Xavier already has one huge Q1 road win in the last week. Can they add another?
Last time these two teams met, Xavier was in a spiral. They hadn’t won a game of consequence since before Thanksgiving, they had lost 5 KenPom A games by a total of 17 points at the end of regulation, and they were coming in having lost 4 of 5. The story of the season to that point was of missed opportunities. They kept the game close for a half before getting sonned on the glass in their own gym and falling out of competition entirely.
That performance merited a players-only meeting. Xavier hasn’t lost since. They rolled a hapless DePaul, revived the season at the 11th hour thanks to Ryan Conwell against Nova, and then grabbed a massive Q1 road win against Marquette. Now, with St. John’s looming, the Muskies are back within touching distance of the bubble.
St. John’s continues to have a solid claim as the class of the league. They have one Big East loss, and it was on the road, by one point, against the best defensive rebounding team in the conference. Since beating Xavier, the dispatched Nova by wearing them down in the second half, dispatched Georgetown by wearing them down in the second half, and dispatched Seton Hall by being way better than them just in general. This team is a machine.
That’s the kind of squad Xavier is going to have to go through to get where they want to be. This is a huge test to determine whether the current hot streak is the start of a run or just a painful false dawn.
Team fingerprint
This is an awful shooting team. They’re 11th in the league from three, 9th from two, and 10th from the line. You know the drill though: every time they huck the ball at the rim, they’ve got dudes flying after it. They’re the top offensive rebounding team in the league and 12th in the entire nation. Their whole offense – which isn’t great, 8th in the league – is predicated on getting up as many first shots as possible and then grabbing the misses. To this end, they’re also excellent in ball security; can’t get the ball on the rim if you turn it over.
Speaking of turnovers, they force a lot of them, almost 1 in every 4 defensive possessions. They’re also excellent at forcing tough shots, ranking first in the league in defensive EFG%. They’re solid on the defensive glass and I’m keeping teams off the line, and they contest the arc well. All of this adds up to the best defense in the Big East by an incredibly wide margin. Their conference AdjD is as far in front of Marquette in second as Marquette is in front of Butler in ninth. These guys are elite.
St. John’s ball security, offensive rebounding, and ability to force turnovers give them a huge edge in shots attempted. In Big East games, they are getting up 12 more shots per game than their opponents. That’s an insane margin; even for an awful shooting team, that’s going to be worth 8-10 points per game. When they get that edge, they’re hard to beat.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kadary Richmond | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’6″, 205 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 10.8/5.1/4.8 | Game line | 10.4/2.9/4.8 |
| 46.3/15/51 | Shooting line | 42.7/35/81.2 |
| Can’t shoot from deep, no great shakes from the mid-range until he gets about 12 feet or closer, doesn’t have much left to speak of, but… this guy has been terrorizing this league for 112 games over the last 4 years. He’s hard to keep out of the lane, doesn’t turn the ball over, and is a very capable passer. He’s also a menace on the defensive end, using his size and athleticism to great advantage. If Seton Hall had NLI money, he’d still be there. | ||
| Simeon Wilcher | Shooting Guard | Ryan Conwell |
| Sophomore | Class | Junior |
| 6’4″, 190 | Measurements | 6’4″, 215 |
| 8.9/2.3/1.2 | Game line | 16.5/2.6/2.3 |
| 42.8/30.9/89.5 | Shooting line | 43.9/39.3/81.6 |
| Simeon was the more heralded recruit of the Wilcher brothers, but he’ll always be second to CJ in my heart and may well end up there in on-court production as well. He’s really athletic and a ery good defender. On offense, he’s a solid slasher and finishes well at the rim, but his production falls off quickly as he gets away from the lane. His primary value is on defense, but he undermines that with 4.1 fouls per 40 minutes. | ||
| Aaron Scott | Small Forward | Marcus Foster |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’7″, 210 | Measurements | 6’5″, 215 |
| 8.5/4.6/1 | Game line | 8.3/4.2/1.9 |
| 39.7/28.9/83.3 | Shooting line | 41.7/43.5/70 |
