Just one thing here: Xavier Basketball

The season is winding to an end this week. It's not been an ideal season but I still hate to see it come to an end. The last home game is tonight against St. Louis. As it turns out, it also looks like it will be our last ever Atlantic 10 game at home.

St. Louis is playing great basketball. The Billikens have won 11 in a row and are now 12-2 in conference and ranked #16 in the AP poll and #15 in the USA poll. They run deep, playing 9 guys at more than 12mins/gm and having a balanced scoring attack with players all over the roster that can beat you. This is potentially the best team the Muskies will have played all year. Not exactly a cupcake game for Senior night so it will take a monumental effort to say the least.

Barring NIT games at Cintas, this will be our last chance to see Brad Redford, Jeff Robinson, and Travis Taylor. 

Brad has been a fan favorite since he hit his first 3-pointer his freshman year. I guess everyone loves the white kid who can hit 3s. He has been a lot of fun to watch. When Chris Mack came to watch a Brad Redford workout in high school and Brad hit 92 of 100 3s, Mack thought there was no way he would do that again. And he didn't; his next session he hit 93 out of 100! That tells you how great of a pure shooter Brad is. Going into the SLU game, Brad has made 188 3-pointers at X (vs 23 2-pointers)! Being a guard on the same roster as Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons really made it tough for him to get a ton of minutes during his first 3 years but his toughness and constant work on his game earned him minutes where he could get them. This year, with only 2 other guards on the roster, Brad has came up huge when the team has needed him. He's averaging 7.6 pts/gm in 23 minutes/gm of play. His game against GW where he hit 7 out of 8 3-pointers was something that may never be achieved again.

Jeff came into XU under the radar. Just as Brad had, Jeff had some talented guys in front of him on the depth charts at X. Over the years though, Jeff has come off the bench and provided some high-flying dunks that has sparked the Muskies and excited the fans. His Senior year, he's worked his way into the starting line-up, averaging 7 pts and 5 rebs per contest. Some may be surprised to know that he shoots 74% from the line, very respectable for a guy a few inches shy of 7 feet tall. Finish strong Jeff!

Travis Taylor is a guy who most of us probably wish we had for 4 years. Trav transferred to X after 2 years at Monmoth. His first year at X wasn't great; behind Kenny Frease and Andre Walker, he played under 15 minutes per game and averaged 4.5pts / 3.7reb / 45% shooting. But Taylor has been working like a madman since he got to Xavier and it has paid dividends. His Senior year, he's averaging 11.8pts / 8.6reb / 56% shooting. He's leading the A10 in rebounding, something no Musketeer has done since a man named David West. He's truly a great example of what happens when you tirelessly work at something.

These guys were not 5-star recruits but they have worked hard and have worn the "X" with pride. Any Musketeer is a Musketeer for life. I'm happy to soon be able to call them fellow alums. Thanks Brad, Jeff, and Travis!

Go Muskies!

With a less than 100% Dee Davis and no Landen Amos, the Muskies couldn't get it done on Saturday. The biggest problem was the 3 point shot. UMass hit 13 of 25 on 3-pointers, accounting for more than half of the Minutemen's points.

With UMass star Chaz Williams in foul trouble most of the game, the Muskies really should've been able to win this game. Semaj played 39 minutes and had 17pts and 6 ast, includ 7-8 from the line. Philmore had 14 and Redford had 13 but the first of the team didn't have a lot of offense. Martin had 9 and Taylor had 10 but did almost nothing in the 2nd half.

The loss really kills X's chances at a bye in the A10 tourney. Winning both the remaining games would be the Muskies only chance and that's not gonna be easy. Wednesday night, X hosts St. Louis on Senior Night and then heads to play at Butler on Saturday.

Our hopes for an at-large bid are completely gone. The only way to the big dance is by winning the A10 tourney so these next 2 games are basically warm-up games for the ones that really matter. Wins of course would help X get a better seed in Brooklyn.

Go Muskies!

ESPN and multiple news outlets have reported that the "Catholic 7" will buy the rights to the "Big East" name and form their own basketball conference for the upcoming season. Xavier and Butler will be joining immediately!

All the details outside of the 7 teams + XU and Butler have yet to be worked out. The 2013-2014 season will have at least those 9 schools and possibly a 10th. The season after that will then likely have a total of 12 teams. The schools commonly referred to during conference realignment talk as "The Catholic 7" are Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, Marquette, Villanova, DePaul, and St. John's. Speculation for who will fill out the rest of the league revolves mostly around Creighton, St. Louis, Dayton, and Richmond. Other schools have been mentioned as well but every day there seems to be new articles with different peoples' guesses at what might happen with who.

Congrats to Xavier! This deal, which was sped up considerably by Fox's huge TV deal offer for this new conference, means much larger revenues coming into the Athletic Department. Under Xavier's currently TV deal, the school gets around $400K/yr. The new deal will likely result in $2 Million to $4 Million per year! 

With basically 7 players, the Muskies pulled out a big upset win over Memphis on Tuesday night!

Everybody stepped up huge in Dee and Landen's absence.

Semaj started off slow shooting but came up big down the stretch - 13 pts, 5 reb, 5 ast, only 1 turnover
Redford - 32 big minutes of the bench (only Semaj played more) - 10 pts
Travis Taylor - the man! Despite sitting a lot of the 1st half with 2 early fouls, 18 pts, 10 pts, 2 blks
Philmore - big game! 15 pts, 6 rebs, 2 blks
Robinson - 8 pts on 3/4 shooting, including a big 3-pointer, 6 rebs, 2 blks

I want to add that Stenger played 10 minutes and hustled all over the place, getting 5 rebs and a block, and James Farr got in for 3 minutes and got 2 rebounds and a block.
 
Cintas was very loud at times despite the students being on spring break and there being what seemed like pockets of empty seats up top. Very fun atmosphere and big win after the deflating loss to VCU last time out.

Next up - X hosts UMass at 2pm on Saturday. Dee Davis' status is still up in the air.

Go Muskies!

Dee Davis is out tonight after colliding with a VCU player on Saturday. Landen Amos is nowhere close to 100% with a hip injury.

The Muskies play the top-20 ranked Memphis Tigers tonight, who have won 18 in a row and have a ton of talented players. Exactly the type of team we don't want to play with an under-manned roster. Memphis can score and score efficiently, averaging 76 pts/gm and 48% shooting overall.

Had we had a healthy Dee Davis tonight, I'd have felt pretty good about our chances. But with only one true ball-handler and essentially only 7 players with any significant floor time available tonight, there aren't many reasons to hopeful going into this one. We normally ask a lot of Semaj. Tonight we will have to rely on him even more so and need other players to play out of their minds to win this one.

Let's go Muskies! Make something happen!