Not a lot of gloss on this one; Xavier has to win.
It has been a week. Last time out, Xavier needed to win at Seton Hall to keep the season rolling; instead, they failed to show up and got obliterated before it was clear they were even present. Now they’re staring down the barrel of a basically impossible stretch of games, a need to go 5-1 when they have two games against KenPom #14 Marquette still on the slate. If they can’t win this one, they might as well start lighting candles or whatever it is their respective faith traditions dictate they do when trying to conjure a miracle.
Providence is… maybe closer to the bubble? They’re right there according to the Bracket Matrix, though the hay is far from in the barn. They lost Bryce Hopkins when they were 2-0 in Big East play and looking like a tournament team; since then, they suffered a 0-4 stretch and then somehow righted the ship for a 6-3 stretch. Providence isn’t my favorite program and there’s something about Devin Carter that I don’t like, or maybe I just resent the fact that he’s so good for a team I don’t enjoy, but I can’t help but admire how they’ve kept themselves in the conversation.
This is basically a two-man show at this point in time. Since Hopkins went down, Providence has averaged 73 points. Devin Carter has been good for 22.5 and Josh Oduro has averaged 19.5 of his own; they’re scoring almost 60% of the team’s points. They had 20 of Providence’s 28 made buckets against DePaul during the weekend game and at one point went more than 20 game minutes without having a teammate make a field goal. These two are on a ridiculous heater.
Xavier needs to cool them off. The Muskies’ season is on life support in the most optimistic interpretation of events. If this one goes sideways, you might as well start digging a shallow hole.
Team fingerprint
Their offense is not great. It’s bad in fact. It’s ninth in the league, almost entirely on the strength of being able to get to the line a ton. They’re good inside the arc, but not great, but instead they are third in the league in three-point rate, taking 44% of their shots from behind the arc. They don’t get to the offensive glass well and they’re neither here nor there on ball security. It’s just an amalgamation of below-average factors unsuccessfully propped up by shooting but not making a ton of free throws. These guys are swimming against the tide.
The defense is better, which is nice (for them). They’re sixth in the league in defensive efficiency, most of which comes from being third in the league in turnover rate and fourth in defensive rebounding percentage. It’s for the best that they limit free possessions, because otherwise they’ve been the league’s okayest defense, sitting sixth in defensive EFG% and defensive free throw rate. They do well in chasing teams off the line, which you can be forgiven for struggling to believe in the context of Xavier’s 12-24 barrage from beyond the arc the last time these teams met.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jayden Pierre | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Sophomore | Class | Senior |
| 6’2″, 180 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 8.7/2.3/3.3 | Game line | 12/3.7/4.9 |
| 40.9/36.7/80.5 | Shooting line | 46/38.7/83.3 |
| Pierre is a low usage rate guy who has shot to just a 48.7% EFG% in conference play. He can defend, but he has a tendency to get himself into foul trouble from time to time. He’s second on the team in assist rate with a modest 20.1%, which is more an indictment on the squad as a whole than a plaudit for him. His job is to make sure he doesn’t do something to keep Devin Carter from doing what he does, and he has filled that role fairly well. | ||
| Devin Carter | Shooting Guard | Quincy Olivari |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’3″, 195 | Measurements | 6’3″, 200 |
| 19.2/8.2/3.4 | Game line | 19.1/5.4/1.9 |
| 49/40.5/71.9 | Shooting line | 44.1/44.3/82.4 |
| There are some worthy candidates for BEPOY, and Carter is certainly one of them. With Bryce Hopkins down, he has taken it upon himself to carry the team forward. He has made as many threes in Big East play as Quincy has, is fourth in the league in DReb%, and leads the team in assist rate while basically never turning the ball over. He’s also a strong defender who stays out of foul trouble. The one knock I’ll present here is that he’s not a great free throw shooter. Beyond that, he’s balling out. | ||
| Rich Barron | Small Forward | Desmond Claude |
| Freshman | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’5″, 220 | Measurements | 6’6″, 203 |
| 3.6/1.2/0.3 | Game line | 15.8/4.3/3.5 |
| 42.9/40.8/60 | Shooting line | 41.6/21.8/78.2 |
| Barron has started the last four, but I think you’ll still see Corey Floyd getting the bulk of the minutes here. He’s a standing shooter who does most of what damage he does from behind the arc. He dropped 12 in a boat race over DePaul a month ago and poured home 10 last week in a 3-point win over St. John’s. Outside of those two explosions, he’s averaging 2 PPG in conference. | ||
| Ticket Gaines | Power Forward | Gytis Nemeiksa |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’7″, 190 | Measurements | 6’7″, 220 |
| 8.7/4.4/1 | Game line | 6/4.9/1 |
| 41.8/32.6/71.4 | Shooting line | 45.1/34.1/65.4 |
| Gaines is a really solid shooter whose government name is Davonte. He is superb from the mid-range in very low volume and excellent around the rim. He takes most of his shots from behind the arc, where he can be streaky, but he has had three separate games in Big East play this year in which he’s connected on five threes. If he’s your fourth best starter like Providence was planning on, you’re in a good place. | ||
| Josh Oduro | Center | Abou Ousmane |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’9″, 240 | Measurements | 6’10”, 240 |
| 16.8/7.1/2 | Game line | 7/6.3/1.2 |
| 56.5/32.4/81 | Shooting line | 47.2/25/47.1 |
| He has gone for a game line of 29.0/7.3/3.0 on .596/.625/.808 shooting in his last three games. You can’t stop this guy from anywhere right now, but if he gets position, forget it. He can be a teeny bit foul prone and he’s not a great defender, but he clobbers the glass on both ends and is high-efficiency on high volume. I hope we get Good Abou tonight. |
Reserves
The bench is below average in terms of minutes but by no means catastrophic. Realistically, when Bryce Hopkins went down, you had to know that this team was going as far as Carter and Oduro could drag them. These guys are getting run to fill out the 200 player minutes required to complete a game, but they’re not populating the top lines of any scouting reports.
