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Muskies Miss A-10 Road Opportunity!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/25/2013
Maybe the best thing to be said after XU's vexing 63-57 loss at Charlotte Wednesday nite is X never has to play in Halton Arena again ever. UNCC is headed back to Conference USA with their new football program and it's a near certainty that Chris Mack will never schedule the 49ers in the non-conference.
Weird things happen to the Muskies at Halton usually involving officials. Two years ago it resulted in extra UNCC free throws after a scorer's error. This time the refs just generally stunk. Fouls were 27-15 Xavier. This has been a low fouling Muskie team all season. Charlotte shot 29FTs to XU's 9 and outscored X by 10 from the FT line. But the Muskies outrebounded UNCC 44-33 including 21-6 on the offensive glass.
This was not total physical domination. In fact XU was doing rather well until Travis Taylor was tagged with a thin skinned "T" midway through the first half. He didn't curse the official. He did mention that the zebra missed a foul. Usually that merits a warning. Taylor went to the bench leaving only Semaj Christon as a dependable scoring option. The Taylor-Christon two man game was in rythm and giving Charlotte fits until then.
UNCC got away with ample woofing and chest beating all night. Guard Pierra Henry flopped twice-badly-drawing fouls on Dee Davis and Jeff Robinson-and he had the gall to celebrate getting away with his bad acting. Bad whistles are part of road adversity. Some officials exhibit home court bias. It's human nature not conspiracy theory. Good officials somehow blot the crowd out and focus on the call not the consequences. This was an inconsistent rabbit eared officiating crew. The game was too big for them. I hope they never are forced to work in a really super-charged environment like Cintas or UD Arena or face a truly passionate match-up like VCU-Richmond or XU-UD. They'd really be terrible. We'd shoot a million free throws. The game would last 3 hours and everybody would be disqualified for the final few minutes.
The officials did XU no favors, but X lost the game on its own merits or lack thereof. 17 Muskie turnovers in a half court game is way too many!! X made 3 of 12 three pointers (way below their A-10 norm). Charlotte frosh Denzel Ingram did a great job of face guarding Brad Redford. Brad didn't force shots and ended up scoring 5PTS with 3 rebounds and 2 assists and just 1 turnover. Justin Martin and Dee Davis had the bad outings(2-9 from 3).
X attempted only 9 FTs but compounded the problem by making just 4. This was a 6 point loss. 3 more FT makes and an extra 3 ball going in and we're in OT!! Scoring balance stunk. Taylor and Semaj each had 18. That's 36 of 57 points.The rest of the Muskies shot 8 for 36(22%). Kudos to Charlotte for taking Redford out of the equation as a third scorer,but nobody else stepped up. X took 68 shots to UNCC's 44.
Isiah Philmore and Jeff Robinson didn't take the ball to the rim. Eric Stenger tried but was rejected 3 times. Charlotte's frosh forwards played hard inside but other than Travis Taylor and Eric Stenger X didn't take the game to them-force them to guard and foul. Hey,it's one game, but it was an extremely winnable road game in the conference. Xavier would lead the A-10 at 5-0 with two road wins already salted away. XU won just 3 away all last A-10 season. 10 total wins in this balanced conference probably nets a first round A-10 Tournament bye in Brooklyn.
The Top 4 have an edge on an NCAA bid especially considering first round games are not being played at campus sites as all 12 tourney qualifiers head to the Barclay Center and play over 4 days. Now Xavier needs 2 maybe 3 more road wins (at St Joe's, at Richmond, at Duquesne, at Dayton, at URI, at Butler) to reach 10 victories in the league assuming 7 or 8 wins at home. A little bird or two tells me Coach Mack was verrrry extremely immensely upset with the loss.
It's a quick turn-around. The Muskies play St Joe's on Hawk Hill (Hagan Arena) in Philly Saturday nite (6PM-CBS Sports Network-Pete Gillen on color). X is tied for the A-10 lead with VCU and Charlotte at 4-1. Butler's 3-1. Everybody else has at least 2 losses. St Joe's sits at 1-3 in the A-10 and 10-7 overall. The Hawks have lost 3 times at home (Butler beat them in the opener and St Bonnies surprised them 73-64 Wednesday nite). SJU won at Duquesne and lost to VCU in OT.
Many had the Hawks as pre-season favorites and the talent is good and experienced.They beat Notre Dame early. Star Senior guard Tay Jones was suspended the first two games. His numbers(15PPG-3assists) are off a bit. He's not very big but he's slippery to the basket. He seems to post his best numbers in uptempo games. Butler and St Bonnies held him to single digits. He will play 35 minutes regardless.
The other guard is 6-2 Langston Galloway(14PPG). He's a lethal 3 point threat. Again Butler and St Bonnies kept him in check with a half court game. Soph Chris Wilson(6-3) has been starting. He's a bigger point guard type-pass first and drive. The book-end forwards are 6-8 Ronald Roberts and 6-9 CJ Aiken. Both dunk incessantly and go for blocked shots. They're tigers on the offensive glass. Aiken is more athletic. Roberts is very solid and hard to move.
6-8 Halil Kanacevic is coming off the bench. He was suspended after flicking off the crowd at Villanova as SJU blew a late lead on the road. He just returned from a funeral in Europe and played much better vs St Bonnies (16P-6R-5A). Halil is a multi-talented point forward. He gave XU trouble last season in a 68-55 come-from-behind Muskie victory at Cintas. Other bench players are forwards Papa Ndao and Daryus Quarles. There's no guard depth. St Joe's scores 70PPG and gives up 65.
Phil Martelli plays a lot of Philly style match-up zone. X needs to control tempo and make it a halfcourt game. Jeff Robinson played well vs Aiken and Roberts last season(12 PTS in 19 minutes). The Muskies need the good assertive JRob to win this game plus a more committed Isiah Philmore. More XU scoring options must emerge. Redford will get open looks vs the Hawks. They have no one who can guard Semaj consistently.
St Bonnies started 12-0 vs SJU Wednesday and led 35-10 with 4:30 left in the first half. The Bonnies held on to win. They had just 6 turnovers so they survived being outrebounded 36-19 and outscored 18-7 at the FT line. St Joe's helped by going 2-22 from 3. X can't expect SJU to start slowly. They have to break even on the boards and control the pace. It's a winnable game but softness handling the ball and down on the block ala Charlotte will result in a road loss.
The Karen Carns Foundation is hosting a reception at the XU Alumni Center on Dana Ave before Wednesday nite's Xavier-Dayton game. Doors open at 6:30. Beer, wine and food is supplied. Seth Davis of CBS and Mike DeCourcy from The Sporting News are scheduled to talk basketball. There will be plenty of door prizes and basketball memorabelia. It's $25 at the door with the money going to pay for tuition for local kids to attend catholic grade and secondary schools after they have lost a parent. They awarded $250,000 in aid last year. See you there!!!
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