We’re here, might as well win.
Do you remember when you started playing basketball? Before the first time you put on a uniform, before you were ever coached, before there were officials or scorers or any organization, it was just you and yours versus them and theirs.
Did you want to win? I did. With nothing that would ever leave that driveway on the line, the score was as important to me as it would have been if the NCAA championship had been on the line.
In a sense, that’s where Xavier and Georgia are now, or need to get. Nobody at the high-major level sets out in November hoping to be in the NIT in March. A lot of things have to go against plan for the season to end up here. For some – and we’ve seen them identify themselves by turning down the opportunity to play – that mental hurdle is insurmountable and they can’t get themselves up for the game. For others, it’s only ever about the competition. We will see who is who tonight.
Team fingerprint
Georgia’s offense is not good. They’re just outside the top 100 in the nation in ORtg, thanks largely to not being good at shooting or at rebounding their myriad misses. They’re below average at 33.6% from deep and downright bad at 49.3% inside the arc. They’re average from the line, though, for what that’s worth. They have an OReb% of 27.5%, which is 232nd in the country. They’re very stingy with the ball and get to the line a lot, which helps them chip away at the deficits that their miserable shooting tends to find them in.
On defense, they’re a little better. They don’t do anything that jumps off the page as being super great, but they’re a bit above average in EFG% and free throw rate, with the defense being equally solid inside and beyond the arc. Where they struggle mightily is in free possessions, where they’re 231st in the country in TO rate and a miserable 270th in DReb%. It all adds up to the 69th-best defense in the nation. #nice
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Silas Demary, Jr. | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Freshman | Class | Senior |
| 6’5″, 190 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 9.5/3.8/2.5 | Game line | 12.5/3.8/4.8 |
| 42.2/31.7/70.9 | Shooting line | 46.6/38.1/81.3 |
| Demary shoots half his shots at the rim, which is a shame because he’s not a great finisher. His mid-range game is okay, and he’s not a lethal threat from deep. He’s kind of a point by default, as the team’s best ball distributor comes off the bench (foreshadowing!). Aside from being a bit foul prone, he’s a pretty solid defender. His length might be a concern for McKnight if that’s where the matchup ends up falling. | ||
| Noah Thomasson | Shooting Guard | Quincy Olivari |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’4″, 210 | Measurements | 6’3″, 200 |
| 12.8/2.7/1.6 | Game line | 19.4/5.6/2.1 |
| 40.7/34.2/61.6 | Shooting line | 43/41.6/81.1 |
| Thomasson shoots half his shots from behind the arc, which is a shame because he’s not a great three-point shooter. Only half his makes are assisted; my dude is not afraid to walk into his own shot. He has moved up from Houston Baptist to Niagara and now Georgia, getting more efficient on offense every step of the way somehow. His scoring is more about volume than accuracy, but he never turns the ball over and doesn’t waste his time passing; it’s all lift for him. | ||
| Blue Cain | Small Forward | Desmond Claude |
| Freshman | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’5″, 194 | Measurements | 6’6″, 203 |
| 7.3/2.3/0.8 | Game line | 16.2/4.2/3.2 |
| 41.9/34.7/57.1 | Shooting line | 41.9/20.6/79.5 |
| I’ll be honest, Georgia’s starting lineup is a bit of a mystery to me. They’ve run through nine different fives this year, so this grid represents my best guess. Anyway, Blue is a pretty good shooter but, like most of his teammates, he’s doing most of his stuff off the bounce rather than the catch. He doesn’t board or contribute too much other than scoring, and he’s not great at that. He doesn’t get to the line much and isn’t too foul prone. He just kind of fills a role and gets some buckets. | ||
| Dylan James | Power Forward | Lazar Djokovic |
| Freshman | Class | Freshman |
| 6’9″, 207 | Measurements | 6’10”, 220 |
| 3.6/2.5/0.6 | Game line | 2.6/2.7/0.9 |
| 48.1/33.3/46.2 | Shooting line | 30/21.7/63.9 |
| James played just 7 games through the end of January, but since then he’s come on pretty well and even forced his way into the starting lineup. Most of his scoring comes at the rim; he shoots almost 75% from there compared to just 30.3% on everything else. He’s not much on the glass, but he’s a pretty solid defender and stays out of foul trouble, remarkably so for a freshman. | ||
| Russel Tchewa | Center | Abou Ousmane |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 7’0″, 270 | Measurements | 6’10”, 240 |
| 7.8/6.7/1.2 | Game line | 6.6/6.3/1.3 |
| 56/0/67.6 | Shooting line | 45.7/25/45 |
| In awe at the size of this lad. He started at Texas Tech, swung through South Florida for three years, and is finishing things out at Georgia. He doesn’t get his number called much on offense and when he does, he’s exceptionally turnover prone. More than 80% of his shots occur at the rim, but he’s not a great finisher despite his size. As you might expect, he does good work on the glass at both ends. How could he not? He gets to the free throw line well but isn’t super efficient when he does. |
Reserves
A lot. They get 35% of their minutes from the bench, which is within the top 100 in the country. As previously noted, they’ve cycled through nine different starting lineups, indicating they’ve either got a lot of dudes that they think can play or, perhaps, a lot of dudes they think can’t.