Corey Floyd, Jr. is a reserve guard averaging 4.5/3/1.2 per game. He’s a solid defender, which is good, because he has made a total of 25 shots in 15 conference games and has an ORtg of 75 in so doing. Rafael Castro is 6’11”, 220 and averages 3.3/2.5/0.2 on 67.3/50/46.2 shooting. He has an ORtg of 116.3 in Big East play while crushing the glass at both ends. You have to get all the way to his 7 fouls per 40 minutes before you understand why he’s not getting more run.
Garwey Dual is the “Can we get (whatever)?”/“We have (whatever) at home” meme for Dailyn Swain. Dual was by far the more heralded recruit, but now he’s averaging 3.2/1.4/2.2 and seeing his minutes and production fall as the season wears on. He’s a less effective defender and 25 points behind his Xavier counterpart in ORtg. A freshman year isn’t a referendum on a career, but he’s not lighting the world on fire right now.
If we see anyone else on the floor for Providence, something weird is happening.
Three questions
-How does Xavier handle Oduro? Josh Oduro is on one right now, and Xavier isn’t long on good big men right now. Starting center Abou Ousmane played well enough on defense against Nova but has averaged 1.0/1.0/1.5 in the two games since. Will X just run him out there and hope for the best? Will Kachi Nzeh – whose play against Seton Hall merited 20 minutes of run and drew praise from Sean Miller – get a chance at the Friars’ center? Or is there a scheme the defense will use to try to make Oduro work for his points? The plan has to be spot on, unless it’s to give Oduro the 29 he has been averaging over the past couple of weeks and not let anyone else beat you.
-Can Des bounce back? Claude’s perfect record of scoring double digits in every game in 2024 was snapped by 6 points in a frankly horrible performance against Seton Hall. A couple of early fouls took him out of the game a bit, and he was never a factor. He had 21 on 9-16 shooting ay Providence, and Xavier needs something similar from him tonight. If he’s not playing at his best down the stretch, you might as well start Googling NIT ticket prices.
-What was that at Seton Hall? X was a complete no-show early and none of the rest of the game mattered. It has been a week and I don’t have an explanation. It can’t happen again though, or Xavier’s already tenuous claim to an at-large bid will go away entirely.
Three keys
-Make Oduro catch away from the rim. He’s a handful no matter where he gets the ball, but he’s basically impossible to stop if he catches with a foot or two already deep in the lane. Providence obviously runs actions to get him in ball screen rolls or free him up off-ball, so whomever is working as Xavier’s center will need help pushing Oduro away from the rim. Keeping a body on him every time he’s on the move will keep him from shooting like 9-13/1-2/8-10 and torpedoing Xavier’s season.
-Get Quincy going early. Xavier shot Providence out of the game in the second half at the Dunk (or whatever it’s called now), and another 12-24 from deep would go a long way towards making this one another similarly fun watch. That game featured Trey Green going ham; tonight might be an opportunity for Quincy Olivari to have a day. He’s a cool 48.2% from behind the arc in home games this season and his 25 points while playing Seton Hall functionally on his own were the only thing that kept that game from being a total laugher. Get this dude a couple clean looks right off the rip.
-Find places to work Ciani in. I know his 2 points on 1-3 shooting against Providence the first time don’t beg for an encore, but he is, somehow, Xavier’s best option on the post. Oduro gets a bit slappy on the post and can be pinned by bigger players. It’s hard to say Ousmane’s going to be the guy to do that, and neither Djokovic nor Nemo is physical enough to get the job done. Unless you think Nzeh is about to go off, this is a game where Xavier could use some production from Sasa.