There are hurdles on the way to the tournament and then there is this game, a veritable high jump.
Well, to be (in the tournament with) the best you have to beat the best. In order to win the Big East tournament and earn a shot at the auto-bid, Xavier was going to have to beat UConn at some point. That point is now about four hours away. I’m not going to type you a bunch of hyped up we can do this nonsense. This game will be as difficult as anyone plays all season. The teams that meet in the NCAA final will not face a challenge more difficult than UConn.
Previous meetings
It gets lost in the mess of the season, but Xavier very nearly beat UConn in January. The Musketeers led in the second half, fell behind, and rallied furiously to cut the lead to five. Xavier shot terribly in that game. Like, 37% inside the arc horribly. Somehow, despite that and 33% behind the arc, Xavier was never dead and buried in that first meeting. UConn was missing Donovan Clingan. The players Xavier will be missing this time, Dailyn Swain and Sasa Ciani, combined for 4/3/0 in 18 minutes. Call it reason for hope.
There was also another game between these teams. Call it reason for less hope.
How did UConn get here?
Connecticut is, depending on how you like your rankings, the best team in the nation. The last time they lost it was to a Creighton team that scored an unrepeatable 1.44 points per possession. The time before that was before Christmas. Their only non-conference loss came to Kansas at Kansas. Not the damaged, limping, Kansas of now, but a full strength Kansas team that only managed to beat the Huskies by four at home.
UConn has beaten Seton Hall by 30, Villanova by 24, Marquette by 28, Creighton by 14, Indiana by 20, North Carolina by nine, and Gonzaga by 13. The last two were on neutral courts. Whatever a team can do well, this team does. They’re third in the nation in offensive efficiency, 12th in defensive efficiency, and they play at a glacial pace that forces each possession to matter.
How can Xavier beat UConn?
There is no point in sugar coating this: it’s going to take a minor basketball miracle. X can play with Creighton or Marquette by just playing basketball. Xavier won’t get this one by just playing the way they play and hoping for the best. Here’s what they have to do.
– Push the pace: UConn plays slowly because they can. They dominate the ball and make you use precious possessions to score or stop them. Each possession eats time that plays into the hands of the better team. Xavier has played 20 games with over 70 possessions this season, UConn has played four. Mind you, they won all four of those, but getting them out of their comfort zone is at least a start toward something. See if they can play blazing fast basketball as well as they play walk it up.
– Get hot: 1.15, 1.21, 1.44. Those are the points per possession that UConn allowed in its losses. Seton Hall shot 54% inside the arc, Creighton shot a frankly stupid 60% inside the arc and 50% from deep, Kansas rode blocks and 64% behind the arc. There’s no great art to this. Xavier simply has to shoot incredibly well. Xavier is 6-3 when they shoot over 39% behind the arc. Two of those losses are to Creighton and Marquette. The other is Delaware. Xavier has shot over 60% inside the arc six times this year and won them all. They also managed 54.8% against Purdue and very nearly stole that one.
– Get to the line: Xavier can score from the line. 74.1% isn’t terrible and it is far less than terrible if it carries weight. UConn fouls a lot. The best chance Xavier has may be in getting Claude, McKnight, and Olivari to the line over and over again. Get downhill, get to the line, Rinse and repeat. Again, it isn’t art, but Xavier no other options where they even have a hint of an advantage.
– Find some magic: Xavier has guys with magic in them. The dogged relentlessness of Des Claude paid off in an incredible performance against Georgetown where he simply would not be denied getting to the rim. He could be the guy to do something like 15-16 from the line. Maybe he finds whatever he had early in the season and goes 3-6 from deep.
Quincy Olivari is the obvious choice here. It’s something of a dirty secret that he’s shooting 31.6% behind the arc away from the Cintas this season. Except for a blazing hot four minutes against Butler, he was stone cold in his first tournament game at Madison Square Garden. But who really wants to be that Quincy couldn’t get hot one more time and do what he did on the road against DePaul? If there is magic in any Musketeer, it’s Quincy Olivari.
Dayvion McKnight will just keep quietly being excellent.
Is this possible?
Yes. Montana bludgeoned Montana St twice this season and then met them again in the Big Sky final. Why does that matter? Because Montana St was down 11 in the second half and found one of those March moments and ripped off a 33-6 run and knocked off the Grizzlies. They didn’t have to better on the season, or better in the head to head, or better in the first half. What they needed was a run that no one saw coming against a team that both had their number and had them buried.
It won’t be easy for Xavier. UConn is a lock for a one seed. They brutalize most of the teams they play, even the very good ones. But good stories aren’t made by beating mediocre teams, heroes aren’t shaped because they knock off the little guys. We remember Tre and JP and a gleeful Malcolm Bernard because they beat Arizona, we remember BJ Raymond because he hit a huge shot to knock off a much higher seed. The classic call says, “number one in the country, number two in their own city.” Legends are formed in the big games, why not form another one now?