The dance starts early for Xavier, but that beats no dancing at all.
Well, here we are. After ten weeks of playing with their backs against the wall, Xavier goes from practically win-or-go-home to actually win-or-go-home. In 40 minutes of play, someone’s season is going to end. The other will go on to play Illinois on Friday.
Texas got here in something like the opposite way Xavier did. The Longhorns came out of the gate like a ball of fire, sitting at 11-2 when the calendar turned. It went downhill from there. They went 6-12 in conference play, somehow not entirely tanking their bubble possibilities. They did (apparently) just enough in the SEC Tournament, winning a couple games to take their record to 19-15 and convincing the committee that they’re worthy of inclusion.
Xavier’s story you know. Having staggered through the first 16 games of the season at an appalling 9-7 (1-4) culminating in getting punked on their own floor by St. John’s. Zach Freemantle called a players-only meeting to offer his feedback on the team’s toughness level. They responded. Having played the first half of the season in something of a sleepwalking state, they reeled off 12-4 in the back half, piling up 2.6 WAB to get themselves back onto the right side of the bubble and ultimately into the tournament.
None of that will matter today. The past is barely prologue; all that matters is the next 40 minutes.
Team fingerprint
Texas’s strength is on the offensive side of the ball. They’re 37th in the nation in adjusted efficiency and it comes on a solid balance. They don’t get to the offensive glass very well, but they’re above-average without being great in three-point shooting, team EFG%, and free throw rate. They don’t shoot very many threes though, sitting 272nd in the nation in three-point rate. Their ball security is excellent, with a 14.4% TO rate, which is in the top 20 in the nation. Nothing they do is really going to jump off the page, but they have very few true weaknesses.
Not so on defense. They are 319th in the nation in defensive free throw rate and 220th in TO rate. They have an excellent two-point defense – just outside of the top 50 – and are in the top 100 of three-point rate defense. Their three-point percentage defense is thoroughly mediocre though, for what that’s worth. They block a decent amount of shots and do a solid job of funneling everything inside the arc, but their proclivity for fouling undercuts a lot of that work. It all adds up to the 57th-best defense in the nation.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jordan Pope | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’2″, 175 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 11.2/2/1.7 | Game line | 9.6/2.6/4.3 |
| 43.8/36.2/87.5 | Shooting line | 41.9/35.2/80.6 |
| Somebody technically has to be the point guard, and it’s this dude who is averaging fewer assists per game than Zach Freemantle. He’s a really efficient offensive player who’s a definite threat from behind the arc and has excellent ball security, but he – like many of his teammates – rarely makes a pass that leads to a bucket. He’s a good defender who can be pretty foul prone. He went off for 42 earlier this year, and accomplishment that shouldn’t be diminished by the fact that it was against KenPom #350 New Orleans. | ||
| Tre Johnson | Shooting Guard | Ryan Conwell |
| Freshman | Class | Junior |
| 6’6″, 190 | Measurements | 6’4″, 215 |
| 19.8/3/2.8 | Game line | 16.8/2.8/2.5 |
| 42.7/39.2/89.1 | Shooting line | 45.2/41.8/82.5 |
| The absolute lynchpin of the offense. He leads the starting lineup in assist rate and the team in basically every other meaningful offensive category. An absurd amount of his attempts are jumpers, with 201 shots from the mid-range and 217 from behind the arc. He’s only an okay finisher, but he makes up for that in volume from everywhere on the floor. He also mostly doesn’t turn the ball over. He’s an excellent player. | ||
| Tramon Mark | Small Forward | Marcus Foster |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’5″, 200 | Measurements | 6’5″, 215 |
| 10.4/3.6/1.6 | Game line | 7.6/4.8/2 |
| 40.1/34.7/74.7 | Shooting line | 39.1/38.1/75.9 |
| A familiar name from his time at Houston, Mark spent a year at Arkansas before finishing out his eligibility with Texas. He has only played over 30 minutes once this season and 0 times this year. He has been a high-volume guy in years past, but he has a 20% usage rate this year. He can be a solid scorer and is still dangerous from behind the arc. He’ll get some defensive numbers, but he can also foul fairly aggressively. | ||
| Arthur Kaluma | Power Forward | Dailyn Swain |
| Senior | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’7″, 225 | Measurements | 6’8″, 220 |
| 12.4/7.6/1.8 | Game line | 10.5/5.4/2.6 |
| 46.5/36.3/78.4 | Shooting line | 52.7/18.2/83 |
| Speaking of familiar faces, Arthur Kaluma! He chased the bag to Kansas State and then again to Texas. He remains an excellent defender and very good on the defensive glass. He averages one made three per game and is a good finisher who shoots way too much from the mid-range. He dropped 34/8/2 against Auburn earlier this season. | ||
| Kadin Shedrick | Center | Zach Freemantle |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’11”, 231 | Measurements | 6’9″, 227 |
| 8.7/6.1/0.6 | Game line | 16.8/2.8/2.5 |
| 55.6/31.6/67.2 | Shooting line | 45.2/41.8/82.5 |
| This guy is 0-1 against Marcus Foster in NCAA Tournament games, having been on the losing end of the Virginia-Furman game two years ago. He’s a bouncy big man who does really well on the offensive glass. He is a very good rim protector, but foul trouble is as big an issue for him. He has 49 dunks on the year; Xavier has 67 as a team. |
Reserves
An almost average amount, basically one in every three of their minutes comes off the bench. First off the bench is 6’3” guard Chendall Weaver, who averages 6.3/5/1.3 per game. He’s an excellent rebounder for a guard who slashes relentlessly, taking more than half his shots at the rim. He fouls a lot and is a bad free throw shooter.
