Xavier basketball 2019/2020

Bishop enters transfer portal. slightly disappointing as i thought he had plenty of potential to get better and be a 3-year starter if he worked. apparently, he wasn't ready to "wait" behind guys who have proven themselves like Scruggs and Marshall. sad that these dudes who have been "the man" on their team for several years can't figure out how to adjust to NOT being the man, looking in the mirror a bit and saying "hey, i'm not that good yet. i have plenty to improve on. i just need to work harder." instead of "i don't like that i'm not playing. i'm outta here." not mentally tough, IMHO.
 
Latest bracketology is getting me a little nervous. Lunardi (ESPN) has X as a #8 seed, down from a #7 about 10 days ago. Jerry Palm (CBS) has X as a #12 seed ( :eek: :eek:) -- yes -- as getting in by their fingernails for the "honor" of playing in Dayton.
Long way to go, but Xavier has to either fish or cut bait during the BE season.
It's time to stop with the careless turnovers and the ridiculous 3- pointers.
 
Bracketology's/rankings don't make me nervous at all. it's just click bait this time of year.

don't mind the 3's against SJU. we were getting wide open ones. the turnovers need to get fixed. those are the most frustrating to watch. Naji, especially. take the win, move on, and get better.
 
I don't see a lot of change from last season. Very sloppy and selfish play at times. Disinterest on the defensive end as well. Slow backside rotations and block outs.
Granted they are just at the mid point of the season but it's difficult to see much better than .500 in the Big East. Tandy and James contributions were encouraging however.
 
Some good points. The St. Johns game was somewhat of an improvement for X -- better in the 2nd half as far as taking care of the ball, better decisions made with the ball by Q along with improved ball movement and passing as a team. Dontarius James' performance was a welcome relief. Now we need to see if they can maintain those positives as we move along.
I must say, though, that, with the weaknesses that this team has in shooting the ball from both the field as well as the FT line, success in the Big East will be difficult -- not impossible, but difficult.

To be clear, this team needs to be the team that played in the 2nd half, but I don't hold out much hope for improved shooting #s. Good drives to the basket as well as pounding the ball inside is how this team will succeed. For some reason though, we love to chuck up a lot of 3's.
Right now I see 10-8 tops.
 
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I have to say that Seton Hall is just a better team than X. They won the rebounding battle with their two 7-foot guys and absolutely torched X's defense, shooting over 53% overall (62.5% on 2-pointers -- a LOT of layups). In many ways X didn't play a bad game, but when we come up against an excellent team like SH it's pretty evident that X is the one lacking.
No shame in losing to a team like SH. Unfortunately, we are now halfway through the season and X is pretty much at the level they were back in November. I have to conclude that what they are now is pretty much what we're going to see for the rest of the season.
 
i'll disagree slightly. Carter took a step forward vs Seton Hall and on a very bad ankle that he sprained in shootaround that morning, to the point Steele saw it and thought there was no way he would even play vs SH, so a testament to Carter's toughness. what this team lacks is what Seton Hall has, which is a Myles Powell. we have no star to takeover a game or get us a bucket when our offense is stagnant, although Scruggs seems to be that guy and i would love him to keep trying to do that.

Big East will be a flat out grind. this team will get better.

on to Creighton.
 
I hope you're right, Bballer, about X improving. My concern is that, in Travis Steele's press conferences, he's still talking about the same things he was talking about early in the season (actually, also LAST season!).
Yes, it's great to see Carter play like we all have known he could.
Personally, I've stopped expecting better things. We'll see and hope. If they happen, great, but if they don't, well there's next year. It's always a great time to be an X fan!
 
Been a while since Xavier's had a significant period of mediocrity but they are comfortably there. Steele is working with the highest rated players to ever find themselves on the same Xavier roster and is in way above his head. No one is developing and the same mistakes from both the coach and the players are being made every game. He can recruit. But this guy can't coach anything but defense. Nothing says coach has a solid gameplan quite like a team ranking right around 300th in the nation in 3pt% chucking up 25+.
 