One dude I’m not sure can play is forward Jabri Abdur-Rahim. He averages 12.2/3.5/0.3 per game, but he has been out since the first game of March with an ankle injury. He’s an absolute volume scorer who feasts at the line, as his 36.1/35.6/88.7 shooting line would indicate. Despite being 6’8”, 215, he has shot 174 threes to just 67 twos this year.
Forward RJ Melendez goes for 9.8/4.3/0.9 per game. He’s a good defender and solid enough on the glass, but his offensive efficiency is let down by a brutal 30-105 (28.6%) from behind the arc. He’s a career 86% free throw shooter who scores really well at two levels. He’s joined by 6’9”, 220-pound VCU transfer Jalen DeLoach as big man depth. DeLoach averages 3.5/3.4/0.5 on 50.7/0/67.6 shooting. He’s a good rebounder who turns the ball over too much and fouls 7.3 times per 40 minutes.
Guard Justin Hill is 6’0”, 185 and – despite coming off the bench for 30 of the team’s 33 games – hands-down their best distributor. He goes for 9.2/1.7/3.2 per game and leads the team in assist rate by ten points. His shooting line of 38.4/33.7/67.6 is no great shakes, but he keeps the ball hot in a way none of his teammates do.
You might catch guard RJ Sunahara (2.1/1.7/0.3) or big man Frank Anselem-Ibe (2.1/1.4/0.2) at some point as well. This roster never really came together this year; your guess is as good as mine or Mike White’s regarding who might actually get some run today.
Three questions
-Who will play like they want to be here? As discussed above, nobody set out to play in the NIT. Now that the teams are here though, who can get the engines rolling over again? Brad and I were at Xavier’s last NIT first round game, and the atmosphere was honestly like someone had demanded a pickup game at a funeral. It was fairly bizarre. Xavier managed to pull that game out, fire the coach, and win it all under the interim guy. That has nothing to do with tonight, but it’s still a thing that happened.
-What will the home court be worth? Will anyone even show up? Xavier is more than 30 spots above Georgia in the KenPom, but the Bulldogs are hosting because it’s like that sometimes. Obviously having home court advantage is a huge factor for Georgia in evening the odds a bit here; if the home crowd is flat, Xavier gets a leg up.
-Will everyone play? The transfer portal opened yesterday, for some reason. Like so many things the NCAA is in charge of, that seems like a really avoidable error that leads to strongly undesirable results. As of this writing, I’m not aware of any members of either team deciding to keep their NIL value high by skipping out on the injury risk of another game, but things can happen in a hurry when roster building is in play.
Three keys
-Dominate the glass. These are two really bad shooting teams; there’s no way around that. The place Xavier can leverage that is on the glass. Georgia is pretty bad at rebounding, landing below 230 in the nation on both ends. This is a good matchup for Xavier if they can make hay on the glass. If Georgia and Xavier play somewhere close to a stalemate in second-chance points, the Muskies will find themselves chasing the game a bit.
-Let them shoot. I know it’s hard to have the discipline to let a team shoot itself out of a game, but Xavier has the chance to do that here. Despite being a below-average shooting team, Georgia takes 40% of their shots from behind the arc. They’ve shot at least 30 threes in 6 games, and they’re 1-5 in those. There’s always a chance they catch fire and bomb Xavier out, but it seems more likely that their love of chucking bricks from deep and their inability to board end up combining to hand the Muskies a bunch of one-and-done stops.
-Keep them off the line. The Bulldogs’ offense isn’t great, but one thing they do at an elite level is draw fouls. They don’t always convert their free throws at a high rate, but they’re still in the top 50 of the country in percentage of points scored from the line. Xavier’s rebounding advantage will quickly evaporate if their big men are cooling their heels on the bench due to foul trouble. It is imperative that the Muskies keep this one as clean as possible.