Big men off the bench are led by 6’8” forward Jayson “Clark” Kent. He’s a senior who averages 5.5/3.3/0.5 per game. He does damage on the offensive glass and, like most of his teammates, fouls a lot. Ze’Rik Onyema and Devon Pryor both pitch in a little over 10 minutes per game and average exactly 3.2 PPG. They get on the defensive glass pretty well and combine to average 11 fouls per 40 minutes.
The team’s leading assist man comes off the bench. He’s senior guard Julian Larry, who averages 4.7/1.5/3.0 per game and turns the ball over like he never forgot how important sharing is. Both he and Kent played alongside Ryan Conwell at Indiana State last season.
Three questions
-Where will the freebie war fall? Neither team really forces a lot of turnovers on defense and both offenses are pretty secure with the ball. On the offensive glass, Xavier basically doesn’t make any effort at all. Texas sends a couple of dudes to the offensive glass, but Xavier’s defensive rebounding is head and shoulders better than that of the Longhorns. There might not be a big disparity in shots attempted between the two teams, but whoever can claw a couple more out of the game might find the difference decisive.
-How much of a semi-home court advantage will Xavier enjoy? UD Arena is just up the way from Xavier and approximately a lot farther from Texas’s campus. The Xavier crowd usually travels pretty well, and the trip up I-75 to Dayton isn’t that big of an ask. “Let’s go, X!” chants aren’t unheard of at venues near and far, and that kind of support is occasionally evident in a friendly whistle. These venues are technically supposed to be neutral, but that probably won’t be the case tonight.
-Can Xavier stop Tre Johnson? This dude is a bucket from just about everywhere and is absolutely cash from the free throw line. He can be bullied a bit by physical defenders, but he has a knack for scoring tough buckets when he can’t get all the way to the rim. Dailyn Swain has the build to match him length for length, but Marcus Foster’s brick outhouse build might be an intriguing option to body him up and chase him off the ball. Expect to see a variety of looks to keep him thinking instead of being able to just grab the ball and go get buckets.
Three keys
-Get to the line. Xavier feasts on free throws and Texas is generally pretty happy to send opponents to the stripe. Tre Johnson and Arthur Kaluma are the only two members of the rotation averaging under 3 fouls per 40 minutes, and all of their big men hack like it’s going out of style. Combine that with a perhaps friendly home-adjacent whistle and Xavier has a pathway to winning this game in the most irritating (for opposing fans) manner imaginable.
-Score fast. Texas can defend okay if they get a chance to get set and push opponents to their shotblockers in the middle of the floor. The remedy to this is, of course, to get to the tin before their big men get back and set up. Xavier loves to run anyway, and it would behoove them to catch the Longhorns on the run.
-Let them lift. Texas is 9-2 in the 11 games in which their three-point rate is the lowest and 10-13 when they take at least a third of their shots from behind the arc. Their offense isn’t super dependent on three-point shooting, but if you can push them out there, they’ll shoot themselves out of a game. Xavier is a solid defensive team from two-point range; if they can make it enough of a chore to get buckets in there, they’ll be halfway home and dry.