Xavier v. Villanova: preview, matchups, keys to the game

The superest of all games to be contested this Sunday won’t involve Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.

The difference between throwing a lifeline and prolonging agony is one of fine margins, and it isn’t always clear in anything but retrospect. The last time these two teams played, Xavier sat at -1.7 WAB and found themselves down to their last 18% of win probability. Ryan Conwell’s incandescent second half almost singlehandedly won the game for Xavier; we don’t yet know if he was blowing an ember into a flame or just delaying a pronounce time on the Muskies’ season.

We might find out on Sunday. From December 14 through January 7, Xavier went 1-5 despite having a positive scoring margin in regulation. Out of that absolute nadir, they’ve dug themselves all the way back to within touching distance of the surface. This game at Villanova is a Quad 1 opportunity that carries enough WAB to put Xavier back in the positive in that metric. So much has gone wrong for Xavier this year; they have a chance to set a lot of it right in this game.

Villanova has gone the opposite way since the game at Cintas. Their formidable offense has taken a step back, maybe laboring under the workload heaped on them by one of the shortest benches in D1. They snuck by Providence and slogged through an unconvincing victory against DePaul. They also got held scoreless for the final five minutes of a one-point home loss to Georgetown, got run off the floor by Marquette, and lost a heartbreaker against Creighton on a Steven Ashworth banked three from an impossible angle.

Much like Xavier earlier in the year, they’ve fallen victim to having just one too few things go right for them in each game. There’s a chance that Kyle Neptune is about to draw up his magnum opus here; it seems more likely that this is going to be a brawl between two talented, desperate teams with their seasons heading in opposite directions.

Team fingerprint

The first time these teams played, Nova was a top 10 offense. They’re now a top 20 offense. That’s still very good, but it’s no longer elite. They’re fueled by a barrage of threes, solid ball security, and efficiency at the line. They don’t get to the line very much, and they’re also not great shakes on the offensive glass. This is an excellent shooting team, but they are very much reliant on perimeter scoring all across the lineup.

Their defense is sixth in the league, but it matches up with Xavier’s offense in some interesting ways. Their strength is the defensive glass, which is fine, because Xavier doesn’t OReb anyway. They’re incredibly permissive around the arc, ranking 8th in 3P% defense and 11th in 3P rate. You can get your shots up against these guys. They’re also bad at forcing turnovers and have a tendency to send opponents to the line fairly frequently. The whistle can be fairly fickle in college ball, especially for the road team, but there’s just some information to sock away in Nova’s statistical profile.

Players

Starters

Reserves

Tyler Perkins is first off the bench. His offensive efficiency is 110, which on this team is a pauper’s number. He doesn’t turn the ball over much, but he’s not a great shooter. His versatility gets him minutes. Other than that Xavier can expect to see Josiah Moseley, a 6-6 swingman who will not shoot from deep but is good inside and rebounds well, and Jordann Dumont, a pick and pop four who has just recently seen decent time. Kris Parker may play, though he didn’t last game. He is the one Wildcat who isn’t efficient from the floor, and he doesn’t do anything extremely well.

Three questions

-Which Ryan Conwell will show up? When Conwell is on, he’s an incredible weapon. His game against Nova is exhibit 1 here, but he has hit 3 or more threes in 13 of his 23 games at Xavier. If he’s on the mark, he’s basically nailed on double figures in the scoring column. The problem is that he’s 11-55 from deep in the 10 games in which he has made 2 or fewer threes. He’s prone to stretches where he’s stone cold, and his approach to those slumps is to shoot himself out of them. He’s still cash from the line and his work inside the arc has taken a step forward in conference play, but I think all Xavier fans would be comforted by seeing him get a couple to fall early.

-How much of a difference will Dailyn Swain make? Home to Nova was Swain’s last kind of passive game; he went for 6/5/1 on 6 FGA and a 12% usage rate. After that showing, someone apparently pointed out to him how good he is, because he has reeled off averages of 14.4/5.8/1.6 in the five games since, culminating with dropping a career high on the player Laphonso Ellis repeatedly deemed the best perimeter defender in the league even as Swain sliced him up almost at will. If Swain is locked in, it’s not clear who Nova has with the size and speed to stay in front of him.

-Is Eric Dixon out of gas? Nova’s big man has gotten more than 4 minutes of rest in just two games since the calendar turned, and one of those barely counts because it was against DePaul. He shot 10-20 against Butler on New Year’s Day; since then, he’s averaging 20.6 PPG on a shooting line of .387/.379/.870. You’d think if his lift was gone, that 3P% would be lower, but he’s also shooting just 39.3% on 10 attempts per game from inside the arc. He’s a big lad, and Nova has put a lot of miles onto his odometer this year; it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s laboring a bit right now.

Three keys

-Defend Dixon well. The big man – who will be playing in his 150th collegiate game on Sunday – is where it begins and often ends for Villanova. If he can be forced to be inefficient, the Wildcats don’t have too much else that they look for on the offensive end. Xavier started Marcus Foster on him last game, rightly noting that – for all his size – Dixon is more of a stretch five than a banger right now. These are not the Jay Wright Wildcats that could put a defense into rotation and then cut it apart; X can run bodies at Dixon to help out.

-Be the aggressor. Speaking of ways you can tell this isn’t a Jay Wright team, Nova no longer gets every call and most of the no-calls. Xavier leads the Big East in offensive free throw rate, and Nova is only 8th in keeping league opponents off the line. With how shallow the Wildcat bench is, how good X has been at getting to the line, and how ascendant Dailyn Swain has been over the past few weeks, the Muskies should slash early and often and put pressure on the zebras to do their job. Without GQ Jay patrolling the sidelines, they just might.

-Nothing easy. In the five games since they last played Xavier, the bottom has fallen out of Villanova’s offense. They’re shooting just 33% from deep and 48% from inside the arc, and they’ve almost entirely stopped getting to the free throw line. Their defense has stepped up a bit, mostly on the glass, but their statistical profile hints at maybe the check engine light starting to come on for this team. They need to get something simple to break them out of this rut; if Xavier can keep the defensive energy high and not give away possessions on the other end with boneheaded plays, they have a chance to set down a marker for their season turnaround in this game.