Musketeers Beat: “We Have To Keep Things Really Simple” Mapping Out Xavier’s NCAA Path Over Next 6 Weeks

CINCINNATI — The Xavier Musketeers proved they could bounce back from their worst loss in over half a century. Now the trick is to find the consistency that’s eluded them for a good part of the season.

After an impressive 88-77 win over Rick Pitino’s St. John’s Red Storm on Wednesday night, the challenge is for Xavier to find the kind of groove that could spring them into hopes for an NCAA bid.

While, at 11-10 overall and 5-5 in the Big East, that understandably sounds like a pipe dream, there is a path. That’s sounds crazy to say after UConn obliterated Xavier in every facet of the game in the 99-56 humiliation in Hartford, a loss so bad that it actually made Sean Miller wonder about the psyche of his team.

“There’s no doubt that was certainly one of our best moments of the season,” a relieved Miller said. “I really credit our players. It’s not easy to go through what we went through in Hartford. They beat us so bad that we wondered if you would ever be able to play basketball or win a basketball game again. I mean, no matter who you were on that trip, you had to be filled with some doubt, simply because of how out of hand that game was. I mean, I thought we kept it as close as we could. It could have been worse.

“So once that ends, you don’t have a crystal ball on exactly how it’s going to go, and it could go really bad. But to our players’ credit, we left it there. We learned from it. We moved on quickly. And I thought we followed up that performance with one of our best performances, meaningful performances of the season.”

After Xavier beat his team to drop the Johnnies to an identical 5-5 in the Big East, Pitino opined there are three locks in UConn, Marquette and Creighton. But another three teams could reasonably emerge for a bid if they finish strong.

The biggest factor playing in Xavier’s favor is their strength of schedule. No one in the country has had it tougher. They’ve played UConn twice, Houston once and Purdue once. The two horrific losses were the 43-point calamity at UConn and the home defeat to Delaware.

But starting Saturday night, there’s a path for Musketeers. Road game at DePaul, followed by a home game against the tanking Villanova Wildcats, home to Creighton, at Seton Hall, home to Providence, at Marquette and home to DePaul to finish February. They finish at Georgetown, at Butler and home to Marquette.

Say they finish those ten games 7-3, which is very doable if Xavier plays to its higher end potential, you’re looking at a 12-8 Big East team with 18 wins headed to Madison Square Garden. Win one or two there, you’re in.

A Big East team with 12 conference wins, 20 wins overall, with Xavier’s strength of schedule, will not be kept out of the Madness. While it’s amusing and interesting to project ahead 10 games, that’s obviously not what the coach is thinking, though he did offer a hint.

You can’t stumble Saturday night in Chicago to a Blue Demons team that just fired their coach and is winless in conference. Sean Miller knows this full well.

“I don’t ever look at it. I don’t, I don’t,” Miller told me. “I think the only way for us is to just really try to go from where we are to that next game. And the next challenge for us is an away game in the Big East against DePaul. It’s a place that we went to a year ago didn’t play as well. We have to be really ready. To win a road game in the Big East is something that’s important. That game will be just as important as the one we just played. And so how we go about things from winning this game at home until that time on Saturday when we’re in Chicago, is you know that that becomes our focus.”

The little things will matter the rest of the way. Like when Desmond Claude drove the lane, missed a shot up by two with under two minutes left. But there was freshman Dailyn Swain fighting for a loose ball rebound, kicking it out to Quincy Olivari for an open three. That three-ball went down, putting Xavier up, 80-75, and giving them precious breathing room. It started an 11-2 run to finish the game.

Simple things will mean a lot. Focus on the details and the big picture will take care of itself. That’s Miller’s message the final six weeks.

“It’s too complicated to look at it any other way,” Miller said. “And you know, we’re probably not good enough to do that. If you’re really good. You can do that because it’s easy, meaning that the answer to your questions are easy. If you’re really bad, you can do that because you’re basically counting back and saying I got about 40 days left and this is over.

“But if you’re in the middle and you’re trying to go to the positive like we are, I think you have to keep things really simple. So the simpler it is about tomorrow, the next day, and it’s about we have to play really well at DePaul and our picture’s no bigger than that because nothing else really matters for our team. So, we’re not trying to make it complicated. I know we took a step in the right direction. We’re 5-5 in the Big East through the first 10, and as much as I wish we could play 10 home games in the next 10, we have to go on the road five times and play five at home so we just have to be ready every game to keep getting better.”

Xavier showed tenacity and explosiveness in transition Wednesday night. They outscored St. John’s 28-11 on the break and beat them 44-34 on the glass. For a team that has not shown a ton of physicality on the boards this season, that was a positive sign against a gritty St. John’s team known for its fight late in games.

Take care of the details and results will follow. Expect to hear that repeated often by Miller in the coming weeks.

RECAPPING WIN:

Desmond Claude scored 23 and Quincy Olivari also added 23, including a pair of clutch threes late, to lead Xavier to a 88-77 win over visiting St. John’s in a Big East matchup Wednesday night in Cincinnati.

Dayvion McKnight added 19 points for Xavier (11-10, 5-5), which rebounded from Sunday’s 43-point road loss to top-ranked UConn, its biggest margin of defeat in 51 years.

Xavier snapped a two-game skid to win their fourth in six games.

Daniss Jenkins scored 25 while Joel Soriano added 21 points and 15 rebounds for St. John’s (13-8, 5-5), which dropped its fourth in five games.

After St. John’s had fought back from an 11-point second-half deficit to tie the game, 75-75, Xavier answered with the next five points, including a corner three from Olivari with 1:57 left to put the Musketeers ahead, 80-75.

Olivari rattled home another three from the top of the arc to put Xavier up, 83-77, with 1:24 left. A mid-range jumper from McKnight put Xavier up eight with 41 seconds left to seal the win.

McKnight and Olivari each had eight points to lead a balanced Xavier attack in the first half, which the Musketeers led from start to finish. Claude also had seven points in the opening 20 minutes as Xavier took a 38-34 lead to the break.

Daniss Jenkins kept the Red Storm in the game in the first half, scoring 15 of St. John’s 34 points. Joel Soriano added seven points, 10 rebounds and two blocks as St. John’s stayed close.

Xavier opened up the lead to 11, 58-47, when freshman Dailyn Swain stole the ball from Jenkins and drove the length of the court for a two-handed dunk with 13:10 remaining.

But St. John’s responded, cutting the lead to two, 62-60, on a Jenkins steal of an inbounds pass, a layup and a free throw with 9:06 left.