February drags on as Xavier tries to run the table
Congratulations, friends, on living through the first 100 days of February. Grimly, 100 more lie ahead. It defies logic that the daytime hours are growing longer but somehow there is more sullen grey, but here we are. It won’t be 20 degrees again where I live until sometime next week. February is the worst.
That extends to college basketball. In November and December you burnish a non-conference record and play in some fun matchups and in some games where you try to set scoring records. Come January you get renew some rivalries and see which conference foes are doing well or reeling. Then comes February. You’re locked in a house with people you don’t like, constantly stealing each other’s food and snatching away chances for good ones. Every team you play is out to ruin your season.
March is the sunshine on the other side of that. Xavier will take on Creighton on March 1st in a game that will feel huge and be huge. Everything in March is magnified. The Jays are 33rd in the NET right now. They could represent a massive chance for Xavier to grab a Q1 win. (If you squint you can see a way for that to somehow be Xavier’s fourth Q1 win. NET is weird).
So here’s where we are: you may have heard Xavier needs to run the table. That’s true. Win the last five and X jumps from being last of the next four out to being top of the play-in pile. Lose one and you have some heavy, heavy lifting to do come the BET. Win out, by the way, and you are likely looking at UConn in the second round to start the BET. That’s a game that winning solidifies your spot and losing it… well losing it isn’t good, but it needn’t be fatal.
There is genuinely not much more to say than that. Xavier can’t lose another regular season game. If they do, they’ll probably need a run to the finals of the BET to get an at-large. They really could use that Creighton game (and maybe the UConn and Providence wins) to sneak into Q1. The lines are definite. Winning a Q2 game against the #33 team at home isn’t going to move the needle. Winning a Q1 game against the #29 team is huge. I don’t make the rules, I’m just letting you know.
It starts with Butler on Tuesday. Get that one and keep building momentum. In conference play Butler hasn’t beaten anyone good and hasn’t lost to anyone bad. They are 1-6 on the road, and that win was at Seton Hall. X needs this one, just like they need them all. We’ve tipped downhill on February. For March to matter Xavier just needs to finish this most miserable of months strong.