Not enough dudes.
On December 14, 1912, Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis of the Far Eastern Party of the Australasian Antarctic expedition fell through a crevasse and passed away, taking his sled and most of the party’s supplies with him. Left behind with a handful of sled dogs and not even a tent for shelter were expedition leader Douglas Mawson and Swiss ski expert Xavier Mertz.
A veteran Antarctic explorer aged 30 years old, Mawson was in the peak of his strength. With more than 300 entirely barren miles between him and safety, he set out on the trek back. Mawson scavenged supplies from an earlier camp to fashion a crude shelter, which the men set up each night and broke down each morning. With 10 days of food for themselves and no food for the dogs, Mawson and Mertz pushed as hard as the could for the relative security of their main base. When a dog was exhausted, it became sustenance for the remaining party members.
Three weeks into the journey, with shelter and food in short supply or entirely absent much of the time, Mertz fell ill. Mawson nursed him along as best he could, but Mertz passed away on January 8, 1913. The next day, Mawson raised a cairn of ice blocks for Mertz’s mortal remains and conducted a small ceremony. With more than 100 miles still ahead of him, all his human and canine companions dead, and almost no supplies on hand, Mawson was well and truly alone.
I have to imagine a fractional measure of Mawson’s desperation has been felt lately by Sean Miller, as he stares down the bench for help that isn’t there.
It started in the off-season, when Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter were struck down by combinations of injury and ailment that would prove to end their seasons. Those guys were of course the headliners, but more under the radar went the loss of Indiana transfer big man Logan Duncomb, who had to step away from the game for health reasons. Further still under the radar went the knee injury that ended Bob Nunge’s season.
Four players down and the first game was still a month out.
Not dissuaded, Sean Miller threw up the Hail Mary in the form that has now collectively come to be called the Euros. Gytis Nemeiksa, Sasa Ciani, and Lazar Djokovic came on board very late into the off-season to shore up the suddenly think frontcourt as Abou Ousmane was shoved into a more prominent role.
The backcourt wasn’t immune, either. Both Kam Craft and Reid Ducharme have battled health issues that have limited their ability to participate in a season where minutes were there for the taking.
Then, when it seemed like things could hardly get any bleaker, the trend continued. Des Claude picked up an ankle injury against DePaul that he’ll just have to play through for the rest of the year. In the same game, Sasa Ciani picked up a foot issue that seems destined to end his season. Finally, Dailyn Swain’s appendix betrayed him, prematurely closing an impressive freshman campaign.
Presuming Bob Nunge wasn’t going to play a huge role in the strategy should he have not gotten hurt, that’s still seven players who had a shot at the rotation lost at different points to season-ending injuries or illnesses. You could make a case that the injury list for Xavier is just a point guard away from being able to make a go of it in the Big East. I’m confident they would have been better than Georgetown and DePaul.
In this context, it seems like a miracle that this team is even scrapping to keep its head above water. Much of that is down to Sean Miller, who remains a man of principle. With beloved star Quincy Olivari not playing to the standard Miller demands on defense, the head coach had no hesitation in benching him for walk-on Brad Colbert. Are Colbert and his mullet going to shut down DJ Davis? Likely not. Is Colbert going to works his guts out to try to make it tough sledding for Davis? Absolutely.
Mawson’s story didn’t end at Mertz’s grave. When he set out again, he found that the soles of his feet had just completely separated from everything above them. He wrapped his boots in socks for padding and kept trudging. When he encountered crevasses, he fashioned himself a rope ladder with which to climb out when he inevitably fell through. He scratched, clawed, and clambered alone, five miles a day, until he made it back to camp and ultimately civilization. He was knighted, served in WW1, and returned to the Antarctic for another expedition before working as a professor at the University of Adelaide until he retired.
We are almost certainly witnessing the second Miller Era at Xavier at its most beleaguered. The team’s roster has been whittled away, and what little chance there is of pulling anything from this season is down to the doughty heart of its leader. For good or ill though, this season will come to a close. Better days lie ahead for the program, and for those who will follow them on the long trek home.