Now is the time to start winning.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
Last year was a reprieve. It was Xavier back as Xavier after four years wandering in the wilderness. Rebuilds and new coaches aren’t supposed to go that easily. This season is more like what you expect. It has been a grind, an injury laden test from even before the season started. It has been a war; a grind.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height
The Musketeers are now backs to the wall. There are no more respites, no more opportunities to come. There are seven games to go. Xavier needs five of them. Four won’t do. There can’t be anymore slip ups. All the excuses, or reasons, or whatever you want to call them don’t matter anymore. Here, 33 days from Selection Sunday, X has to start winning.
Show us here the mettle of your pasture
So this preview will be just like the others. The only difference is that the season in earnest has begun. These aren’t elimination games, but they are so very close. With Marquette looming twice and Butler away, X can’t falter. It’s time to summon up everything there is, answer the bell, and win some games.
Team fingerprint
On offense this team runs through Kadary Richmond. His usage rate is astronomically high, good for 48th in the nation. The offense he oversees is not terribly good. The Pirates turn the ball over a lot and don’t shoot it well from anywhere but the line. They very good there, and they hammer the offensive glass better than all but eight other teams in the nation. They’ll either score second chance points or they’ll struggle.
Defensively, they’re better. Hall gets gashed from outside but blocks a ton of shots and holds teams to a 48.7% EFG. They surrender the arc and allow ball movement in order to force the ball to shot blockers and come up with occasional steal. They don’t foul much amongst that 15.4% block rate, so expect Twitter to be angry.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kadary Richmond | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’6″, 205 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 15.9/6.8/4.9 | Game line | 12/3.8/5 |
| 44.3/21.6/80.4 | Shooting line | 46.2/38.3/83.1 |
| There are some dudes on the Hall that can play, but Richmond is the one who is going to have the first bite of the apple every time down. He’s first in the league in usage and shots percentage and second in assist rate. He’s not a great three-point shooter, but he is good at using his size to get to his spots inside the arc. He’s also a tremendous defender. Oh, and he draws about 5 fouls per 40 and is shooting 85% from the line in Big East games. | ||
| Al-Amir Dawes | Shooting Guard | Quincy Olivari |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’2″, 185 | Measurements | 6’3″, 200 |
| 14/2.3/2.3 | Game line | 18.9/5.3/2 |
| 40.6/34.9/91.9 | Shooting line | 43.9/44.8/82.8 |
| His numbers are down a bit this year, but Dawes is an excellent shooter. He doesn’t distribute much and he has only outrebounded me this year because I’m out of eligibility, but he stays out of foul trouble and rarely comes off the court for Shaheen Holloway. He has gone over 20 points on 7 different occasions this season. | ||
| Dylan Addae-Wusu | Small Forward | Desmond Claude |
| Senior | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’4″, 215 | Measurements | 6’6″, 203 |
| 8/5.8/2.2 | Game line | 16.3/4.5/3.6 |
| 34.2/31.3/70.2 | Shooting line | 41.7/22.1/78.2 |
| I’m not a guy who is going to rage about how the transfer portal is ruining ball, but it is weird for me to see a guy transfer within the league. Addae-Wusu has lost 15 points and 10 points of EFG% since his time at St. John’s; I’ll bet one of those makes him happier than the other. He’s a really good rebounder for his size and can be a destructive defender, but the shooting numbers that used to balance out his turnover issues have slipped significantly. | ||
| Dre Davis | Power Forward | Gytis Nemeiksa |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’6″, 210 | Measurements | 6’7″, 220 |
| 13.9/5.8/1.4 | Game line | 6/5/1 |
| 48.7/33.9/80 | Shooting line | 45/35/65.2 |
| Davis is a really efficient scorer who can at least force you to respect him at all three levels; it’s kind of surprising to me that he’s not more of a focal point on offense. He’s not bashful when he gets his mitts on the ball though, with an assist rate below 9% hinting at the fact that he has getting buckets on the brain. He’s a bit of an undersized four, but he more than holds his own defensively. He’s not a great defensive rebounder. | ||
| Jaden Bediako | Center | Abou Ousmane |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’10”, 240 | Measurements | 6’10”, 240 |
| 8.5/7.4/0.5 | Game line | 7.3/6.5/1.2 |
| 58/0/72.2 | Shooting line | 47.8/25/47.1 |
| An absolute monster on the offensive glass at a nationally elite level. Xavier got a little lucky that foul trouble held him to 22 minutes at Cintas, but he still pulled down 7 OReb in that time. More than a third of his shot attempts at the rim are second chances. He’s only an okay finisher and he’s no great shakes on the defensive glass, but he eats the offensive boards. He’s also a formidable defender in the middle. |
Reserves
Not much. This is a veteran group, ranking 11th in the nation in D1 experience, but it’s not a deep one. They get just 23% of their minutes off the bench, 333rd in the nation. It basically breaks down to three guys. To wit:
Isaiah Coleman is a 6’5” freshman guard averaging 5.8/2.8/0.7 in about 18 minutes per game. He got a few starts when Kadary Richmond was down, but he’s more frequently seen coming off the bench. He’s a good defender and has a good mid-range game to go with being an excellent finisher. He’s not much of a shooter from deep, but he’s a good young player.
