There may not be a more unusual team in the Big East than Cincinnati. Now 15-11and 7-8 in the Big East following Wednesday’s win against DePaul — more  on that in a moment — the Bearcats visit the Coliseum Saturday for a 2 p.m. game and a third straight win against the Mountaineers.

U.C. has top-tier Big East talent and a few players who will/could play in the NBA. U.C. has also used 16 different starting lineups this season, which is frankly astonishing.

There are, of course, a few ways to look at that: A) The Bearcats have that many talented players. B) The Bearcats have that many indistinguishable players. C) The Bearcats don’t have that many players who fit A and/or B. D) The Bearcats are big into matchups.

I’ll go with D which is interesting as it relates to the Mountaineers, who themselves can be difficult for opponents to match up against. U.C.’s adaptiveness actually suits them well and last year its team matched up very well against WVU’s and can probably do so again Saturday. In fact, this year’s team has done pretty well matching up against teams that normally pose the matchup problems.

But what of these Bearcats?

They swept Connecticut and beat Vanderbilt and Maryland in the Maui Invitational and lost by two to Gonzaga when they just ran out of time and energy. Yet they lost back-to-back games to Xavier and UAB as well as Seton Hall and St. John’s. And Wednesday, after consecutive losses to South Florida and Marquette temporarily took U.C. out of NCAA Tournament consideration, was actually a bit of an exercise against the dreadful Blue Demons.

That should have been easy, but maybe you can understand a distraction when the Bearcats are staring at this — at No. 8 WVU, vs. No. 7 Villanova, at No. 11 Georgetown. 

Before tackling that killer three-game stretch, though, the Bearcats first had to get past DePaul on Wednesday night.

They managed to do that with a 74-69 victory before 8,111 at Fifth Third Arena despite going 0-for-9 from 3-point range and enduring another woeful night at the free throw line, where they made just 14 of 32 shots for 43.8 percent. They outrebounded DePaul, 47-31, and shot 50.8 percent from the field.