Musketeer Madness

Sean Miller was generally happy with the team's effort tonight, especially on the defensive end. He congratulated CJ for taking a charge, getting a 4th foul on Terrell Williams early in the 2nd half. He joked that this was CJ's 1st charge taken while at XU, at that they have a cake in the locker room for him.

I think he knew that LaSalle gave us some matchup problems particularly at the guard position.He didn't seem unhappy with the performance although he did go off on Love for fouling on a 3 pointer again.

Thought it was a somewhat expected result for a league game against a lesser opponenet. X did what they needed to do the get the win, albeit not all that impressive. There will be games like that and LaSalle actually played pretty well for being LaSalle.

Several conclusions:
*The A10 is one tough conference to pick winners. St. Louis beats visiting UMass,visiting Richmond beats Charlotte by 8, St. Bonaventure (home) beats Duquesne, Rhody home beats Dayton by 12, St. Joe's home beats Fordham by 15 and of course Xavier home beats LaSalle by 13.

* There were a ton of stars, shows the box score:
#Stanley Burrell--Holds Darnell Harris, who had been averaging more than 16 ppg to 4--Scores 11 pts, hits 8 of 8 FT in second half late to halt a Lasalle comeback and seal a win; Hits a critical 3 late, grabs 2 rebounds, commits 1 foul, has 4 assists to 3 TOsand 1 steal in 34 minutes.
#Jason Love--scores 10 pts., grabs 2 rebounds, is 4-4 from the line has 1 assist in 13 minutes!
#CJ Anderson-- 60 % from the field, scores 16 points, grabs 7 reboundsblocks 3 shots and has 1 steal in 33 minutes.
# Derrick Brown--11 points, 7 boards, 2 assists , 2 Tos, 1 block in 30 min only 2 of 4 from ft.
#Drew Lavender--10 pts, 5 assists, 1 TO, 1 reb, 2 steals and didn't shoot 1 FT in 35 min.
#Josh Duncan--Mr. Late in the Game clutch play took the charge that wiped out a hoop and made a 3 on subsequent possession, a 5 point swing that sent a 4-pt X lead to 7 and blunted LaSalle's last drive. Scored 12 pts, grabbed 6 boards, had 3 assists, 4 TOs, 2 blocks and 1 steal in 24 minutes.

* That's six players in double figures, on 46 percent fg shooting, 75.9 from the line and 27 percent from the three-point range to LaSalle's 29 percent. LaSalle had been shooting threes at a much higher clip.
*Other goodies: Points in paint, X36-L 34; Points off TO, L21, X 19; 2d chance pts X
9-7; FAST break pts L13-6; Bench pts, X 17-7; Largest lead X 13, L 4.
*If Joe Sunderman and Byron Larkin are correct, officials Ken Clark, George Harry and Gene Steratore ought to be horse-whipped. But that's typical of the3 A10.

*Oh, and Lasalle is a better team than anyone expected. They always play Xavier tough. They're just a foreshadowing of what's to come when Xavier goes to St. Louis Thursday. I guarantee you it'll be Xavier's toughest league game by far and their toughest road game.
But it was still a win tonight. 18-4, 6-1 and sitting atop the A10. X is followed by St. Joe, Rhode Island, Charlotte, Temple and Richmond. Then Dayton, UMass, Duquesne, St. Louis, LaSalle, Fordham, GWash and St. Bona and all of those teams are sub .500 in the league.

Speaking of the zebras, how about when Clark makes a brutal hooking offensive foul call( on Anderson I think) and then while making the call clocks LaSalle player right in the chops.

if stanley doesn't walk away with a10 defensive player of the year, the award is a joke. and he should be a finalist for nat'l def. of the year as well...what other player in the country holds the other teams leading scorer under their average like he does?

bluegrass wrote:I think he knew that LaSalle gave us some matchup problems particularly at the guard position.He didn't seem unhappy with the performance although he did go off on Love for fouling on a 3 pointer again.

In fact the whole writeup yesterday in the Enquirer BEFORE the game was about how Miller saw this as a dangerous game. Games often have to do with matchup situations and not prior records. Gee guess Miller knew what he was talking about.

Sometimes I think we just read that stuff as "coach talk" but I think Miller is pretty up front and honest. Apparently the players didn't think so again nor did the many here calling for 40 point wins. Guess it confirms who I will tend to continue to listen to in the future. Let's give Coach Miller some credit for this win.

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