I would concur that they are not very well coached. No identity on offense at all. Terrible shot selection and once again loses a lot of the 50/50 balls. There was a small sequence in the first half that kind of illustrates their overall lack of effort. A pass was overthrown to q Gooden near the mid court line. The ball was rolling in the backcourt when a creighton player and another Muskie went for the bill. Gooden just turned and walked away. He made no effort to catch it or go after it. Senior leadership.
 
Steele is in his 2nd year. these same posts were being made about Mack early in his career. i'm not saying that he's not deserving of some criticism or that the team/players aren't deserving, but we felt this same exact way after the home loss to DePaul last season, then Steele managed to get that group to win 7 of the next 8, so don't count these guys out just yet. yes, the league is better, but so are we. Steele will get it fixed. hopefully the players buy in and start making some shots.
 
Another debacle at Marquette. This team needs to get its act together and quick. Absolutely pathetic performance. A complete embarrassment.
 
As a VERY long-term Xavier fan, I have seen many ups and downs. One thing that I have always taken pride in is that X -- no matter the level of talent -- has always put forth more than an honest effort. Of course, some games will draw that mentality out more than others. That brings me to last night.

Last night was a critical game for both X and Marquette, as the loser would go to 1-4 in the BE -- a very deep hole to climb out of, not to mention another nail in the coffin of any tourney hopes. I expected both teams to play with desperation -- challenging for rebounds, playing in-your-face defense, and hustling after all 50-50 balls. Well, one team did so. The other put forth such an abysmal effort that it got killed in the rebounding battle; offered very little resistance on defense, and -- according to Steele -- lost all of the 50-50 balls.

I don't know where the pride in wearing the Xavier uniform has gone with this team, but I don't ever recall seeing a Xavier team "mail it in" like they did last night.
 
Steve, I would again agree with your points. Just not sold on this staff. Is sitting a guy who is 0 for his last 20 that difficult of a decision? Telling him to get it to the rim or nothing? Not to mention his lack of commitment on the defensive end. A solid player cannot allow his lack of offense dictate his focus at the other end. XU has way too many of those guys.
I realize going from the good cop to the bad cop is difficult whenever an assistant is elevated to the head job but this is year two. I naturally thought that was figured out at the end of last season. You cannot state in the post game that playing time will be earned from now on when you've been stating that all along. Offensively they are just way too careless with ball- poor shot selection, weak passing and difficult finishes to a drive.
Plenty of games left, hope springs eternal.
 
I'm not ready to give up on Coach Steele. After all those years as the #2 guy who was the "good guy" to the "bad guy" Chris Mack, it has been a tough adjustment for him. We're seeing those growing pains. I'm with ya that his press conferences all seem like a broken record -- saying the same things over & over without any change from the players.
I just think it's a bit too early to draw any big conclusions about his abilities as a head coach. Let's wait and see what happens as his own recruiting classes come in. At that point, there won't be any excuses.
There's still a lot of season left. It will be interesting to see where X goes from here. I can't say that I'm optimistic, though. There is simply not enough talent throughout this roster.
I agree with you.....hope does indeed spring eternal. ✌
 
plenty of season left to be played. let's see how this team responds after having a week to stew over last week's loss and 3-game skid. hopefully they come out with some fire/energy/urgency.
 
for some reason we have owned G-town in BE play, especially at home. nice bounce back win. needed it. a win AT Creighton would be huge on Sunday. let's see if we can get it.
 
thought that Marq loss was going to be the death of the season as i wasn't sure how they'd bounce back on the road vs the #1 team in the BE. however, Seton Hall must've stayed up too late because X was ready and jumped out to a 30-6 lead, which is unreal to do that on the road. they outrebounded a team that has 4 guys over 6'10"............51-22!!! wow. that and Naji's D against Powell were the deciding factors. what a way to hopefully turn their season around. and the league itself saw the top 3 teams all lose at home - Butler and Nova also lost.

this season is up for grabs in all of college basketball so hopefully X is just starting to unlock their potential. they've a had a front loaded Big East schedule to start but really no game is a gimme in this league. they should be in "tournament" mode every game from here on out.

