Well, Kendall Marshall's broken wrist really hurt those of us who picked UNC to win it all. It's a wide open race with only 3 games to go.

Looks like zoffa, hank2061, ruppreid, Matt_Corn, dineenkm1, sweetraylaurel1, and LaBryson1795 are fighting for the top couple spots down the stretch.

Good luck!

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8 months til Muskies play again.  We don't start down 22-4 to Baylor, we win easily.  I'm so disappointed. 
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ________
. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . ,.-‘”. . . . . . . . . .``~.,
. . . . . . . .. . . . . .,.-”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“-.,
. . . . .. . . . . . ..,/. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ”:,
. . . . . . . .. .,?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\,
. . . . . . . . . /. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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Well, the day is finally here.  As has been the case in many previous tournament games, the Muskies are the underdogs.  I didn't really think this could be possible, but apparently UC's win over Florida State to make the Sweet 16 was the first time in school history that they beat a higher seeded team.  That's pretty wild.  I'm curious how many times Xavier has done that.  I may have to check some numbers and post that next week.

On to the matchup... Baylor is unbelievably talented. They've lo...

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Part 2 of the Baylor/Xavier preview is coming.  Dezmine Wells was able to practice today so he appears to be in good enough shape to play Friday.  Unfortunately, Andre Walker has been held out of practice all week after getting hit in the head a couple times in the games last weekend.  Hopefully he will be alright.

I wanted to pass along a comical breakdown of who to root for of the final 16:
http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/7722387/page-2-rooting-guide-sweet-16
It's a quick read but no ...
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If you haven't heard this yet, it's worth repeating...Xavier, North Carolina, Mich St, and Kansas are the only schools to make 4 of the last 5 Sweet 16s.  That's pretty impressive!

On to our next opponent: Baylor.  To be quite honest, the 2 teams I would least want to play in the tournament, from a standpoint of matchups, are Baylor and UK.  And if we are going to the Final Four, that's probably who we're going to have to beat.  Baylor's big guys are very athletic.  Their combination of size a...
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If you didn't see what was one of the coolest upsets ever in the NCAA Tournament yesterday, you probably still know nothing about Lehigh.  The school is in Bethlehem, PA.  Their mascot is the Mountain Hawk and their bold choice of colors are brown and white.  With a total of about 7,000 undergrads + grads, they are very similar in size to Xavier.

Other than that they beat Duke, what do we know about them?  Well, they beat Duke.  Oh, other than that?  Nothing.  They have a respectable RPI of 91...
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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

MUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sorry Notre Dame.
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Here's a breakdown of our 3 common opponents.  We had the luxury of playing all 3 at home where as the Irish did not.  We certainly fared better but 5 of the 6 games below were very early on in the season.  While the Muskies started strong and then faded, the Irish did the opposite and were on fire during the conference season.

Common Opponents (H=Home, A=Away, N=Neutral site)
               Notre Dame     Xavier
Georgia    L by 4(N)      W by 14(H)
Gonzaga  L by 20(A)    L by 7(H)
Cincy       L b...
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It looks like the Muskies will tip-off closer to 10PM than 9:30 on Friday.  More than half of the original 68 teams will be eliminated before XU's 1st game is decided.  And it may even be St. Patrick's Day when it the game ends as well.

The Irish are getting to celebrate their favorite holiday Saturday, let's hope that'll be all they celebrate.  They are a 2 1/2 point favorite over the Muskies.  The Muskies are in an underdog role that we have certainly thrived in, in years past.  A slight und...
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Go to the link below and enter the password to join in the fun!

http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/en/group?groupID=188758

Private Group Name: Xavier Basketball.comFans
Password: xavierbasketball

What's on the line?  Bragging rights over your friends.

Go Muskies!
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If you're an out of town Muskie fan, see if the Xavier chapter in your city has a designated place to unite and cheer on our Muskies...

http://www.xavier.edu/alumni/content/get-informed/basketball.cfm#viewing

Scroll halfway down that page and you'll see what chapters are hosting and where.  Hope you can enjoy the game Friday night with some fellow Musketeers.

GO MUSKIES!!!
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We lost to the Bonnies in the A10 title game.  It was not fun. Nicholson was out of this world and was getting the foul calls that a NBA star gets.  But guess what, time to forget about that and move on.

