You could be forgiven for having trouble caring about this game. After a 6-0 start in which Xavier increasingly appeared to be finding a stride, the Muskies were brought back down to earth in a 78-53 loss to Michigan that would have been more merciful had it been a literal instead of of figurative decimation. Xavier now sits at 57th in the KenPom; last years disjointed, uninspiring iteration of the team finished at 56th.
The team could not be forgiven for having trouble caring about this game. Any iota of goodwill or momentum from the undefeated start is gone. None of that can be brought back against an opponent of this caliber, regardless of how convincing the outcome is. Tougher tests lay ahead, but the Muskies have to right the ship today. Snoozing through a ten-point win here won’t cut it.
The opponent I’ve been backhandedly deriding for two paragraphs is South Carolina State. The Bulldogs are 310th in the KenPom. They’re 4-4 on the year with none of their wins coming above the bottom 10 teams in D1. Two of their wins aren’t even against D1 competition. This is a club being paid to be destroyed; it’s incumbent upon Xavier to see it through.
Team fingerprint
The defense is bad, lingering right around 250th in the nation. They do a couple of things well though, one of which is forcing turnovers, where they’re 58th in the nation. They also hold opponents to under 30% from deep, though they do allow a ton of attempts. They’re bad on the glass, bad defending inside the arc, and bad at keeping opponents off the line. If this game is called tightly, it’s curtains.
The offense is worse than the defense, clocking in well below 300th in efficiency as a team. They can’t shoot at all, not from three, not from two, and not from the line; their EFG% is 326th nationally. They do get to the offensive glass pretty well and are inside the top 100 in free throw rate, but wherever they’re getting their extra shots, they aren’t good at converting them into points. They also turn the ball over like they get a bonus for it.
Personnel
Coming soon!
Three questions
-Will the turnover bug bite Xavier again? The Muskies entered the Michigan game with excellent ball security numbers and then promptly coughed it up 19 times in 71 possessions, which is bad. South Carolina State doesn’t do a lot right on either side of the ball, but one area in which they have held their own is defensive turnover rate. That shouldn’t be too big of an issue for Xavier, but it certainly was against Michigan and that performance has me profoundly shaken.
-What happened with Dailyn Swain? After an excellent start to the season that often saw him playing an extremely dynamic role on both ends of the floor, he was conspicuous by his absence in dropping 0/2/1 with 1 steal in 25 minutes against Michigan. On a team this veteran and talented, he’s not going to be asked to play a starring role too often, but he should be offering more than a 6’8″ gap in the ranks like he did against the Wolverines.
-Is there any big man depth? Cam Fletcher isn’t full go yet. Jerome Hunter’s performances can charitably be described as working himself back into game shape. The less said about John Hugley IV the better right now. Zach Freemantle is entitled to an offer night every now and then – though he still dropped 14 and 10 last time out – but having is backups go for 2/9/1 with 8 turnovers on 1-4/0-0/0-2 shooting doesn’t leave him a lot of wiggle room. Someone other than Frosty needs to step up in the middle for the Muskies.
Three keys
-Get right. This is so simplistic as to be borderline useless, but I’m going to say it anyway. What we saw against Michigan can’t be who Xavier is against real competition. South Carolina State isn’t a test, but it is a chance for the Muskies to build back a little bit.
-Identify a rotation. Go small? Go big? More/less Trey Green? Some kind of role for Dante Maddox Jr? There is ostensibly at least nine dudes worth of active college basketball talent on this team right now. It would behoove Xavier to figure out how best to deploy them so the discombobulated display of Wednesday doesn’t recur.
-Hold momentum. In two games against real competition, Xavier has given up runs of 17-0, 19-3, and 19-2. That is absolutely abysmal for a group that should be capable of defending at a high enough level to not let droughts turn into runs. I can’t belabor enough the point that we aren’t going to see any real litmus test today, but it sure would be nice to see the home team reeling off a kill shot or two.