CINCINNATI — Richard Pitino isn’t a fan of all the analytical sites in college basketball that rank teams based on scores and numbers alone. But he also knows it’s the world he works in.
The human element of it all would have told you that Friday night against Missouri State would be a trap game for the Musketeers after vanquishing their crosstown rival Bearcats a week earlier, 79-74. And sure enough in the first 10 minutes they trailed the Bears by four points.
They led by just three at the half, 31-28. Then they finally took off, thanks in large part to a 17-0 run that allowed them to coast to a 75-57 win in their final pre-Big East slate contest at Cintas Center.
Filip Borovicanin scored 13 points, hauled in 11 rebounds and fell two assists shy of a triple-double to lead Xavier. Jovan Milicevic added a team-high 17 points and seven rebounds while Tre Carroll chipped in with 13 points and seven boards for Xavier, which led 39-35 three minutes into the second half. But the Musketeers, playing their final game before Big East play opens Wednesday at home against Creighton, scored 17 straight points and were not threatened the rest of the game.
One of the highlights of the night was senior walk-on Ian Sabourin knocking down a three with under a minute left to improve his career shooting mark to 4-for-4 in his time on Victory Parkway. Richard Pitino is trying to get his team focused and prepared for the opening of Big East play Wednesday night at home against Creighton. But he wants to reward those in the background as much as possible when the chances arise.
“I said before our walk on culture is as good as it gets. Ian Michael (Wolf), Henry (Thole), Luke (Naser), our managers, our (graduate assistants) are phenomenal,” Pitino said. “As we build the program, as much as we can, like, take care of those guys, if we can keep them and maybe move them into GA spots and so on. Like, I think it’s really, really important.
“But Ian is a phenomenal kid, and he’s a good player. He’s not a bad player. He’s a good player. I mean, he legitimately plays in the second team every day in practice, since we decided to go Jovan at the five, so he’s playing the four, and he’s battling, and he makes us better every day. So for sure, cool moment.”
But there’s a reality that Pitino faces. It’s the analytics and trying to prop up the program with solid wins or wins by a certain margin over inferior programs, especially at home. It’s the thing that tripped up the Bearcats in their loss to Eastern Michigan and their close call against Tarleton State.
“I hate the whole Net, KenPom. You got to cover the spread nonsense, like I hate all that, but it is what it is, and it does matter. So you got to try to cover the margins as best you can.”
The Musketeers were favored by 17.5 to 18.5 points Friday night and won by 18.
But now it’s onto Creighton, and Big East play.
“You try to stay in the moment as much as possible,” Pitino said. “They obviously know it’s going to get real. Now, we’ll give them off (Saturday) and then we’ll just dive into Creighton.”
The Musketeers are going to need more of Borovicanin and Tre Carroll and Roddie Anderson and Jovan Milicevic if they are going to hold their own.
With Borovicanin, he’s shooting the ball with authority, making five threes over the last two games.
“It’s all confidence with Filip,” Pitino said. “He wants it badly. He, you know, he’s a high achiever and high achievers traditionally very hard on themselves.
“Everybody talked about Tre last game versus UC but, I mean, Fil comes down, knocks down that three to put us back up one. It was huge, so, I look at him like a guy I retained, obviously, and he’s comfortable with the way that I coach him the system, and he’s a veteran. He’s doing a lot of great things. Was cool to see his dad and mom flew all the way from Serbia, so for them to watch him play a great game was was fun.”
Sabourin may not see much playing time if any in Big East play but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a read on the team.
“I would just say we’re really connected group right now,” Sabourin said. “And it doesn’t just start on the or out there, and during game days, you see us every day. We’re hanging out outside of practice. We’re eating dinner together. We just have a really connected group, and we’re starting to play like it, 23 assists, the six turnovers, and it’s becoming a reoccurring theme for us that we just share the ball really well, and we don’t turn it over. And I think it just starts with the connectedness we have as a team.”
At one point during the run, Xavier made five straight shots from the field and 6-of-7. The Musketeers again took care of the ball, committing just two turnovers in the second half and – as Sabourin pointed out – just six for the game.
Keith Palek III led Missouri State (4-5) with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while Darrion Sutton was the only other Bears player in double figures with 12 points.
Both teams battled through ice-cold shooting spells in the first half. Xavier suffered through a pair of stretches where they missed seven straight shots from the field, opening the game by missing 21 of their first 29 shots.
Missouri State wasn’t much better, missing 15 of its first 23 attempts from the field. But the Bears were able to stay close thanks to their work on the boards and in the paint. Missouri State outrebounded Xavier, 21-19, and outscored the Musketeers, 20-16, inside.
Neither team led by more than four points in the opening 20 minutes, with the Bears using an 8-0 run to turn a 13-9 deficit into a 17-13 lead with 11:21 left in the first half. Trailing 19-15, Xavier answered with a 7-0 spurt for a 22-19 lead.
Milicevic scored 12 of his 17 points in the first half, helping Xavier to a 31-28 halftime lead. Palek had 10 of his 23 points to go with seven rebounds in the first half for the Bears.
