After four years in Bloomington, Rob Phinisee announced on Wednesday he will play his final season of college basketball for Cincinnati.
The Lafayette, Ind. native simply said “Let’s Work!” in a post on his Twitter page that showed him in a Cincinnati jersey and announced he was committed to the Bearcats.
Phinisee will be reunited at UC with former IU assistant coach Mike Roberts, who took an assistant coach position under Bearcats head man Wes Miller last spring.
Let’s Work ❗️❕ pic.twitter.com/Z8ICd6ynDt
— Rob Phinisee (@robphinisee1) April 20, 2022
The 6-foot-1 Phinisee announced in late March he was leaving the IU program and would play out his final season elsewhere. He was one of IU’s best perimeter defenders but struggled with offensive efficiency throughout his career in Bloomington. He averaged 4.5 points per game in 2021-22 while shooting 31.2 percent from the field in 18.3 minutes per contest.
The arrival of Xavier Johnson last summer forced Phinisee into a reserve role as a senior, but he delivered the season’s most iconic moment — a game-winning 3-pointer against Purdue. That was part of a career-best 20-point effort. Whenever he was on the floor, Phinisee helped form some of IU’s best defensive units.
Phinisee delivered another memorable moment as a freshman when he made a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer to defeat Butler in Indianapolis. But along the way he suffered a number of injuries that slowed his development, including a serious concussion during that freshman season, and a plantar fascia injury in 2021-22.
For his career Phinisee appeared in 111 games and started 69 times, including 29 starts as a freshman. He arrived at IU in 2018 as part of the much discussed class that included Romeo Langford. In total he scored 719 points (6.5 per game) and handed out 307 assists (2.8 per game). He finished his career just above a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Phinisee had narrowed his list of suitors to Butler and Cincinnati last week.
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