Couldn’t lose, didn’t. On to the next.
What’s the most dissatisfied you’ve ever been after watching Xavier win by 19? I don’t think today’s demolition of DePaul ticks that box for me, but there were points in the game where I would have heard a case for it.
Things started out great. Dailyn Swain (17/7/8) was magnificent all game, and he announced himself early with an assist and two dunks in the first three minutes. Zach Freemantle (19/9/1) and Ryan Conwell (14/2/2) kicked in four and two points, respectively, in the same time span and Xavier was up 10-0 before many in the oddly staid sell-out crowd had even found their seats.
As you might suspect when a team starts the game that hot, the pendulum did swing back a little bit. DePaul answered with a 12-5 run of their own to get the game within a single possession for the final time with 34 minutes still left to play. Freemantle, Dayvion McKnight (14/2/4), and Jerome Hunter (5/2/3) combined to score the next seven points, and the game was more or less over as a contest from there. DePaul pokes back in a couple of times – most notably hitting threes in three of four possessions with 5 to play in the half – but never mounted a serious challenge.
In an almost eerie parallel of the Providence game, Xavier led 45-31 at the half. I’m sure most Muskies fans were questioning if the team was going to go ahead and play this one all the way out, or if they’d let an overmatched opponent back in again.
Blessedly, that wasn’t the case. Ryan Conwell and Marcus Foster (11/2/0) started the half with buckets, pushing the Xavier lead to 18. To their credit, DePaul didn’t wilt just yet. Despite being more than decimated by injuries and burdened by two decades of being absolute cheeks since their last tournament appearance, they dug in and made a run. They strung together some stops and ripped off a 10-1 spurt before Zach Freemantle stuck a three to stem the tide.
Out of the media timeout, Xavier pushed the lead back out to 19, but the visitors found the resolve to run off a 7-0 run in just 58 seconds to make one last push at making it interesting, promoting Sean Miller to call timeout to overtly question the defensive intensity of his charges.
The Muskies responded not with a defensive lock down but an offensive flurry DePaul couldn’t pace. Triggered by all 4 of John Hugley IV’s points on the game and then picked up on by the usual suspects, X scored on 8 consecutive possessions to push the lead to 20 and get Bradley Colbert up and moving. By the time the final horn sounded, it had been more than 39 minutes of game time since DePaul had the ball with a chance to tie. It wasn’t necessarily a comprehensive performance, but the Muskies never let it get interesting and won a game they couldn’t afford to lose. It’s a quick turnaround to 8pm on Tuesday, when Xavier hosts a Butler squad fresh off of feeding it to Georgetown.