On paper, Saturday’s game between Georgetown and Cincinnati at Verizon Center figures to be an easy win for the Hoyas.

Georgetown (14-5, 4-2 Big East) was picked to finish second in the conference in the preseason coaches poll. Cincinnati (10-9, 1-4) was picked to finish 13th. The Hoyas have won 10 of their last 12 games. The Bearcats have lost six of their last seven.

But for whatever reason, the underdogs keep taking down the favorites in the Big East. Providence crushed No. 15 Marquette 74-59 on Jan. 4, and hapless St. John’s beat No. 22 Notre Dame 71-68 on Tuesday. But the upset most troubling to Hoyas Head Coach John Thompson III occurred last Saturday, when Cincinnati outscored West Virginia 21-8 in overtime to hand the Mountaineers just their fourth loss of the season.

“Everyone in our league can win the league right now,” Thompson III said yesterday. “On any given night, every team can win.”

Though Cincinnati enters Saturday’s game just 1-4 in conference play, Thompson said that the Bearcats’ record is deceiving.

“They’ve struggled in terms of wins and losses, but when you watch the tapes of their games, they’ve had just a couple of bad bounces here and there that have been the difference in most of the contests that they’ve been in,” Thompson said.

The third-year coach cited Cincinnati’s Jan. 17 loss to Syracuse as a game that the Bearcats easily could have won. Syracuse sophomore guard Eric Devendorf made two free throws with 12.6 seconds left to give the Orange a 77-76 victory at the Carrier Dome.

The near-upset notwithstanding, the Bearcats have struggled in other road games this season. Cincinnati has a 1-3 record in away games, including a 74-59 loss at South Florida on Jan. 14. In their most recent game, the Bearcats fell at home to No. 9 Pittsburgh 67-51 on Wednesday.

Cincinnati features a balanced scoring attack, as five players average at least nine points per game. Freshman guard Deonta Vaughn leads the team with 13.6 points per game, while junior forward John Williamson is a close second at 13.5. Williamson also averages eight rebounds per game to lead the Bearcats.

Though Georgetown will possess a significant height advantage over Cincinnati, both Thompson and junior guard Jonathan Wallace said yesterday that the Hoyas will have to work hard in order to get rebounds against the Bearcats, who outrebounded West Virginia 42-30 on Saturday.

“They’re an athletic team, similar to DePaul, in ways of rebounding and defending,” Wallace said. “We just have to, as coach always says, keep a body on them and execute and do what we do.”

“They do a very good job of crashing the boards,” Thompson added. “We have to keep them off of the boards.”

Last year, Georgetown defeated Cincinnati 76-57 at MCI Center behind junior forward Jeff Green’s 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists. This year’s Bearcat squad, however, bares little resemblance to the team that went down to defeat last year.

Senior forward Cedric McGowan is the only returning starter from last season, and Cincinnati’s head coach, Mick Cronin, is in his first season.

Despite Cincinnati’s inexperience, Thompson said that the Bearcats are not a team that the Hoyas can afford to take lightly.

“When looking at the tapes, they’re a team that plays extremely hard from bell to bell, and they’re a team that’s extremely disruptive with how they play defense,” Thompson said. “They put you in a situation where you cannot get into an offensive flow, no matter who you are, with how they play defense.”

“We’re playing a team that’s coming here to win and we have to play well,” Thompson said.

Saturday’s tip-off is set for noon at Verizon Center. The game will be televised on MASN.