At Depaul tomorrow night. that's one they gotta have.
 
Overall, the best effort all season against Seton Hall. X -- like last year -- has dug a hole and now has a thin margin for error the rest of the way. This team has been inconsistent all season. That has to stop, starting tonight against Depaul.
 
With this nice 3-game winning streak, X has picked themselves up into playing themselves back onto the bracketologists's NCAA fields. Tough one coming up Wed. @ Butler, but if X performs like the last 3 games, they've got a shot.
 
not good that Butler got their e$ handed to them at Marquette. will make this game that much tougher. Hinkle always a tough place to play. Hopefully X's momentum keeps up. a win there would probably vault them into the Top 25.
 
HUGE chance for a quad 1 win on the road tonite. if X plays like they have the last 3 games, they should be in a winnable game.
 
X has been playing about as well as they possibly can. They're going to have some off nights, though; and when those happen, they aren't good enough to still pull out a win.
I'm hoping the Tyrique domination continues. This will be a tough one, but yes a huge victory if the Muskies can escape with a W.
Before the end of the year I kind of think that KyKy is going to have a game where he just goes OFF -- for 30 or so points. This kid hasn't even scratched his potential.
 
too many turnovers and missed point blank shots in the first half put them in a hole that they couldn't dig themselves out of. defense and rebounding were good enough to win. offense needs to score more when given those opportunities. they didn't.

and really, when it comes down to it, Butler's best player is better than all of X's players. he just does things that no one on X can do. when Butler needed a bucket, he delivered.
 
stealing one on the road at SJU. take it and get back home. wow. what a finish. happy for Freemantle. on to Nova at home. should be the best crowd of the year minus the Shootout.

let's go.
 
That game at St. Johns should end up as a nice Q1 win for X. As poorly as they played (22 turnovers -- many of them unforced), to stick with it and end the game on an 8-0 run at the end says a lot about that theme of "Unbreakable".
X is now has a NET of 41 compared to Villanova's 14, so Saturday's game is a huge opportunity for X to keep moving up compared to other teams. I actually expect them to lose. The good news, though, is if they do it shouldn't hurt their tourney chances at all.
This time of year is ALWAYS a great time to be a Xavier fan!
 
By late January the X fanatical "experts" were screaming that Travis Steele (who of course had "no idea what he was doing" but these guys, having played basketball in gym class so they knew all about college coaching o_O) should be fired immediately.
Well, a short time later X beat Seton Hall at their place and -- having won 4 out of 5 in the BE) promptly put themselves into a pretty sound footing for the NCAA tournament.
Looking at several XU websites, these people have -- of course -- said that they were terribly wrong and had misjudged Steele's abilities.....right? OF COURSE NOT! They have just disappeared.
Win or lose against Villanova, it's a great time to be an X fan!
 
it's absurd the amount of hate that gets spewed toward the players and Steele. we didn't play well enough on offense vs Nova to win. we did on the defensive side. hold Nova to 64 and you should be in a winnable game. just didn't do enough to finish around the rim. missed too many easy shots. it happens. losing to Nova isn't a bad loss. need to just take care of DePaul and move on to the next game. X should put themselves in "tournament" mode right now. when they had that mentality last season they almost (and should have) made a run to the BE finals. would love to see that again.
 
I'm also astounded at all the vitriol spewed after every loss.
This team definitely has some major flaws. We all know what they are. X doesn't have the ability to win games against BE competition unless they play to the top of their potential; and as we all (well, most of us) know, that's not going to happen every single night.
At the beginning of the season, I looked at this roster and determined that the absolute ceiling for this team was an NCAA tournament berth, then possibly one win there. To expect anything more is ridiculous.
Go X!
 
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