Not with a bang, but a whimper
Shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion
That is actually a couplet from a poem by TS Eliot, not a description of Xavier’s offense in the second half. You can be forgiven for not knowing the difference. This season is over as competition. Xavier will now either reach the finals of the Big East Tournament (at least) or they won’t go to the NCAA tournament. All year long the little things have plagued a callow team. Tonight, they ended the season.
Xavier led this game by nine early. Joel was live on the game and he sounded the alarm that Providence was dominating on the offensive glass and only Xavier’s shooting was keeping them in it. For a half, that worked. In the second half, it did not. Quincy Olivari went 1-8 in the second and was, for maybe the first time all year, bad when it mattered. Xavier shot 1-7 behind the arc in the second 20 minutes. Trey Green didn’t even manage a shot attempt in an oddly reserved two minutes.
There is blame to go around here. The refs missed perhaps the world’s most obvious goaltending call as someone, I can’t even remember who, put the ball off the glass and then watched a Providence player slam the backboard with both hands. The coaching staff was up in arms but what was undoubtedly the worst officiating crew Xavier has been plagued with all year was unimpressed. The officials sucked. They were terrible. In a year where the officiating has been markedly better than in the past, this was a return to the bad old days. It’s what you expect when you see John Gaffney and Roger Ayres, and they delivered. Xavier didn’t lose because the refs were so bad that it would have cost anyone in a normal job their career, but it didn’t help. Seriously, someone, please get some oversight. This is pathetic.
So was Xavier in a 4:47 stretch where they didn’t make a bucket. The Musketeers shot .387/.142/.667 in the half where they pissed their season away. It’s not as if Providence was playing incredible defense, either. Xavier just missed open shot after open shot. They went 14-23 from the line, the very most open of shots. It was just a capitulation of the highest order. When X needed something and absolutely had to save their season, they turned the ball over, Abou Ousmane throwing the ball straight to no one.
But credit to Abou, he and Des Claude raged against the dying of the light. Des was 5-12 in the second half and 7-8 from the line. Xavier went to him time and again and, God love him, he tried. With Quincy missing in action and Dayvion McKnight unable to do much of anything, someone had to step and try to get the job done. Des did. Only he and McKnight finished the game ahead in the net points metric. He dragged X back to within a possession, then beat his man downhill for what would be Xavier’s final shot. Why he tried to punch on Ticket Gaines, a 6-7 with the wingspan of a small jet, I’ll never know, but he at least had the intestinal fortitude to do it. When the rest of the team shrank from the moment, the sophomore forward got the ball and went for it. Good on him.
Unfortunately, good on him doesn’t win games. Quincy Olivari came here to play with Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter in the NCAA tournament. He will leave having accomplished none of that. It’s gutting for a guy who has endeared himself to this program. Tonight wasn’t his night. It had to be. Xavier has to win their last five. They won’t. This season is functionally over.
This is the dead land