Looks like about a 9:40 tip Friday night against the Irish!  Should be a good one.  Much more to come.

MARCH ON MUSKIES!!!

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Several weeks ago I would have called you crazy if you said Xavier would be in the A-10 Championship game. Josh would have called you a vondrook. Last night's epic win against a good St. Louis team should punch the Musketeers ticket to the big dance. Tonight, we should solidify a decent seed and continue the run. First about last night. In nerve racking fashion the Musketeers were led by Tu and Dez who put up 21 and 18 points respectively on a night where Xavier shot 53% from the field and a ...

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Revenge is sweet, but pan seared Billikin is delicious. Xavier has not had much luck against SLU this year losing 2 of 2. Today Mack's Mighty Muskies get another chance for redemption. SLU is seen as a tournament lock having big wins in the early part of the season and closing out the conference 12-4. Obviously if XU wants to dance they have to knock out St Louis much like George McFly knocked out Biff Tannen in Back to the Future to get into the dance. Conklin and Mitchell are the two leadin...
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When it comes to rubber matches all bets are off and you can count only on pure mayhem to ensue. The northeastern playground of Atlantic City got all that and more as two foes squared off in a battle royale. Miles from the safe haven of I-75 the battle was waged. The first half was a disaster and looked as if the Dayton Dumpsters would again dash the hopes of the Musketeer faithful. I don't know what was said in that locker room during halftime but the mighty Muskies came back with a vengance...

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Well, we've seen these two play what seems like countless times over the last half decade.  Until last year's train wreck of a game, Xavier has always beaten Dayton in A10 tournament play.

If you don't get the game on TV, you can watch any or all of the games on atlantic.com/allacess for free!

I was going to dive into the stats and break down XU's first game but whenever it's Xavier and Dayton, you can throw all that out the window.  Xavier is probably a little bit more talented than Dayton on ...
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For the 6th time in the last 14 months or so, Xavier and Dayton will play each other.

Last year, you probably remember cursing and yelling as Xavier lost to Dayton in the A10 tourney due to a ridiculous last second foul call.  Let's hope the Muskies fare much better this time around.

Will the Dayton team that beat XU at home or the Dayton team that lost to Rhode Island show up?  Much more to come on the A10 tourney so stay tuned.

Go Muskies!
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I've pasted above just the bottom half of the A10 bracket.  The rest of it only matters if the Muskies win Friday and Saturday.  (Go to the "Info on your Muskies" page to see the full bracket)

For what seems like the millionth time, we could be playing Dayton in the A10 tourney....since Dayton plays 10 times harder against XU than any other opponent, I'd rather not play them in the postseason.  But a win would feel pretty good.  If Dayton does beat GW on Tuesday, this game Friday would be a bu...
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Senior Day was appropriately led by Kenny Frease and Tu Holloway.  Frease had 18 points and 12 rebounds and Tu had 24 points.  The team had 8 blocks and 3 were by Mark Lyons.

It wasn't all that pretty.  XU was down by as much as 14 in the 1st half before cutting it to 7 for halftime.  Tu and Kenny's play in the 2nd half got us the lead and helped us pull away.

The win, combined with LaSalle's win over the Bonnies means that the Muskies have the 3rd seed in the A10 tourney and a bye.  They will ...
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We will see the Seniors' last home game at Cintas this Saturday.  No disrespect to Andre Walker who has been a solid contributor this year, but I wanted to share a few quick thoughts on Tu Holloway and Kenny Frease.

Kenny is 1 point shy of 1,000 career points.  He will be the 50th Xavier player to join the 1,000 point club.  He's at 679 rebounds and 122 blocks for this career.  I can still remember where I was when he scored 12 points off the bench to help give us the win at LSU his Sophomore ...

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After all the ups and (mostly) downs of the season and 6 conferences losses, the Muskies can still get a 1st round bye and a top 4 seed in the A10 tourney.  Why?  Well, UDump and UMass both blew chances last night at tying XU in the standings.  Both teams would've been ahead of us in seeding for the tournament due to tie-breakers.  But both lost last night.

Temple has locked up the #1 seed, St. Louis the #2.  St Bonnie has a 1 game lead over the Muskies for the #3 seed but they play at LaSalle...
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