diebler, Ohio State head coach) a lot of credit for not only finding a way to continue to do it, but to make it better and better. He set up all four schools on his own, and he organized that to see how we could all participate together. I give him a lot of credit for knowing him. .We are all very competitive, but there has to be relationships between these local programs. Finding a way to come together, play a game and have it impact the cause and do something that repeats year after year is possible. are something special.”

The rundown

• Cincinnati is ranked 20th in the AP preseason poll, its first entry into the season since 2017-18. Its last-place finish overall was in 2018-19, which was also its last year in the NCAA Tournament.
• Cincinnati enters the upcoming season with its deepest roster yet Wes Molenaaras the Bearcats return six of its top eight scorers (66.9 percent of its points from last year).
• The Bearcats posted a career-high four wins (@ BYU, TCU, @ Texas Tech, vs. Kansas) and led the Big 12 with a rebounding margin of 7.2, which ranked 16th nationally.
• This is also the first fan-attended preseason game Wes Molenaarfour years at the helm.
• Dan Skillings Jr. was UC’s leading scorer last year with 12.9 ppg, including eight straight double-digit games to close the game. His 25 in the blowout of Kansas at the Big 12 Tournament were his highest in a league game, besting his 24 at Baylor and 21 against UCF, the latter on his 21st birthday.
• Aziz Bandaogowho, like Skillings, was a Big 12 honorable mention honoree, missed the first four games last year due to the NCAA transfer waiver process and averaged 6.6 ppg and 7.4 rpg. He even had four blocks against No. 14 Baylor in the Big 12 quarterfinals as part of a three-game 10-swatting streak.
• Bye Bye Thomas was the third leading scorer at 10.4 ppg and posted team highs of 3.3 apg and 1.7 spg. His 61 total steals were the most by a Bearcat since Cashmere Wright in 2011-12. He exploded for 29 points on 7-of-10 three-point shooting against WVU to open Big 12 Tourney play, but suffered a season-ending broken foot in overtime of the NIT opener. He recovered at the start of summer training.
• Jizzle James took over the starting point guard spot in his absence, scoring 25 and 21 points in consecutive games to end the season. His defense grew exponentially as the year progressed, and Wes Molenaar noted in the preseason that in his 14 years as a head coach, he had never seen a freshman with the everyday work ethic than Jizzle showed.
• Simas Lukosius struggled with numerous minor injuries during non-conference play, but showed his true form down the stretch, scoring game winners at No. 15 Texas Tech and against Kansas State and San Francisco. He was second to Skillings with 11.8 ppg, including an average of 16.9 on 41.6 percent 3-point shooting in March, en route to scoring his 1,000th point in the finals.
• The returners are supplemented with a striking transfer class including: Connor Hickman (senior, Bradley), Dillon Mitchell (junior, Texas) and Arrinten page (sophomore, USC).
• Hickman played for third-year assistant coach at Cincinnati Drew Adams at Bradley as a freshman, and he averaged 14.5 ppg with 91 assists at a 40.2 percent clip from deep as a junior. He also has strong defense and athleticism.
• Mitchella former McDonald’s All-American, started 71 games during his two years at Texas, a proven Big 12 standout who had a career-high 21 points and eight rebounds against national champion UConn last year. He started the only meeting between the Bearcats and Longhorns last year and went 4-for-6 from the field (10 points) with four rebounds in 37 minutes.
• Page was recruited as hard as anyone by the Cincinnati coaching staff as a high schooler in Atlanta, but he ultimately transferred to USC before choosing the Bearcats out of the portal. In his freshman season, he started four games (three in Pac-12 play), and he will be complementary Aziz Bandaogo well in the mail.