Cullowhee, N.C. – Led by second-year head coach Tim Craft, Western Carolina men's basketball lifts the lid on the 2025-26 season on Monday night with a visit to Ohio's Queen City to battle Big 12 foe Cincinnati from Fifth Third Arena. Monday night's opener will be broadcast on ESPN+ (paid subscription required) with live stats available online at CatamountSports.com.

Matchup: Western Carolina (0-0) at –/RV Cincinnati (0-0)  
Date: Monday, Nov. 3
Time: 7 p.m.
Site: Fifth Third Arena (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Live Video: ESPN+ (paid subscription required)
Twitter: @CatamountMBB

About Western Carolina:
Western Carolina returns eight players from a season ago, including a quartet that were regular starters throughout the 2024-25 season. The team bolstered its roster with eight newcomers, including four transfers and four freshmen.

Redshirt junior Cord Stansberry returns after an impressive debut season with the Catamounts, during which he posted a 91.3% (73-of-80) at the foul line. His percentage from the charity stripe would have ranked him seventh nationally had he met the NCAA minimums. Stansberry poured in 11.2 points per game and made 52 3-pointers for WCU.

Stansberry is joined by classmate and WCU's lone preseason All-Southern Conference selection, Marcus Kell, sophomore guard CJ Hyland, and senior forward Vernon Collins as the quartet who saw action in 16 or more games as a starter a season ago. The four regulars for Craft in the starting lineup are joined by redshirt senior Chase McKey, sophomore Fischer Brown, and the redshirt freshman pair of Drew Hollifield and Max Williams.

Craft and his staff welcome a host of new faces to Cullowhee ahead of the 2025-26 season, led by four transfers in the likes of graduate transfer guards Julien Soumaoro (ECU/Gardner-Webb) and Tidjiane Dioumassi (Southern), while sophomore guard Justin Johnson (Arkansas State) and sophomore center Abdulai Fanta Kabba (Denver) round out the group. Four freshmen grace the roster as guards Titian DeRosa (Bethesda, Md.) and Tahlan Pettway (Worcester, Mass.) are joined by forwards Samuel Dada (Lagos, Nigeria) and Tayeshaun Smith (Raleigh, N.C.), who round out the squad for WCU.

Western Carolina's 2025-26 roster features a diverse background of student-athletes, with 10 different states and three countries represented, making it one of the most diverse rosters in the country.

Craft and the Catamounts face a strong nonconference slate that includes teams from the ACC, SEC, and a Big 12 counterpart. All told, the Catamounts face 12 teams throughout the 2025-26 season that recorded 19 or more victories a season ago, including five squads that eclipsed the 25-win plateau. Five opponents appeared in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, three schools made the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), including conference foe Chattanooga, which won the Tournament, and one team appeared in the newest postseason tournament, the College Basketball Crown.

Craft is accustomed to playing name brand schools. During his time at Gardner-Webb and Western Carolina, he's totaled 48 contests against schools from the ACC, SEC, Big 10, PAC 12, Big East, Big 12, and American Athletic Conference, including the four on the docket in 2025. The Catamounts face Duke, Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, and Georgia, all before SoCon play. Craft-led teams have had their most success against the ACC, with three wins over Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest during his tenure in Boiling Springs. During his time at Gardner-Webb, Craft's squads also claimed wins over Purdue, Nebraska, and Georgia.

Scouting the Opposition:
Cincinnati enters the 2025-26 season off a 19-16 record a season ago, including a 7-13 mark in the Big 12 Conference, the second year the Bearcats have been a member after moving from the American Athletic Conference (AAC) following 2022-23. The Bearcats appeared in postseason action for the third straight year in 24-25, making it to the second round of the newly minted College Basketball Crown Postseason tournament. Cincinnati was tabbed 12th in the 16-team Big 12 Preseason Poll as the league features six teams in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll.

The Bearcats are led by fifth-year head coach Wes Miller, who has tallied 18 or more wins in his four prior years leading Cincinnati. Catamount fans will be familiar with Miller's past, as the former North Carolina Tar Heel player spent 10 seasons leading UNCG, including the 2017-18 SoCon Championship, during which he had current WCU associate head coach Andre Gray on that title-winning staff.

The Bearcats' top returner from a season ago is graduate student Day Day Thomas, who tallied 10.2 points per game, including 15 double-figure scoring outputs. UCF transfer Moustapha Thiam was named to the Naismith Starting 5 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Top 20 Preseason Watch List, given annually to the top center in college basketball. He averaged 10.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per contest in his debut season at Central Florida.

The 2025-26 campaign marks the 125th season of competition for Cincinnati men's basketball, and the Bearcats will commemorate the milestone with a year-long celebration honoring the program's rich history, iconic players, and cultural legacy. Named a top-10 program in college basketball history by the Associated Press, Cincinnati men's basketball boasts 44 All-Americans, 41 conference titles, six Final Four appearances, and back-to-back national championships across its history, which dates back to the 1901-02 season.

Series History:
Western Carolina and Cincinnati have met four times before Monday's opener, with the Bearcats claiming all four, most recently in Ohio in 2017, when the Bearcats earned a 102-51 victory. WCU and UC had a two-point battle back in 2007, in which the Catamounts were edged out 66-64.

The Catamounts have battled six of the current Big 12 schools—BYU, Iowa State, Cincinnati, Kansas State, West Virginia, and Arizona State — with a win over Kansas State in that stretch. A majority of those matchups against the six schools came when they were under different conference affiliations.

Up Next:
Following Monday's debut contest, the Catamounts continue their road slate with a trip to Durham to battle nationally-ranked Duke on Saturday, Nov. 8. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.. It will be shown on the CW, with live stats available on CatamountSports.com.

Keep track of everything related to Catamount men's basketball and WCU Athletics through our social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com/catamountsports), Instagram (@catamountmbb @wcu_catamounts), and Twitter (@CatamountMBB @catamounts).