Gross
That game was a lot like loudly losing bowel control in public. Best case scenario is you are able to crawl away with some tiny shred of your dignity still intact, but it isn’t likely. South Carolina State is not a good basketball team. They are horrific on offense and in the bottom 100 in the nation on defense. They are bad. They are a cupcake. They are a low major. Somehow, Xavier nearly lost to them.
You can be forgiven at this point for wondering if Xavier sucks. They’ve certainly done nothing to dispel that notion. With the preseason assumptions washed out they are 101st on Bart Torvik. They are currently 67th in KenPom. They’ve beaten exactly no good teams. They’ve barely beaten some really bad teams. They got obliterated by a decent Michigan. This is your third place in the Big East team? On this evidence they might not finish third in the MAC.
Xavier essentially went six deep today as Sean Miller tried to find a rotation. It didn’t work. Thank Christ Himself for Trey Green and his enormous testicles, or this would have ended with Xavier going six guys deep in double figure minutes and losing. John Hugley was awful again. Dante Maddox came in, got a three drilled in his face, turned the ball over, and was never seen again. The team, Jerome Hunter, Zach Freemantle, and Dayvion McKnight excepted, was terrible.
I don’t want to do a full recap. If you watched that game, bless you, you don’t need to also read about it. Sean Miller lost his everloving mind in the second half, and who can blame him? Embarrassing doesn’t begin to describe it. This brilliant exhibition of self-defecation, of utterly pathetic effort and execution was somehow significantly worse than their complete capitulation against Michigan. I’m glad it’s not my job to fix this team, because all I could think to do after that game was scream and break things. (I didn’t, I’m just a dude in a living room.)
That first technical was stupid
Game’s gone. You can’t clap now? Drayton Jones blocked a shot and then clapped in the vague direction of Jerome Hunter. The referee, for some reason, decided that was worth a technical foul. It was asinine. No one on the floor thought there was any sort of malicious intent or taunting there. One is forced to assume the ref is an Ohio State fan still extremely touchy from yesterday’s (hilarious) loss.
The second one wasn’t
Come on, big man, use your brain.
Trey Green saved the team
No playing time to speak of, but he drilled the free throws that mattered. Equal credit goes to Dayvion McKnight for his huge three pointer and 9-10 from the line.
Where do you go from here?
This team has looked good once, ok once, and then pretty mediocre beyond that. It might be time to recalibrate where you think they can end up. Do you really want any part of UC right now? Do you think this team has any chance against TCU? There is serious, serious work to be done here. It’s time to earn that money.