Yet another opportunity goes by the boards as Xavier can’t seal a Q1 win.
You don’t even have to squint to imagine a different season for Xavier. Don’t fumble the ball against TCU, don’t throw it away against UC, hold on here. That’s three games Xavier has held a good lead late and thrown away. That turns 8-4 into 11-1. That means Xavier has three Q1 wins on the resume. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
But that isn’t reality. In perhaps the most predictable thing this season, Xavier led by five with five minutes to play and went on to lose. They had turned the ball over once in the half to that point. They turned it over three times in the last 4:41. Yes, there was one of the worst calls in the history of basketball in there to mar things, but Xavier threw this game away. Again. They led late and self-destructed. Again. They could not do the simple things and salt away a win. Again.
A lot of people will be happy with the fight Xavier showed tonight. It was, on some level, nice to see the team not simply wilt when shorn of their best player. Dante Maddox (22/4/1) decided early on that it was Dante Maddox time. He was wrong for most of the first half, but he exploded in the second. Ryan Conwell (23/3/1) finally showed some assertiveness again. Dayvion McKnight (18/5/2) and Marcus Foster (15/1/1) just kept being their usual steady selves. The four guards personified the Xavier way of doing things. They were tenacious and relentless.
But you need at least five to win a basketball game. Jerome Hunter, Dailyn Swain, John Hugley, and Cam Fletcher combined to play 78 minutes. That’s essentially two full games between the four of them. In that 78 minutes the four of them combined for 11/12/2 on 3-10 from the floor and turned the ball over three times. Oh, for just 20 minutes of Zach Freemantle. Instead, three of those guys gamely tried and just, frankly, weren’t good enough.
Dailyn Swain entered this season riding NBA draft buzz. Against Michigan he played 25 minutes and shot once. Tonight he played 22 minutes, didn’t make a shot, and managed a line of 2/3/0. With Xavier desperate for a spark, a sign of life, from anyone with some size, their incredibly talented young sophomore went AWOL.
Ultimately, UConn wore Xavier down with a parade of talent. Missing Zach Freemantle and Trey Green the Musketeers were shorthanded from the off. Their defense was genuinely inspiring at times, even as it raised questions as to where it had been hiding before. Their shooters shot, the guards flew around, the effort was amazing. (And in this bleak essay, don’t lose that. These guys gave an incredible fight.) After 45 minutes though, it was all in vain. Xavier was once again the creator of their own downfall.
There will be chest thumping tonight and tweets about how this shows that Xavier isn’t a pushover and still has fight left in them. Maybe that’s true. It’s also true that the Titanic had lifeboats for nearly everyone on board. No one remembers that, though. All that gets remembered is what happens when mistakes of your own making doom you to failure. More and more, that looks to be the story of the season.