Jaquan Sanders is a 6’4” guard, but his production has plummeted in conference play. He’s averaging 2.5/1.1/0.3 on the year, but he has just 17 points in 13 conference games, and 5 of them came against DePaul. He exists to get the perimeter guys a quick breather. The guy who does that for the bigs is 6’11” Austin Peay transfer Elijah Hutchins-Everett. He averages 3.9/3/0.3 per game, clobbers the glass at both ends, and clobbers opponents to the tune of 7.6 fouls per 40 minutes in Big East games. He’s 4-8 from deep in conference, so… just something to be aware of.
Three questions
-Can Xavier generate enough turnovers? Seton Hall’s offensive strategy is basically just to get extra shots by harvesting their own misses off the glass; it’s basically Mick Cronin’s old offense. What has been hampering them is the league’s worst turnover rate, which has kept them from getting that all-important first miss onto the rim. Xavier doesn’t force a ton of turnovers, but they got a 21.9% TO rate from the Hall at Cintas. Something on the order of that might be essential tonight.
-Which Abou Ousmane shows up? Xavier’s big man went for 16/10/2 with 5 blocks, 3 steals, and 0 turnovers against the Pirates at home. This was made possible larger because he committed just 1 foul in 30 minutes of play. He was excellent in his role against Nova last week; he followed that up with a performance against Creighton that would have been improved by being anonymous. Last time against Seton Hall was his best game as a Muskie. Xavier probably doesn’t need that again, but they need a good game out of him.
-Should Xavier shoot twos? Yes. Should they shoot very many of them? Debatable. The Muskies are atrocious from inside the arc and get their shots blocked a ton. Seton Hall has a solid two-point defense and blocks a ton of shots. The Muskies insist on taking a ton of twos as a general rule, but they shot just 42% from inside the arc the last time these two teams played. I could honestly do without watching another 21-50. If at first they don’t succeed, I hope they decide to try something else.
Three keys
-Feed Des early in possessions. There’s one dude on Seton Hall I think can stay with Quincy Olivari, and that’s Kadary Richmond. He’s also the one guy the Pirates have who can match Des Claude for size and strength. If he has license to roam, he might well end up in Quincy’s airspace at important junctures, but if Des is attacking him early and often, he’ll be pinned to the Muskies’ sophomore wing. Quincy, Trey, and Dayvion were 10-19 from deep at Cintas; Xavier has to keep them in free air tonight.
-Win on the glass. Xavier played Seton Hall even on the boards last time, which was enough because they shot 50% from deep. I’d obviously take a repeat of that, but it probably shouldn’t be the lynchpin of the team’s strategy. Seton Hall gets nearly 1 in 7 of their made buckets at the rim on stickbacks, to say nothing of the attritional toll that having to defend multiple possessions on a single trip down takes on the team. Grabbing their own misses is too big a part of the Pirates’ strategy for Xavier to allow it to go on unchecked.
-Keep the ball hot. Xavier can’t afford the kind of dry offensive stretch that has kept them from stringing together a solid 40 minutes. Scoring four point in eight minutes straddling halftime killed the Muskies against Creighton, and by the time they found their stride again, they were down 17. They’d outscore the Bluejays by 12 from there on out, which I’m sure you’ve figured out does not lead to a win. Good shots don’t come from bad ball movement for this team, and they got 25 assists on 31 made buckets against Seton Hall last time. If a little hero ball turns a handful of tough possessions into an extended drought, it’s time to start figuring out a way to get the auto bid.