The understated excellence of Dayvion McKnight

Sometimes you just need a steady hand at the controls.

Dayvion McKnight has come in for some criticism this season. He’s not shooting quite as well or as much as he did last season. He’s occasionally seemed a little bit deferential when Xavier needs someone to grab a game by the throat. He looked sort of lost at times when Zach Freemantle wasn’t on the floor. Shoot, per KenPom he’s even an inch shorter now.

But that’s missed a lot of the things that having an excellent point guard can mean to a team. McKnight has been very good this year, his ORtg is still basically the same as last year, he cares for the ball incredibly well, he has a higher assist rate than he did last season. He’s a Swiss army knife of a point guard for a Xavier team that sometimes needs a little bit of help everywhere. That was on full display Saturday.

The manic final minutes of the game are the ones that will stand out in everyone’s mind. Xavier was leaking oil, Marquette had finally awakened their apparently bored home arena, and the Golden Eagles were about to cap an incredible comeback. The reason they had to do all that, though, was Xavier’s point man in the first half.

There’s no real way to measure awareness, but in two plays here McKnight showed his. In the first, he rotates perfectly, makes a steal, and then pushes the ball into a position for the always ready Dante Maddox to get a shot. The second is perhaps more impressive for what McKnight doesn’t do. He does scan the floor and he does make a great pass, but he doesn’t even try to stand up and risk a turnover. All through the first half McKnight, who never got his shot going, grabbed defensive rebounds (4) and dished out assists (3).

So why the praise for a guy who went for 9/4/5? Well, Dayvion had only one turnover. (Xavier had 11 as a team, a 16.4% rate and exactly in the range Sean Miller said they needed.) Marquette is seventh in the nation in turning teams over, but they could not shake Xavier’s little point man. He turned the ball over with 19:18 to play and never coughed it up again. With the foundations shaking and wheels flying off the cart in all directions, McKnight navigated the situation like a man sipping coffee on a pleasant vacation beach stroll. He was the dog at the table in the fire, except everything was ok.

But Xavier couldn’t just hold on, they needed points. When Marquette cut the lead to ten and the fans at the Fiserv stirred for the first time in the game, Dayvion picked Royce Parham cleanly, then scored four straight. Those four were utterly pivotal in the game. For the briefest of times they kept the barbarians in check outside the walls. With the lead down to seven later, McKnight drew a foul and cashed out both free throws. In the second half he had 6/0/2 with a steal and the vital plays that Xavier needed.

Zach Freemantle will get plaudits because he scored 14 and gathered another double-double as almost an afterthought. Dailyn Swain was Xavier’s only starter with an efficiency over 100 and went for 12/9/3 and finally, finally, played a full game in menace mode. Meanwhile, Dayvion McKnight was just quietly steady. He made the big plays when Xavier needed them, then calmly did his thing. As Marquette’s comeback faded into panic and their stars couldn’t quite come up with enough, McKnight strolled out the other side of the fire unscathed and Xavier got the Q1 they needed.