The Muskies didn’t look great on Monday; they could use to step it up on Friday.
When I think of a buy game, my mind goes to See Davis dropping 22/4/15 on an entirely overmatched Fairleigh-Dickinson team or Xavier combining to shoot 12-21 from deep in doubling up Morehead State. What I don’t think of is trailing at the half to a Texas Southern team not even favored in its own low-major league.
So there’s definitely work to do for the Muskies. They’re not the only Big East team off to a slow start; every team in the league aside for Marquette and St. John’s has fallen in the KenPom rankings, with Villanova (39), DePaul (24), and Providence (15) having taken double digit steps back.
Last season, Xavier faceplanted in the non-con and the league wasn’t strong enough for the Muskies to make up ground in conference play. This year isn’t off to a much better start for Big East teams, but there’s still plenty of time to compile a resume. They just need to answer a few simple questions raised by game one.
Can Trey Green claim the backup PG role?
Green can be an incredibly valuable combo guard at his best, with the ability to turn games on their heads with his scoring and playmaking. Unfortunately, he has also showed a propensity for being loose with the ball and continuing to shoot regardless of if it was falling that particular night.
Against Texas Southern, he shot three times and none of them looked particularly like going in. He managed to dish out three assists and not turn the ball over, but his ORtg of 50.1 is obviously suboptimal. Dayvion McKnight appears to have picked up where he left off last season; Green is first in line for them if he can play to his potential.
Where is the frontcourt depth?
Zach Freemantle looked like he hadn’t missed a beat with 19/11/2. Dailyn Swain was solid enough with 14/2/5, but running him for long stretches against the size of the Big East isn’t going to be a realistic option. Someone with a more developed big man pedigree is going to need to step up.
Jerome Hunter defended well but didn’t really ever look like an offensive threat. To call John Hugley’s six minutes unconvincing would be a show of grace to him. Those two combined for 3/4/0 on 0-6 from the floor in 26 minutes. In a game that was closer than it should have been, neither seemed to have Sean Miller’s full confidence to get the game across the line.
The one caveat here is that Cam Fletcher isn’t yet full strength. Xavier still does have one more possible big man option marinating for the right time. Someone is going to have to step up.
Please tell me someone will make a three
I know that’s not technically a question so much as a plea, but the point is the same. Ryan Conwell and Dayvion McKnight combined to go 6-12 from behind the arc; the rest of the team was 0-11, and I don’t remember a ton of them being robbed by bad rolls. Marcus Foster is at 33% for his career, Trey Green 32%, and the less said about Dailyn Swain behind the arc the better. Anything from Freemantle and Hunter would be nice, but you hope the offense doesn’t pivot on their abilities to cash out from range.
That leaves Dante Maddox, a career 40% shooter from deep who didn’t look it on Monday. He only played 11 minutes and seemed to be pressing the whole time; maybe settling down and settling in will help him establish himself as the tertiary threat Xavier needs to keep defenses honest.
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It’s a long season, and obviously one game isn’t a litmus test. With the amount of talent on the roster and the coaching ability of Sean Miller, I have every confidence that the team will be there or thereabouts when it comes to March. Seeing a colossal thumping of a low-major tomorrow would sure be nice though.