One big chance remains
There is a temptation to take a sigh of relief as a Xavier fan right now. The Four Games are in the rearview, the season is now salvageable, if not yet salvaged, and the road ahead isn’t laden with the same level of competition as the first half of the Big East season was. Xavier has nine regular season games left and has already played all but one of their Q1 games and all but three of their Q2s.
That is, as always, a blessing and a curse. When all the opposition is difficult, losses don’t sting quite as much unless you really stack them up. When you play lesser competition, the wins may come more easily, but each loss can be season-defining. In not winning any of their big games early in the season, Xavier ran themselves out of runway. There’s no margin for error now.
Except for maybe Sunday. Right now, at Villanova is a Q1 game. Even if they somehow lose to DePaul, that’s not likely to change. (Though it’s impossible to rule anything out with Kyle Neptune at the helm.) It’s possible that losing that doesn’t torpedo everything and send us all into a tailspin. Lose that one, win the rest, and X is in the play-in games. Not great, but not the worst thing in the world. There would also be a chance to make things better at MSG.
But why not follow the lead of the Cleveland Indians in Major League and just win the whole thing? Go 9-0 and Xavier is firmly in the field. That means going to Nova and winning, but Georgetown just did that, so why not us?
Here’s another possibility: lose at Nova and lose at Butler. Even doing that has Xavier as the last team out. That’s how much better things have gotten for the Musketeers over the last few weeks. Going 7-2 isn’t ideal, but it’s not necessarily fatal. What would be fatal is losing any of these games: Georgetown, DePaul, Butler, at Seton Hall, at Providence. Those are all Q3 games and losing any of them would be the kind of hit that Xavier can’t afford.
Xavier’s biggest strength right now is their lack of a bad loss. That’s the danger of a high-wire act. X doesn’t have a big “look at this” win to fall back on. They can simply point at what hasn’t happened. It’s not a very positive approach to things, but that’s the situation we are in now.
If you just skip to the end or somehow 400 words was tl;dr for you, here’s the nutshell. Xavier cannot sustain a bad loss. Losing at Villanova or at Butler, or even both, won’t kill Xavier’s chances. Winning out remains the goal and lands Xavier, somehow, safely in the field. Tuesday is a must not lose game. Start by beating Georgetown, then go from there.