Quick, where does Xavier sit in the Big East table? You know they’ve won twice, hilariously going to Georgetown and winning and then knocking off Providence. You also probably know they’ve been battered by Creighton and UConn and lost a really dumb one to Marquette. Toss in a DePaul loss and you’ve got them at […]
Quick, where does Xavier sit in the Big East table? You know they’ve won twice, hilariously going to Georgetown and winning and then knocking off Providence. You also probably know they’ve been battered by Creighton and UConn and lost a really dumb one to Marquette. Toss in a DePaul loss and you’ve got them at 2-4. Where does that put you in this year’s Big East? Eighth, ninth? Not last, because Ed Cooley, but surely down there somewhere.
How does sixth sound? Yes, the Musketeers are somehow bang in the middle of the conference. Five teams are ahead, five teams are behind. (It’s worth noting that mighty DePaul is also 2-4 and currently ahead on tiebreaker, but we’re going off KenPom and NET.) Ahead of Xavier sits Creighton at 4-2. Running them down might be difficult, but Xavier has a clear path to not finishing near the bottom.
More importantly, Xavier needs to try to get to fifth. That will be seriously difficult given what they’ve done so far, but we all want X in the tournament and the only realistic way to do that now is winning the BET.
Handle business at home
Of the cloud of teams sitting with one or two wins, Xavier still has Butler, DePaul, Marquette, and Georgetown at home. Winning those four and just those four would lead to a somewhat uninspiring 6-14 record in the conference, but it would guarantee the Musketeers stay well away from the battle for the basement. Neither Bart Torvik nor KenPom think Xavier will even manage that, though. Butler on Wednesday is the one both numbers systems thinks trips X up. I think Butler is a paper tiger, but more on that tomorrow.
Last season you needed 11 wins in the conference to finish sixth. Winning four at home doesn’t get you there. 6-14 would have landed a team either eighth or ninth. So, things are down a bit. Even getting those 11 wins would leave Xavier on the wrong side of the bubble this season.
Steal a game somewhere
Ok, so maybe just beating the other bad teams at home isn’t terribly likely. In order to finish sixth and maybe hope to sneak into one of those bye games in the Big East Tournament, the Musketeers are going to have to win a game on the road. The good news is that they have done that this year. The bad news is that they’ve only done it once and that was at the slow-motion trainwreck that is Georgetown.
Creighton away looks pretty difficult given Creighton at home was less than ideal. After that come Seton Hall, UConn, and St. John’s. Yikes. The final three road games are Butler, Providence, and Villanova. Once again, Butler doesn’t look incredibly daunting and Xavier has already beaten Providence once. Those are possibilities. Can I suggest one more? Seton Hall. The Pirates offense in Big East play has been even worse than Xavier’s. There is no reason to think that makes a game in South Orange a walk in the park, but an inspired defensive effort and some threes falling makes it possible.
We’ll avoid talking about UConn away until absolutely necessary.
Play better defense
Xavier’s offense is… sort of ok. It’s eighth in conference play and almost exactly average. The defense is ninth, which is only one place lower, but there is a significant drop off there. Marquette is the only team in the last six games to have not scored more than a point per possession against Xavier’s overly generous defense. The Musketeers may have bludgeoned Providence, but they did it by just continuing to score, not by getting stops.
If Xavier wants to make a run to the middle (yay?), they need to be able to get a stop when they need one. Wednesday’s game may come down to a possession or two. Beating Seton Hall will require being able to make them miss, because they certainly will make Xavier miss.
And that is what it comes down to this season. Xavier won’t be winning the conference, nor will they be making a run to a bubble spot. They need to put themselves in the best possible position to make a run in the BET. If that means finishing sixth so as to play 11th, so be it. If it means sneaking to fifth, all the better. To do that, they’ll need to play a little defense and win their home games against the bottom of the league. Getting one on the road could be the deciding factor.
There’s always something to cheer for.
Category: General Sports
