DAYTON — It’s prove-it time for the Musketeers.
After surviving the bubble over the final six weeks of the regular season, the Musketeers – like North Carolina on Tuesday night – now get a chance to prove they belong in the tournament on the same University of Dayton Arena stage.
Certainly, travel is not an issue for No. 11 Xavier as they have the shortest commute of any of the eight times in the First Four play-in tournament, traveling just 49 miles to play No. 11 Texas in a Midwest Region qualification contest.
The winner of the fourth and final First Four contest will take on No. 6 Illinois Friday in Milwaukee.
The Musketeers earned an at-large bid after finishing the Big East regular season with a seven-game winning streak before falling, 89-87, to Marquette in the Big East quarterfinals.
One of the key storylines to watch will be Ryan Conwell, who transferred to Xavier from Indiana State last summer. He’ll be facing former teammates Julian Larry and Jayson Kent, who transferred from ISU to Texas last summer.
“I think it’s just a great experience for both teams, just it being both of ours — me, Jul and Kent, all our first time playing in March Madness,” Conwell said. “It’s kind of full circle just the fact that we’re playing against each other. But I think just two great teams going head to head, and I think it’ll be a great game.”
Conwell is averaging 24.4 points and is shooting 59.7 percent in his last five games for Xavier.
The Musketeers were 14-10 and on life support after a loss at Villanova on Super Bowl Sunday Feb. 9 in Philadelphia. Since then, they are 7-1 and getting a chance to make a March Madness run.
“Their resilience that we have as a group,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “If you go through the storylines, Zach Freemantle, three season-ending injuries, three season-ending surgeries, and we thought we lost him again this year. We ended up playing without him for three weeks. To watch him stay with us from start to finish, overcome all those things, get his college degree, be an All-Big East player in his last year, and it end here in the NCAA Tournament, if you can’t find some joy in that story, there’s something wrong with you.
“There’s guys like Ryan Conwell who a year ago played at Indiana State, and I know Ryan has a couple teammates on Texas’s team, those guys went through a Section Sunday show a year ago (with Indiana State) after winning 30 games, and it didn’t go their way. They were left out of last year’s NCAA Tournament.”
The Texas Longhorns (19-15) earned their fifth straight bid after defeating Vanderbilt and Texas A&M in the SEC tournament. They were eliminated by Tennessee and had to wait until Sunday to hear their name called.
Only San Diego State has a longer trip than Texas to make their First Four destination.
The Musketeers spent the last month of the season firmly on “the bubble” of many bracket projections for the NCAA Tournament. Xavier finished the Big East regular season with a flourish, passing Marquette for the No. 4 seed in the Big East Tournament.
But after that run, they lost 89-87 to Marquette in their first Big East tourney game and had to wait until Selection Sunday to see if their name was called. The team gathered at Miller’s Cincinnati house to get to the good news.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a better feeling in sports than the one I had when our name was announced,” Miller said. “It was hard to describe. It was magical.”
Xavier star and grad student Zach Freemantle will get his first taste of Tournament action after missing Xavier’s run to the Sweet 16 in 2023 due to a foot injury.
Freemantle, who committed to Xavier in 2018, leads Xavier in scoring (17.3) and rebounding (7.1).
“It was honestly one of the craziest feelings I’ve had in my life,” Freemantle said. “The room was just too emotional. There wasn’t really any message said. There were a lot of hugs; a lot of cheering.”
Like Xavier, Texas had a similarly nervous wait to see if they would be chosen on Sunday night.
While Xavier didn’t need to win a conference tournament game to get a bid, the thinking was that Texas needed at least two victories to get a berth after winning just six of 18 games in the Southeastern Conference regular season. The overtime win against Texas A&M appeared to seal their fate and punch their ticket.
“We’ll be watching tape and trying to get a good feel for Xavier,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said. “This season in the SEC is the most challenging conference race I’ve ever been a part of as a coach.”
Guard Tre Johnson leads the Longhorns in scoring at 19.8 points per game while forward Arthur Kaluma is averaging 7.6 rebounds to lead Texas on the boards while also scoring a 12.4 points per game clip, second on the team behind Johnson.
“I give my guys a lot of credit for staying the course and continue to work the season,” Terry added. “I think we’re playing our best basketball of the season right now, and we’re excited for the chance to keep playing.”
