Xavier is so good, and then so bad. Or they are so bad, and then so good.
40 minutes is not a lot longer than 30 minutes, really. If you can run for 30 minutes, another ten is unlikely to kill. If you have 40 minutes left in a shift at work it doesn’t seem like the next ten are terribly vital. A 40 minute show isn’t a significantly longer investment of time than just the regular sitcom.
And yet, Xavier this season is making that ten minutes feel like an eternity. Maybe it’s ten all in a row in a complete meltdown. Maybe it’s five at the start and five at the end. Occasionally, Xavier just no shows the first quarter of the game. You can rest assured, though, that there will be 30 minutes of good play and ten minutes of eye bleach in most every game.
This trend started early. In each of the first two games of the season, Xavier trailed a low-major after the first ten minutes. Texas Southern finished non-con 0-10 against D1 opponents, but they led Xavier when the season was ten minutes old. IU Indy, 319th in KenPom, did the same. Early season jitters though, right?
The next three games were smooth. Wake, Siena, and South Carolina went by the boards. Then came Michigan and perhaps the peak of the best 30 minute team in basketball. Excise just two separate five minute stretches and Xavier leads 48-40. Yes, in a game they lost by 25 it was only two five minute periods in each half that did for the Musketeers. In those 10 minutes Michigan put up and frankly hilarious 38-5. I mean, that’s incredible.
That’s really the first time Xavier’s inability to play a full 40 hurt them. It would not be the last. With seven minutes left at TCU Xavier capped a 13-2 run to take a six point lead. Then they collapsed. The Shootout was a painful repeat. With then to play Xavier was leading, a couple minutes later they had a 75% chance of winning. They didn’t. Pair those final six minutes with the span in the first half where they bizarrely checked out and allowed a Kill Shot, and you get another fatal ten minutes.
Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images
Xavier lost to UConn and Marquette next. They led late in both of those games, but at least it wasn’t a full ten minute break, just a late breakdown. (Yay?) Georgetown was a different story. Xavier just didn’t play the first ten minutes. After that they outscored the Hoyas comfortably, but you can’t spot any D1 team a ten minute span in which you score only six minutes. That’s another game lost by only playing three quarters of it. That’s four games.
But wait, there’s more! St. John’s at home is a pick your poison situation. Xavier wasn’t a 30 minute wonder in that one, because they didn’t even bother with 30 minutes of good play. St. John’s on the road though? Yep, a ten minute stretch in the second half did for the Musketeers. In that span they surrendered a 26-4 scoring margin. If you think that and the Michigan game are extreme, you’re right. Most teams don’t do things like this. The Villanova loss requires no special math. X got outscored by ten over the last ten minutes to blow open that game.
Of course, that’s just the losses. Xavier’s last two wins have been almost humorous in the way the Musketeers just refuse to finish a game out. Thankfully it was just Butler and Seton Hall. Had Xavier not built such massive leads or had they been playing better teams those 30 minute performances would have led to losses as well.
It’s not hard to see five games that would be different if not for Xavier’s penchant for only playing three quarters of the game. That, obviously, is a season changing amount. There’s no bubble talk if Xavier wins even two of those games.
Every team has bad stretches, not every team has the ability to look like world beaters for 30 minutes and a JV team for ten. Xavier is clearly a very good team with a consistency issue. Unfortunately, the depth needed to stabilize the team just isn’t there after the Traore injury and Trey Green’s season long absence. For now, it’s just play 30 great and then hope for the best. If this team puts together a full 40, they’ll be a menace to anyone. Let’s all hope for that day.