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Muskies Level Lehigh!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
3/20/2012
I really felt confident that Xavier would beat Lehigh in the NCAA Round of 32. The Mountain Hawks were good!! Good enough to beat Duke on Tobacco Road, but the attention heaped on a first time Cinderella NCAA winner is staggering and draining. LU was barraged by media, alumni, friends, family. That short turn-around between the 64 and the 32 is too short to absorb everything-enjoy the moment and recharge for the next team.
North Carolina fans gave the Lehigh players a long thunderous ovation in Greensboro when they emerged from their dressing room to watch a little of UNC-Creighton. It was powder blue's way of thanking the boys from Bethlehem, PA for knocking out archrival Duke. Thanks to the funky pod system, UNC had no dog in the LU-XU fight. Carolina was headed for the St Louis Regional not Atlanta. In the old days UNC fans would have stayed around and rooted hard for a Lehigh upset of Xavier but most headed for the exits after Carolina disposed of Creighton. Lehigh needed that crowd juice that wasn't there.
The Hawks played on adrenalin for about 16 Lehigh. They carved up the Muskie defense while X stagnated. LU built a 35-20 lead with just 3:30 left in the half.
And problems were multiplying for XU. Dez Wells injured a toe. He played just 8 minutes with no points or rebounds after shinning vs Notre dame (14P - 11 boards). Mark Lyons ran into foul trouble. Tu Holloway was so fixated on defending LU star C.J. McCollum he forgot about offense for a while. Andre Walker seemed limited by the head injury he'd sustained against the Irish. Negatives were piling up.
Dee Davis stepped in again though as he had with stellar defense vs ND. He slowed down LU PG Macey McKnight and made two rainbow "3s" and stepped in to absorb 3 charges (2 on McCollum-sending him to the bench).
X combined defensive stops with a few circus shots and destroyer dunks from Kenny Frease into a 13-2 run to halftime. X trailed just 37-33 at the break.
The March Mojo continued with a 7-0 run out of halftime. Frease scored 5. He and Holloway hooked up on the prettiest high screen and roll play of the season as Tu hit Kenny with a perfect feed leading him into a monster two handed slam. Frease had a career game with 25 points and 12 rebounds. His 11 for 13 shooting display was the best ever in 40 plus NCAA games played at Greensboro. He controlled the glass emphatically.
I've said all year that Kenny would get an excellent chance to make an NBA roster. His play the last 3 weeks confirms it. He and Holloway are juicing their NBA stock much like Jordan Crawford did two years ago.
Dee Davis started the second half for XU with Wells injured. X prospered with a 3 guard line-up most of the half. Great play from Frease and Andre Walker and Jeff Robinson and Justin Martin made the smaller line-up work.
Walker somehow cleared his head and contributed 5P-5R and 2 assists plus a huge blocked shot late. His determined lefty drive from the top of the key thru the lane for a speed lay-up fleshed the Muskie lead to 60-52 with 2:36 left. That was the crusher!!
Robinson collected a career high 8 rebounds and made all 4 of his FTs plus played solid inside defense. Martin had an assist-a basket and 7 boards in just 13 minutes. The bench collectively stepped up BIG TIME (12 points-18 rebounds-strong defense).
Holloway was magnificent in Greensboro (46 points in two games on 16 of 30 shooting). He held LU's star McCollum to 14 (5 of 21 FG) while playing 39 minutes. The Muskies posted impressive numbers vs ND and LU winning the rebound war each nite comfortably-outscoring the enemy 33-17 at the FT line-making 12 of 25 three pointers and limiting the bad guys to 63 and 58 points. Lehigh make just 14% of their FGs after halftime.
Kudos to the Xavier coaches! They were creating line-ups and match-ups and plays on the fly with players going down and bad stuff happening in profusion. Chris Mack and company have faced and conquered a lot of adversity this season after the early cruise to 8-0. The goal all along was to be playing well in March. That is happening!!
Baylor is up next in the Sweet 16 at Atlanta (Georgia Dome-7:15PM-CBS TV). The Big 12 Bears are long and deep and talented. They play some zone. They've been rated in the Top 10 almost all season.
BU is 29-7 with 3 losses to Missouri, 2 vs Kansas and one each to Iowa State and Kansas State. 3 seed Baylor will be a strong favorite.
Hopefully, Dez Wells will be able to play?? It's debatable how much Xavier can afford to play a 3 guard line-up against lanky Baylor.
We'll have more on the XU-BU match-up later in the week.
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