|
Muskies Stay Focused!! Keep Pace with Temple!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
3/4/2010
As expected, Xavier clobbered sad sack Fordham, 82-56, at Rose Hill Gym in the Bronx Wednesday night. The Rams showed some fight early on. It was their Senior Nite! The teams basically traded baskets for about 12 minutes. Then Dante Jackson came out of nowhere to block Chris Gaston's seemingly sure driving lay-up. Over the ensuing 7:35 XU delivered intense defense, wore Fordham out and put the game on ice with a 17-7 run resulting in a 45-31 halftime lead.
Fordham was hell bent on stopping Jordan Crawford. JC played it cool and didn't force much. He scored 11 but chipped in 8 rebounds and 6 assists. Jackson bounced back after a subpar Richmond game and hit 3-of-5 three pointers.
Guards Terrell Holloway and Mark Lyons enjoyed successful homecomings to the NYC area playing their usual high energy style. Jamel McLean and Jason Love dominated inside teaming up for 9 offensive rebounds.
Coach Mack used his bench liberally. Brian Walsh logged 12 minutes scoring 4 with 2 rebounds and 2 steals. His passing skills are solid too and he's starting to play consistently hard which will net him even more time.
Kenny Frease played 19 minutes and contributed 7 points and 7 boards. Andrew Taylor got 15 minutes. He's seemingly always in the right place. Brad Redford did not play again but he may be available for the A-10 Tournament which starts for XU a week from Friday March 12th with a Quarterfinal game in Atlantic City.
It's looking more and more like the Muskies will share the conference regular season title with Temple but wind up with the second seed in the tourney. X is 22-7 overall with a 6 game win streak and a 13-2 A-10 record but TU is 13-2 also after winning 57-51 Wednesday at St Louis. The Owls beat XU in Philly January 20th to won the tiebreaker for seeding purposes. Temple closes out at home Saturday against GW (2PM). The Colonials are improved and potent offensively but TU will be favored.
X has St. Bonaventure Saturday at Cintas(4PM-Fox Sports Ohio). The Bonnies are rolling with 4 straight victories (most for them in league play since Jimmy Baron was coach 10 years ago). Mark Schmidt is making progress in his third year there. He learned the ropes coaching under Skip Prosser at XU. Former Muskie guard Jeff Massey is his top assistant.
Moeller grad Michael Davenport (6-4 Soph) is starting at guard for SBU. He flipped in 17 Wednesday night in the Bonnies' impressive 92-80 homecourt win over Duquesne. Seniors Jonathon Hall and Chris Matthews are playing well for St. Bonnies. Hall was A-10 Player of the Week recently. He's a 6-5 small forward type. Matthews is a long range bomber. Canadian Andrew Nicholson(6-9 Soph) rules inside. He blocks shots and rebounds and scores heavily but has experienced chronic foul trouble especially away from snowy Olean.
The bench is decent and experienced. SBU is shooting well and playing uptempo. Their last two wins over Rhode Island and Duquesne get my attention. They clinch 8th place in the conference at 8-8 if they upset XU. That would give them a home game next Tuesday in Round One of the A-10 Tournament. They can still finish 8th if they lose to the Muskies but they'd have to prevail in a tiebreaker over Duquesne. We are assuming the Dukes beat Fordham in Pittsburgh to go 7-9.
The Muskies will be hard to beat on Senior Day. It's Jason Love's swan song at Cintas. X has a 23 game overall win streak at home and a 31 gamer in A-10 competition. That regular season title is something tangible to play for.
My final A-10 Standings projections look like this: Temple and Xavier tied for first at 14-2. Temple the 1 seed - Xavier the 2 seed. Richmond at 13-3 is 3rd. St Louis at 10-6 is 4th and gets the final first round bye.
Rhode Island is 5th at 10-6. They play 12 seed La Salle Tuesday night in Kingston, RI. Dayton is 6th at 9-7. The Flyers host 11th seed St Joe's Tuesday night at UD Arena. Charlotte is the 7th seed at 9-7. The 49ers play 10th seed GW Tuesday at Halton Arena. St Bonnies grabs the 8th seed and hosts 9 seed Duquesne next Tuesday in Olean.
Xavier will play the 7-10 winner next Friday night March 12th in AC at 6:30. I'm thinking Charlotte wins at home even though they have been slumping. It's XU-Charlotte in the Quarters. Richmond plays Dayton in the late game Quarterfinal as I see it. Then Xavier meets Richmond again in the Saturday Semi at 3:30PM. Beyond that I'm not guessing!
Temple should make it to the Final again for a third straight year but upsets do happen. The league has three NCAA bids sewed up (Temple, Xavier, Richmond). A 4th bid might have to be the automatic bid for winning the tournament going to somebody other than TU, X or Richmond.
St Louis, URI, Dayton and Charlotte all are bubble teams and almost have to win the automatic to go NCAA. We'll see!! I'm probably way off base??
|
|
