Brad: I’m a huge Dante Maddox guy so I may be biased here, but did he change this game today? Freemantle and Conwell were excellent, but Dante somehow quietly racked up seven assists and no turnovers and brought his special brand of energy.
Joel: Well… he played 17 minutes and Xavier was +11 with him on the floor in a game they won by 8. I’d say that’s pretty good. What I think makes it more remarkable is that he contributed without making a shot. In the span of four months, he has gone from being a waste of NIL money to Allan Houston reborn to a dude who can win you a game without scoring a point. As the man said, a season is a lifetime.
Brad: He was good, but it was Big Frosty’s night. Swain tried to set him up to punch one to end it, but he just dribbled it out. What a game he had. That dude deserves an NCAA bow. Providence had no real answer for him all night.
Joel: He didn’t completely carry, but in the 7 games that would define the final season of his career he averaged 20 and 7.5 on .598/.320/.833 shooting. That’s a 72.2% EFG%; that’s absurd. Frosty has had his share of bad luck throughout his career, but he seems dead set on going out a legend.
We’ll need every bit of it. Xavier would be in if this were Selection Sunday, but it isn’t. A loss to Marquette wouldn’t doom X, but it would make for an extremely uncomfortable wait.
Bryan: Ryan Conwell deserves his flowers as well. Providence had a real chance to make things uncomfortable if they’d been able to grab a lead heading into the half with Freemantle on the bench, but Conwell was instrumental in keeping them at bay. He wasn’t particularly efficient, but he got downhill and made things happen, which X struggled with all day. He has certainly rounded back into form at a good time.
Brad: Conwell’s shooting efficiency wasn’t terrible, you can live with 21 points on 14 shots, but he and Freemantle both struggled to keep a hold of the ball.
That emphasizes how well the “supporting” guys were. McKnight had one turnover. Foster grabbed seven rebounds, we already talked about Maddox, Big John did his job, really the only guy who struggled a bit yesterday was Dailyn Swain.
Bryan: I was talking more in the first half. He had 13 points on 4-10, but he kept Xavier’s proverbial head above water. When he was able to pick his spots more in the second half because Freemantle was generating so much gravity, he had a super efficient 8 points on 2-4.
Foster only made 2 shots but I thought they were both super important. His three in the first half snapped Providence’s growing momentum and his little lefty scoop in the second half sparked the game’s defining run for X. He doesn’t use a lot of possessions, but he is still a big difference maker. Definition of a glue guy.
Brad: That leaves us heading to the BET on a seven game winner and gearing up for a team we’ve played sort of well twice. TCU managed to make themselves back into a Q2, so our NET is still 46. We’re on in Bracket Matrix right now, but we’re the last team in. I think we may need to win this one.