The Cincinnati Bearcats (15-7 5-4) look to halt a 3 game losing skid against DePaul (11-10 2-7) inside 5/3 Arena at 7 pm Saturday night.

If Cincinnati is going to get back on track they are going to have to pick up the pace on the offensive end of the floor after scoring 53 points against Syracuse and 54 at Rutgers facing predominantly zone defense.

The tempo in each of those games was much slower than Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin wants to play, but that should not be a problem against a Blue Demons team that wants to press for 40 minutes and get in a track meet.

“You've got to score to beat DePaul,” Cronin said. “They average 75 points a game which means sometimes they get 80. We're going to have to score points. If you stop scoring they will catch you if you're ahead because of their style of play.”

The pressure UC will face comes at a time when they have gone from protecting the ball as well as anyone in the country to giving it away for easy baskets far too often.

9 of their 11 turnovers against Syracuse came in the 1st half and a troublesome 14 giveaways against Rutgers led to a layup line for the Scarlet Knights.

“The last two games we've had trouble with turnovers,” Said Cronin. “It's been a big problem for us.”

While they obviously need to value the ball much better than they have over the last two games, Cronin has no problem facing an opponent that likes to speed up the pace. It is a style the Cats used to run off victories in 10 of 11 games before the recent skid.

“We'd like to play that way every game,” Cronin said. “That's the one thing I've got on our guys about. It's too much holding of the basketball. We need to shoot it, pass it or drive it. We need to get the ball moving, get each other shots. We need to embrace the assist and do a better job of that and not stop the ball.”

With a week off since the poor performance at Rutgers the Bearcats have been working on getting their flow back in practice while also trying to heal up from the first half of Big East play.

No one needed some time to rest injuries than leading scorer Sean Kilpatrick. A groin pull in a win over Villanova was compounded by a hip pointer in the loss to WVU and had Kilpatrick off his game.

While he is feeling better, there has been no let up in practice as he and the team try to recapture the style of play that had them rolling through the first 6 Big East games.

“Coach talks about getting back to the way we play and speeding the game up a lot faster,” said the sophomore guard who is averaging 15.4 ppg on the year. “Lately we've been playing slow down to the competition. With the team we have if you can play fast there will be a lot more points racking up and everyone else should be more comfortable.”

Scouting DePaul starts with star sophomore Cleveland Melvin. The 6-foot-8 scoring machine from Baltimore averages 18.0 points a night and can get points in a variety of ways.

“The tough thing about Cleveland Melvin is he makes tough shots,” Cronin said. “When a guy is averaging 18 a game and everybody has him at the top of the scouting report and he still gets it every night that tells you how hard he can be to stop. He doesn't need layups or wide open shots.”

The reason Melvin is so tough to slow down is because he has an advanced mid range game that is uncommon in the college game. That combined with the Blue Demons up tempo attack makes him one of the hardest guys to prepare for in the league.

“With their style of play its hard because the game gets up and down,” said Cronin. “Its hard to enforce a scouting report against him. You can't always have two guys around him because they play so fast he's going to have space.”

If the Bearcats are going to get back on the winning side of things it will have to be a sustained effort for 40 minutes as DePaul can score in bunches and is never out of a game because of their pressure.

Any lapses on the offensive end can see leads evaporate in a flash, and that is something that has haunted this UC team all season.

“They really test you for 40 minutes,” Cronin said, “You see teams do it well for 28 minutes and its like they can't sustain it. You stop scoring and they're in a comfort zone because that's the way they play all the time.”