Just one thing here: Xavier Basketball

AHHHHHH!!! Despite Travis Taylor's 20 pts and 11 rebs and a 12 point halftime lead, the Muskies fell apart in the 2nd half and lost to Wofford, 56-55. Almost no students there due to Winter Break and many season ticket holders for this one; that certainly didn't help the effort.

Two Brad Redford's three-pointers brought the Muskies back and tied the game in the closing seconds. But Jeff Robinson fouled Lee Skinner after he received the in-bounds pass with 8 seconds left. WHAAAAAAAAT! Skinner made 1 of 2 and then the Muskies ran down the court only to have Semaj Christon called for a charge, a call that seemed questionable to say the least.

And what the heck are we doing at the free throw line??? Wofford shoots 88% and we shoot 50%! Good lord!
 
I can't believe the Muskies gave this one away. I just can't believe it. This loss is debilitating. We have 2 horrible losses, home games to Vanderbilt and Wofford and 1 not-so-good loss to Pacific. As amazing this season started, it has quickly fallen apart.
 

Well, to say that was disappointing would be an understatement. We did play solid defense most of the night. The Muskies played tough and led at the half despite missing all their 1st half free throws! The 2nd half was horrendous though. Justin Martin with 2 quick fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game and then quick ones to start the 2nd half kept him out most of the game; he scored zero points. Cramping injuries kept our main scoring threat, Semaj Christon, out the 2nd half and kept Dee Davis from being able to run, and sometimes walk. So, at some points, we had zero point guards playing. That tells you how well the 2nd half went! 

Here's how the Muskies fared on yesterday's keys to the game (hint, not well)...
Turnovers - Started off well but XU finished with 15 turnovers. 
Rebounding - XU couldn't hold their own, UC out-rebounded them 42-31 and 18-10 offensively.
Free Throws - Completely killed us! 3-14 from the line. Absolutely abysmal. Good lord.
Helping Semaj - With Semaj out, we needed to do more than just help him in scoring. Here's a scoring break-down: Taylor 12, Philmore 8, Davis 7, Christon/Redford/Robinson 6 each. And that's it, no one else scored. Wow.
 
The promising start gave us hope which made losing this Shootout sting even more than usual. Very disappointed this morning. But we gotta march on. The Muskies play Wofford at home on Saturday - 2:00 on 

We are just hours away from the Shootout. Here's some keys to the game:
Turnovers - UC thrives on playing tough defense and forcing turnovers. The Muskies have to take care of the ball and not give away free points.
Rebounding - UC is great on the glass. The Muskies, not so much. Gotta hold our own on the boards tonight.
Free Throws - The Muskies are making more FTs than their opponents are attempting. Tonight would be a great time to continue that trend.
Helping Semaj - We know that UC is going to put a lot of pressure on XU's leading scorer, Semaj Christon. We need someone else to step up and score. Justin Martin is back from his concussion and is the only Muskie to score double-digits in every game he's played. Dee, Jeff, Brad, Isaiah, Travis? Who's gonna step up and help the Muskies beat the heavily favorite Bearcats tonight?

LET'S GO MUSKIES!!!

The apocalypse is now just 2 days from now. No, not the day when Mayans predicted the end of the world. I'm talking about the Crosstown Shootout. As we learned from the media after last year's UC/XU game and endless times since, "the fight" (where 1 total punch was landed) was the most important, horrible, un-called-for, amazing, horrible-again thing to ever happen to college basketball, Cincinnati, and the human race.

Given all that, I don't need to remind you that the game is Wednesday at 7:00 on ESPN2. Let me remind you of the ways the Shootout has been tainted since the day the music died, December 10th, 2011:
- It's now not played on campus. It's played in a dumpy, old arena downtown. It's a college rivalry, play it at the colleges!
- It's now called the Crosstown Classic. Screw that. All real fans of these two schools will always refer to this game as the "Shootout". If you ever catch yourself calling it the "Classic", slap yourself.
- It's on a Wednesday at 7:00. Boo! Why not just play it on a Monday morning?
- It's during Xavier's winter break. Good call, make sure none of the students can attend this once-memorable rivalry game.
- There's nothing wrong with giving to charity but this event is a big part of these schools' revenues each year. Not anymore. In an effort to improve the image of this rivalry, revenues will be shared with the Underground Railroad Museum (and of course with USBank Arena since they are the host). Now, everyone only thinks of good thoughts and charity when they think XU vs UC basketball, right? I'm sure that is all the media will talk about for the next 2 days and during and following the game.
- To ensure there won't be a sell-out and the country won't get to see a really good representation of how much the city loves basketball when they tune in, these clowns set the ticket prices as if each seat comes with a brick of gold. C'MON MAN!!!

Wow, that got really negative, didn't it? Sorry about that. 

I would think most Muskies fans out there are worried about rebounding in this matchup. UC can get to the glass and Xavier has been awful on the boards for long stretches this year. That scares me. Polls don't mean much but UC is the #11 team in the country and is undefeated thus far. It's gonna be one heck of a tough matchup for the Muskies. But when it comes to Shootouts, anything is possible!

LET'S GO MUSKIES!!!

Rumors are swirling that the 7 non-football schools in the Big East have voted to leave the conference and create a new basketball-only conference. They are rumored to have invited Xavier and Butler to join, as well as possible other schools like Dayton, St. Louis, Creighton, or VCU.

Things are constantly changing with all this conference talk so we'll stay tuned. Could be very good news for Xavier basketball!

Go Muskies!