Musketeer Madness

Obviously this wasn't his best game, but it seems he has been off for the last 2-3, with the exception of the second half in the last game (if I am remembering correctly).

Does anyone know if something is wrong, or is it just the "down" part of an up and down season?

Who cares . . . we just beat Dayton by 30.

He led XU in rebounds at halftime.

He is not going to get 20 points and 9 assists every night. He played well. It is not a one man team. That is why we are a good team. We do not have to depend on one player every single night. We know we are going to get strong performances by at least three players every game.

We won and won playing a strong game tonight - solid d - agressive on O.

He just picked up a couple of quick fouls and sat. when he came back he was just out of synch. Sean may have also rested him because of the ouchy knee

Not his A game but he was ok when he played. I liked the way we continued to pull away in the first half when he sat with 2 fouls. Good out guys didn't have to play a tough game before UMAss.

The silver lining to Drew's temporary woes is the ever-improving play of Dante Jackson. The kid had a very nice floor game last night, looked like he is getting more and more confidence, and doesn't seem a bit hesitant when he has to run the offense.

I like how this is all playing out. Drew will quickly return to his normal self and Dante will become an even more important cog in a great Xavier machine. As Coach Miller stated in last night's post-game show, he is still pushing to lengthen the bench by giving Adrion Graves and Dante Jackson more minutes and bigger supporting roles in our team's play. This bodes well for the overall health and vitality of the team down the stretch and is totally different from the approach taken by most coaches who shorten their benches to 6-7 players as tourney time nears. At that point, I like our chances to out-work our opposition who may be otherwise our equal.

Drew is never been a real consistent scorer.He might come out and score 20 on Sunday. Last night we didn't need him to do anything real spectacular but in close games we need him to step up like the GW game.Dante played his best game yet.By this time of the season you need your freshman to step up and he has.

I've been wondering about Drew as well. He seems a good but very ordinary PG these days compared to his play earlier this season when he was able to create scoring opportunities inside the arc for both himself and his teammates by penetrating the perimeter defense and getting to the paint. These past few games seem much more about Drew coming off a high screen and then either passing it back to the screen player or simply dribbling some more around the perimeter. This has resulted in an offense characterized by a much higher percentage of 3-pt shots than before. It helps that we have so many shooters that we can make a lot of those shots, but I hate the fact that we seem to have become so reliant on them. Our offense has become stagnant and worse, very predictable.

I think Drew'w knee is impacting his ability to penetrate the lane. Hopefully it heals quickly. Even with the gimpy knee he is a great asset - 7 rebounds for a 5'7" point guard. You have to be kidding.

I see your point, but, just looking at Drew's game-by-game numbers this year, he goes 3-4 games in a row with double-digit scoring, and then has one game in single digits before getting back to double digits.

That having been said, his 3 points last night was easily his low scoring output of the season (the previous low was 7), and he hasn't had a big scoring night since the Kan. St. game (12/31) when he netted 21 points.