Disaster averted, and by a mile, but there’s no upside here.
Texas Southern. IU Indy. Jackson State. Siena. South Carolina State. Morgan State.
Seton Hall.
Quad 4 home wins for Xavier. In that there’s still a fool’s hope (it’s me; I’m the fool) that Xavier’s resume matters on Selection Sunday, this game will only be mentioned in absolute passing along with those others. Seton Hall has been complete cheeks this year, and there is no prize for running directly through them.
Still, a cynic (it’s Brad; he’s the cynic) could have been forgiven for that knot in the pit of his stomach early on in this one. Just over two minutes into the game, Xavier was 0-2 from the floor and down 5-0 to Seton Hall. Then the wheels fell off in spectacular fashion for the visitors.
Xavier’s next four times down the floor all turned into layups for the Muskies. Seton Hall answered with two turnovers and two missed shots. A media timeout didn’t do anything but remind the viewing audience of the various opportunities provided to them by capitalism before Xavier came right back with bucket after bucket and stop after stop. When the dust settled, X had ripped off 16 unanswered points over the course of 4:31 and established a chokehold on the game.
If you were waiting for a reply from Shaheen Holloway’s men, you still are. They were never again within even two possessions with the ball. After Jerome Hunter hit the first of back-to-back threes in a personal 6-0, the Hall was never again down even single digits. There was still more than half an hour remaining in the game.
From there, the outcome was functionally secured and the process in getting there was fairly immaterial. Even good teams have trouble with double-digit deficits on the road, and Seton Hall responded in a fashion you’d expect more in a buy game than a Big East contest. The final score of 94-72 only semi-accurately conveys how one-sided this was.
More for the sake of being thorough than because it mattered to the outcome, there are some stat lines worth pointing out. Only the officials could hold Ryan Conwell; he fouled out with 22/3/2 on 7-12/3-7/5-6 shooting. In the 31 minutes he played, Xavier outscored Seton Hall by 30 points.
John Hugley IV has his best half as a Muskie in the second, scoring 8 points in 8 minutes on his way to 11/5/0 on the game. Weirdly, those eight came in one three-possession outburst, after which he faded back into the woodwork. It’s beyond me to figure this guy out.
Aside from Ryan Conwell and Dayvion McKnight – who only had 6 points on 1-7/0-1/4-8 shooting but still kicked in 6 assists – Xavier’s other three starters combined for 39 points on 11-17 shooting. Big Rome shot a perfect 3-3/2-2/4-4 and blocked 4 shots, Marcus Foster shot 5-7 and led the team with 6 boards, and Dailyn Swain was a perfect 7-7 from the line and had 3 OReb. Xavier needs that kind of production from those players going forward.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that Dante Maddox, Jr. had 14 on 4-5/2-3/4-4 shooting and kicked in 6 assists for good measure. He’s definitely rounding into the reserve guard Sean Miller was no doubt hoping for when he came in from Toledo.
All of that served as backdrop for the actual main event, which was the complete ref show. We got our first replay review before the first media timeout. By the middle of the second half, the announcers had stopped even pretending to be interested in the actual game action so they could focus on the only question left to be settled: could the refs get this thing to 50 fouls?
Of course they could. With 1:32 left in the game, Prince Aligbe caught the dubious honor, having been adjusted to have wronged Dailyn Swain on his way to the rim. I don’t think this one was ever destined to be a commercial for the beautiful game, but with a foul called every 47 seconds from tap to horn, it never got the chance to develop any sort of rhythm at all.
The bottom line is that this game barely mattered. Xavier won going away, which was the only acceptable result for a team trying desperately to dig out of the massive hole they find themselves in. Maybe the biggest thing we got out of the whole experience was the note that Zach Freemantle is back participating in practice with the team.
Brighter days ahead. Happy New Year, everyone.