Xavier just insists on not being good when it matters.
I’m probably too angry to by typing this right now. Xavier was once again undone by their own poor play. UC spent the game demonstrating that their record was indeed a mirage and they aren’t really any better than any other midlevel high-major team and Xavier spent the game doing exactly what they have all year, losing games they should win. The ESPN+ production was trash, the announcers were trash, and the officiating was trash. More importantly though, Xavier’s late game execution was trash.
We’ll start with the officiating. Perhaps Jerome Hunter had sexual congress with that one guys wife, maybe he espoused a political position that guy didn’t like, maybe that particular official just completely sucks at his job. Whatever it was, Hunter got called for two utterly ridiculous fouls and then a three second violation, yes, in a college basketball game, which let Cincinnati right back into the game. The Bearcats and their buddy in stripes went on a 17-3 run and buried the game. The officiating and that particular official utterly sucked. The usually do. They don’t usually watch John Hugley get punched in the face or Jerome Hunter get truck sticked at the top of the key. Dog dirt crew.
What the Big 12, by some reports a respectable conference, sees in ESPN is beyond me. The announcers were wearing Bearcats jerseys, I’m quite certain, and seemed surprised that the best rivalry in basketball was actually heated. Not, mind you, that they knew anything significant about either team or either team’s history. They sounded like your local community college guys trying to get you hyped about their squad.
But that all pales in comparison to just how bad Xavier is at basketball. The Musketeers shot 41% inside the arc, 31.6% behind the arc, and turned the ball over on 20% of their possessions. Most significant were, just like TCU, the ones at the end. Coming out of a crucial timeout Xavier went 1-2 from the line, turned the ball over twice, and didn’t manage a shot over the vital possessions of the game. They allowed a free throw shooter to grab his own miss and stick it back. In short, they self-immolated.
Dante Maddox and Dayvion McKnight combined to go 1-9 from the floor and put up a line of 4/7/3, which would be ok if they were one backup guard and not two guys who combined to put up that putrid line in 48 minutes. John Hugley shot once. That was his contribution in 12 minutes. No rebounds, no points, no assists, nothing. Just 12 minutes of occupying a spot on the floor. Jerome Hunter flirted with being good with a line of 7/8/0, but turned the ball over four times and posted an ORtg of 78. That means Xavier’s pathetic bench went for 9/8/0 in 45 minutes.
Marcus Foster was decent. Zach Freemantle was electric in the first half and may have been called in as a missing person in the second. Ryan Conwell was all but invisible for the first 30ish minutes of the game. Joel said in our preseason podcast that Conwell shrank from big moments. He tried, desperately, to step up today but he waited way too late to do it. Dailyn Swain was brutally effective but never made any attempt to take the game over.
Xavier had this one when Freemantle missed a dunk that would have put them up nine. Then, they wilted. If you look at this team and see reason to think they’ll be playing meaningful basketball in march (and I’m tired of pretending to care about the NIT), you’re truly one of the last optimists. This is a team short a killer, short a bench, and as prone to panic as a rabbit in a wolf enclosure at the zoo. The away games get harder from here. Xavier, and their coach, need to find a fix fast, or this is three more months of playing out the string.