There are nights where, as a team, you can give everything you have as a team, and it still isn’t enough. That was the case for the Xavier Musketeers Friday night in their 86-73 First Round loss to No. 6 seed Illinois in Milwaukee.
The Musketeers battled hard, but Illinois seemingly had everything working for them across 40 minutes. Illinois was 12-30 from three-point range, out-rebounded Xavier 45-25 and was a perfect 11-18 from the free-throw line. Despite committing 14 turnovers, Illinois’s ferocity on the glass and sharp shooting was the difference Friday night.
The Fighting Illini led by double-digits for the last nearly 13 minutes of the second half, with their lead growing to as many as 17 points.
The Musketeers were led by Dailyn Swain’s game-high 27 points on 10-17 shooting, including 3-5 from three-point range. Swain also had a team-high eight rebounds and three assists, while also adding three steals.
“I’m very, very proud of our team getting to the tournament,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “Even playing here, I thought we played an excellent Illinois team. If that wasn’t their best, then they’re real, real good. I felt like they played really well against us. If they do that, we would have had to have had an extraordinary game to beat them. Today we were not as good as Illinois was. But really proud of these two guys, Ryan and Dailyn.”
Ryan Conwell and Dayvion McKnight each finished with 12 points for Xavier, which kept themselves in the game in the first half, hitting seven of 14 three-point attempts and getting off to an early 6-2 lead.
“I mean, I’ve always thought that I was capable of having games like this,” Swain said. “Obviously, I wish I could have impacted a win. The circumstances are unfortunate. Just a little bit more confidence, I guess.”
Kylan Boswell hit a deflating three right at the buzzer for Illinois that put the Muskies down 40-35.
“Yeah, I mean, Coach Miller always preaches at halftime the first 20 minutes is over, you got to go play another 20 minutes,” Conwell said. “We just put an emphasis on just trying to get more defensive rebounds, getting stops in transition.”
Illinois, though, kept the pressure on all night. Leading 37-35 as the first half clock was winding down, Kylan Boswell nailed a three-pointer with just two seconds to play. It proved to be the final play of the first half, and it was also a huge swing in momentum.
Xavier’s 2024-2025 season will always be remembered for the Musketeers resilience.
The Musketeers were 1-4 to start Big East play, and Zach Freemantle was out with an injury. A bleak outlook was being in cast in Cincinnati, and the Musketeers were coming off a game where they were booed off their home floor in a loss to St. John’s.
All the Musketeers did was go 12-3 in their last 15 Big East games. That stretch included wins over Marquette, UConn and Creighton and a seven-game winning streak to end the regular season.
Then against Texas in the First Four, coming off a devastating, and near-fatal, loss to Marquette in the Big East Tournament, the Musketeers overcame a 13-point deficit midway through the first half and outscored the Longhorns by 47-33 in the second half to win 86-80.
Five Musketeers were in double figures against Texas, a testament to the total team effort this season was.
Sean Miller is now three seasons into his second tenure as the Musketeers head coach. His NCAA Tournament record is now a solid 3-2. In the Big East, one of the toughest conferences in the country, Miller has led the Musketeers to a 37-23 record over the last three seasons. That includes a 3-4 mark against UConn, with one of those losses coming in the Big East Tournament.
“This is the hardest part, when you lose. You sit on that couch and you listen to the winning coach and the winning players. I don’t know if anybody wants to be there,” Miller said. “The great feeling of being in the NCAA Tournament, what it means to these guys, what it means to our program and university, you’re on such a high. In our case advancing from Dayton to here was quite a thrill for us.
“It comes to an end. That’s the amazing nature of this tournament: you win, there’s no better feeling and you lose, God, it’s terrible. From the sport’s perspective, it’s hard to describe. Really is. Because in our case, we don’t have anything left. No practices, whatever.”
It remains to be seen what this roster will look like next season. Zach Freemantle, Dayvion McKnight, Jerome Hunter and Marcus Foster have all played their final games in their respective collegiate careers.
But this team still has talent it hopes to retain, and they should be active in the transfer portal. Miller has restored the culture at Xavier, one that’s built on resilience, toughness and togetherness. That’s what this season was for the Musketeers, and they gave everything they had for 34 games.
