This is our low point.
“This is our low point.”
That was Sean Miller’s main point – or was it a promise? – from the post game presser after St. John’s ran Xavier out of their own tonight. You hope he was right.
It started the way too many of these have started this year. After the team exchanged tentative early possessions and the score was tied at 4 a couple minutes in, Kadary Richmond continued to demonstrate he could do about whatever he wanted by driving for a little jumper, giving him and St. Johns both 6 points on the night. Seven seconds later, Ryan Conwell heaved the first of his seven misses from behind the arc. St. John’s collected the rebound.
Never again would a Musketeer have the ball with a chance to tie the game. With 17:22 left in the first half, every chance they had to make anyone in red sweat had already gone by the wayside.
From that 4-4 tie, St. John’s went on a 15-4 run over the course of the next five minutes. By the time Simeon Wilcher was finishing a personal 4-0 run, Xavier was down 19-8 on their own floor. In a game they desperately needed to win, they had barely even showed up. A game that started as a coin toss had swung firmly in favor of the visitors.
Then, just when it seemed like all hope was lost, Zach Freemantle put the team on his back. Down a dozen with three minutes left in the half, he stuck a three. Next time down, he knocked down a jumper. After Dayvion McKnight – one of the few other Muskies who looked like he wanted to be there tonight – hit a pair of free throws, Zach scored through contact and finished the free throw.
After Ryan Conwell capped the half with a pair of free throws, Xavier had finished the half on a 12-4 run, cut the Red Storm lead to four, and would be coming out of the half with possession. Back from the dead! We’re gonna win this thing!
You fool. You absolutely naive mark.
Ryan Conwell built on his 0-4 first half by opening the second half with a three blocked at the top of the key. The ensuing run out was only St. John’s easiest bucket until the next possession, where Marcus Foster (playing in his 120th career game) threw a diaper soft pass across the top of the key that turned into a basketball pick-six.
That feeling in your chest? That warmth of hope that you were clinging to? It was a poison that robbed you of another hour of your life. You could have moved on with your night at half time if you had known how comprehensively flaccid Xavier’s effort out of the break would be.
Zach Freemantle did his best, scoring or assisting every point Xavier scored in the first seven minutes of the half; sadly, that was only seven points.
The next Muskie to score a point that didn’t involve Big Frosty was Dailyn Swain. He ripped from the right corner and hammered home a big dunk to cut it to seven. He then grabbed a defensive rebound – one of Xavier’s 8 in the half to 13 offensive rebounds for St. John’s – and frittered away that rare gift by dribbling head down into a cluster of four Red Storm(s). The 8-0 that turnover triggered hammered home the point that the contest was over.
In 2:10, Xavier went from having the ball with a chance to cut it to 4 or 5 to trailing by 15. Having captured momentum to drag themselves back into a must-win game heading into halftime, the second-most experienced team in the entire nation absolutely capitulated to the moment – at home! – and got outscored 20-9 in 10 minutes to excuse themselves from the game well before the final horn.
Most Xavier fans who have followed this program for any length of time expect the team to perform as more than the sun of its parts, using a combination of grit, graft, and guile to be a persistent thorn in the sides of more heralded opponents. When every excuse and reason has been tallied and every bad bounce and unlucky break has been accounted for, the bottom line is that what we are seeing is antithetical to the standard that has been set. It is hard to argue that this program is back in the rails.