In what is likely the toughest test of the year, a battle with 6th ranked Villanova, the Muskies are without their best big man, Matt Stainbrook, who injured his knee early against Seton Hall on Monday.

It is Senior Night and we'll honor Isaiah Philmore, Landen Amos, Erik Stenger, and Tim Whelan tonight. Sadly it's spring break for the students but we will be close to or at a sell-out to support our Seniors.

We're against tough odds tonight but let's get loud for the Muskies!

GO X!!!
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The Muskies were up 15 in the 2nd half and leading the whole way against #23 Iowa. But Semaj left the game with 12 1/2 minutes to go with cramps and countless fouls on X slowed production to a halt. The game eventually went to OT where Iowa finally took the lead and won by 3.

How about a million reasons why we didn't win this game...?
Injuries - Semaj goes down with cramps with more than a quarter of the game remaining. Amos, our best defensive player who we could have really used, of course is...
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After a great performance in an under-18 tournament in Europe in July, today Alexander Vezenkov is rumored to have signed a 3 year deal to play professionally in Europe.

Xavier fans were fearing this would happen. He had verbally committed to Xavier and Coach Mack but the demand for Vez in the European pro leagues has only gone up in the last few months.

Vez was expected to at least earn solid minutes at Small Forward and potentially compete with Justin Martin for the starting spot. This would ...
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There's lots of time and practices before the season starts in November but here's a very, very early prediction for the starting 5 when the season starts.

Guard - JR, Dee Davis
Guard - SO, Semaj Christon
Forward - JR, Justin Martin
Forward - SR, Isaiah Philmore
Center - JR, Matt Stainbrook

Christon, Philmore, and Stainbrook were named team captains for this coming season which makes sense. I think all 3 will be big-time contributors on the floor this season. The reigning Atlantic 10 Freshman of th...
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It wasn't a pretty win, but a win nonetheless. The Muskies won on the road against Duquesne in front of a pretty sparse crowd. I'd guess there were no more than 3 or 4 thousand in attendance with about a third of us being X fans!

Balanced scoring was a pleasant surprise Saturday. How about these 4 guys stepping it up?!
Semaj 16 pts, 8 ast, 7 reb, 2 stl (and just 1 turnover)
Philmore 16 pts and 6 rebs, went 8-12 on FTs
Martin 15 pts on 6-9 shooting, 8 rebs
Taylor 13 pts on 5-7 shooting, 12 rebs
 
Dee...
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This is just getting too hard to watch. The Muskies finally make some free throws and go hard to the glass to dominate in rebounding but go on to blow a big 2nd half lead again! 

Other than Travis Taylor and Erik Stenger, I don't think anyone for Xavier can be counted on right now. Taylor had 12 pts and 7 rebs in 22 minutes of play due to foul trouble and Stenger had 6 pts and 8 rebs in just 20 minutes. We had 19 turnovers! Some of those were due to good defense by the Vols but many of those w...
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Well, we thought we'd be short-handed coming into the season. But in the final weeks before and the morning of the season-opener, that is an understatement. 
- Isaiah Philmore must sit out the first 3 games for a NCAA infraction from a summer league form not signed 3 years ago.
- Chris Cantino has still not been deemed eligible/ineligible by the NCAA and will not suit up tonight (or possibly all year).
- Brad Redford has been day-to-day with a hamstring injury. The good news is that it sounds li...
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It was certainly not the most impressive win but there were some good signs from the Muskies in their exhibition Saturday. XU won 74-53 using only 8 players (other than the last minute of the game). Redford's hamstring was not 100% after tweaking it last week. He did not play Saturday but should be good to go to start the season.

Starting Five: Dee Davis, Semaj Christon, Erik Stenger, Jeff Robinson, Travis Taylor
 
Some takeaways from last night's game: 
The Good:
- We survived a game with only 2 ...
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