Villanova Game Thread

[longliveskip]

let's start with the bad - the last 3 minutes of the first half were about the worst Xavier basketball i've seen in years and i've watched all of Steele's teams play. whether it was Dayvion dribbling off his foot or giving up offensive rebounds, etc. it was just bad.

that being said, as bad as that stretch was, this team played well vs. a pretty good Villanova team. Sean's game plan on how to defend Dixon was great. basically run Zach at him anytime he caught it inside the 3 and it worked great as he had a quiet 18. Cornwell finally busted out like we've been wanting him to do. Freemantle had about his worst shooting game of his career and still managed 10 and 9.

to be frank, that's a game that we've lost multiple times this year - a close game with under 5 minutes and we haven't been able to simply "make the plays", be it we've turned it over, not gotten stops, etc. we did that last night and then Conwell made the shots when we needed them.

that's a huge win, mainly just for the psyche of this team moving forward more than anything else.

[skyhops]

Agree with Skips posts especially the last portion of the first half. We are just carless and can't get out of our own way. We all love Jerome, but for a 25 year to play like he does is mind boggling. The defensive effort was there and Foster and others did a good job despite undersized for Dixon. If I see Freemantle and McKnight switch on a high ball screen and McKnight getting stuck guarding a big in paint I'm going to lose it. Luckely McKnight is pretty tough player. Take out Conwells numbers and that is a bad as I've seen Hunter and Free play. On the bright side we have Conwell, who played the best half of basketball I've seen from a Xavier guard. Conwell seems to get a lot of ticky tack fouls called on him that great players usually don't get, hopefully that changes. Good win. If anyone knows Swain please tell him to take the ball strong to the basket. We can't win game with him being a no show.