| Scott is a career 35% shooter from three, but he has been shaky in that regard this year. Other than that, he has been what he was brought in to be: a solid, versatile defender with a willingness to work on the offensive glass. He can be a bit foul prone, but otherwise he’s a really strong glue guy whose value will take a step up if he can refind his stroke from deep. I hope he does this weekend. | ||
| RJ Luis Jr. | Power Forward | Jerome Hunter |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’7″, 215 | Measurements | 6’8″, 225 |
| 17.8/6.5/2.4 | Game line | 6.3/3.8/0.9 |
| 46.2/28.4/75.7 | Shooting line | 48.9/46.2/74.3 |
| The Johnnies ride this guy like Seattle Slew and he has repsonded with a performance that puts him in the top ten in the KPOY. He’s good at the rim and just on the edge of solid in the mid-range, but he’s not a threat from deep at all. What he is is relentless. His usage rate is off the charts and he draws a ton of fouls. He’s a good offensive rebounder and an excellent defender. His work rate sets the tone for the whole team. | ||
| Zuby Ejiofor | Center | Zach Freemantle |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’9″, 240 | Measurements | 6’9″, 227 |
| 14.5/8.2/1.1 | Game line | 16.5/2.6/2.3 |
| 57/22.7/68.9 | Shooting line | 43.9/39.3/81.6 |
| Ejiofor is an animal on the glass. He’s the best offensive rebounder in the league and one of the best in the nation. He had 18 points against Xavier and it felt like each came behind one of his 9 offensive rebounds in the game. His range isn’t noteworthy and he’s not much of a free throw shooter, but he grinds teams down on the glass; he takes effort every time a shot goes up. As is true of most of this squad, he’s a good defender. |
Reserves
St. John’s isn’t super deep. In fact, their rotation is probably only six significant players deep. Deivon Smith started 13 games earlier this year and is actually having a good season as a backup guard and, at only six feet tall, one of the best defensive rebounders in the conference. He can score reasonably efficiently and takes care of the ball. The only other player averaging double digit minutes off the bench for the Red Storm is Brady Dunlap, and he’s hurt. Vince Iwuchukwu is a monstrous seven footer who somehow didn’t get an offensive rebound the last time these teams met. Ruben Prey logged his most minutes of the season in SJU’s last game and blocked five shots. Other guys will come off the bench, but it’s very much mix and match for seven or so minutes a game for Rick Pitino right now.
Three questions:
– Can Xavier find another way to get defensive rebounds? Play with six guys? Play zone? Play better man to man? Don’t help to shooters? Step on a guys foot when he tries to jump? Just tackle Zuby Ejiofor? Of course most of that is kidding, but Xavier lost the last meeting of these teams because they were embarrassed on the defensive glass. They got humiliated. They cannot let that happen tonight, or they’ll get spanked again.
– Is Ryan Conwell ok? Since the UConn game, Conwell has been a little off. His line in that time is a respectable 15.6/2.3/2.4, but he’s only shooting 39% from the floor and 28% from three over those seven games. His EFG is 48.7%, which means he’s basically shooting like Sasa Ciani. It could be the grind of being the main man, the difference in the Big East from Indiana State, fatigue, or just a slump, but Xavier needs Conwell to get hot, or even just average, again.
– Can the bench provide anything offensively? Against Marquette the offense was pretty wretched, but the bench took it to a whole new level. In a combined 34 minutes they went for 9/2/1. That’s not dreadful, but Dante Maddox, and man, do I love that guy, provided 7/1/0 of it. That means that the entire rest of Xavier’s bench had an output of 2/1/1. That’s simply not good enough.
The Key
– Rebound: Look, there’s a lot that we could write about this. Xavier needs to shoot better than 2-17 behind the arc. They need bench production. They need to not get half of their shots blocked. They need to take care of the ball. All of those things are important and will be factors tonight.
None of it will matter if they allow a 46.5% offensive rebounding rate again. As Joel mentioned above, SJU lives off getting more shots up than their opponents. They do that with a relentless approach to generating second chances. Xavier simply has to stop them from doing that. I say “simply” because the concept is simple, the execution won’t be. Xavier will have to be nearly flawless on the glass.
I said against Villanova that Xavier needed to hold them to around 27% on the offensive glass. They did and they won the game. Two of St. John’s three losses have come in games where their offensive rebounding rate was below 32%. That’s the number for today. Hit that, and a season defining streak stays alive.