Xavier has been awful so far. They need to fix it, and fast.
Xavier has been awful thus far. Offensively, you’d think that shooting 53% and only having five turnovers would be good. It has been, but the defense has been appalling. Xavier simply cannot get a stop at all. Texas is 4-8 from deep and shooting almost 60% from the floor. They aren’t a great shooting team, but Xavier has made them look like the Showtime Lakers.
For Xavier to win this game, they must get stops. They’ve been one of the better teams in the nation defensively in their comeback run, but they haven’t shown that tonight. They don’t necessarily need to turn Texas over, they just desperately need some stops. Something. Anything. Dailyn Swain could use to show up. He’s been a menace tonight, but to Xavier, not Texas. He’s dribbled of his own shin and directly out of bounds. That’s the same sentence, but somehow two different instances.
Ryan Conwell and Zach Freemantle are both in foul trouble. Xavier needs to get both of them back fit and firing for the second half. John Hugley and and Jerome Hunter need to start adding something on the defensive end. Hunter has, God bless him, at least made a couple of shots. Hugley has been, unfortunately, awful.
There are 20 minutes left to save the season. Someone needs to show up and do it.