I turned 40 this weekend.
Nearly every year that God has granted me life, I’ve found a way to spend at least part of the opening weekend of March Madness with Brad, my older brother and the co-founder of this little operation. From a two-man party at the beginning, we’ve grown by two wives (split evenly at one apiece) and seven kids (not split evenly, as that math doesn’t work). Every year, every member of the group fills out a bracket on paper despite the ease of which technology allows it to be done on a device.
Brad and his family had to leave to go home late this evening, meaning we only got to watch the paltry sum of like 28 games together. As I was closing down the house for the night, I walked past the stack of paper brackets we had been updating through the opening round. For some reason, it just felt really… final. A sign that the weekend, with all it chaos and mirth and joy, had well and truly passed and was never coming back.
I felt the same way watching Xavier walk off the court tonight.
First went Dayvion McKnight, starting point guard from his first moment on campus, the man whose hands Sean Miller trusted the ball in so much that Des Claude had to cross three times zones instead of fight him for it. He played 67 games as a Muskie; he had more turnovers than assists in 3 of them. Small, tough, lightning fast. His reliable leadership on the court will be missed.
Somewhere in the procession, Dante Maddox Jr saw his last moments on the floor as a Musketeer. I’m old enough to remember when people accused him of being a waste of NIL money. He closed his Xavier career shooting 37-82 (45.1%) from deep from the start of conference play on, bombing the Muskies past UConn and Providence, keeping the lights on in the first half against Texas, and playing a brand of basketball he admitted he wouldn’t encourage anyone to emulate. It will be some time before another bench scorer quite like him comes along.
Marcus Foster checked out of the game after a quiet night, but quiet was his brand as a Muskie. He was always highly efficient on low usage. He took good shota, made smart plays, and – on a team missing it’s starting center all year – hit the defensive glass like a big man. Well, I say he was quiet and had low usage, but that’s not totally true. When Xavier needed someone to carry the scoring load against Texas, he decided missing was something other people do and dropped 22/8/2 on 8-9/4-5/2-2 shooting to blow the roof off of UD Arena. The man deserved every decibel.
Then, finally, Big Frosty and Big Rome. They won’t go down as the most successful or storied Muskies in history, but they deserve their place in Xavier lore. Before X earned its way into the best basketball conference in the nation, it was just a scrappy program that never quit, was more than the sum of its parts, and wouldn’t back down from any challenge placed in front of it. Freemantle and Hunter embodied that ethos on the court, but the did so even more off of it. Through injury setbacks and medical emergencies, they fought the hard miles all the way back to not just health, but the fitness required to play college basketball at the highest level.
Hunter took the kind of news that is often at the top of press releases announcing a player’s retirement and fought through it, only to rupture his Achilles when he was on the brink of returning. I’m sure there were some dark moments for him, but he shook it all off to come back and play a pivotal role on an NCAA tournament team.
Freemantle battled through multiple lower body injuries, including one that threatened to end his season this year, and gave every last bit he had to the program. He also developed into the kind of player and person who could take the standard that Sean Miller sets for his personnel and live up to it.
From 9-7 and all but dead and buried, this team fought all the way back to a deserved at-large bid and an NCAA tournament win. It was fun to watch them come together and reach towards their potential; I’m sad to see it come to an end.