In a game Xavier desperately needed, they did way more than just get the result.
There were a couple of moments in this one where, as a Xavier fan, you could have been forgiven for having that cold feeling in the pit of your stomach. The face that the first one came early on only exacerbated the nerves.
In a game where Xavier’s defensive game plan surely contained elements of letting one of the best two-point teams in the country shoot themselves out of it from deep, X saw the visitors make three threes before the first media timeout. Math and science often take a back seat to the iron grip of emotion in the human experience, and there was certainly a growing sense that maybe this could have been a night where Creighton just Wragge Bombed their way to victory. Couple with just six points from X that included some missed bunnies, the five-point early deficit could have snowballed.
As Bryan pointed out on socials (find us on Blue Sky!) though, Xavier starting slow is basically Dante Maddox Jr’s (16/1/3) intro music. He came in and immediately put the game on in fire. First-touch contested three? Splappa. Next time down draw a crowd and find Dayvion McKnight (9/2/3) for a wide-open layup. Tie game.
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Feeding off a raucous capacity crowd and Maddox’s YOLO approach to basketball decision making, the Muskies took off from there. McKnight stuck a transition three and then a tough jumper and Ryan Conwell (20/5/2) got in on the act from deep. Xavier won the second war of the game 15-4 and Creighton would never again cut the game to a single possession.
That was due in large part to the smothering effect Xavier’s defense had on Ryan Kalkbrenner. With Zach Freemantle (23/6/3) not particularly inspiring early on, Jerome Hunter (2/5/0) and John Hugley IV (0/1/3) combined for 19 first-half minutes and an impact on the game that went well beyond what the box score showed. They helped hold Ryan Kalkbrenner to 3-9 shooting and force a couple of turnovers from him in the first half while X pushed the lead well into the double digits. By the time Maddox was hitting a very contested jumper at one end and picking Jamiya Neal on the other, the home team was cruising into the half up 42-27. They closed the final 14:30 on a 36-16 run and looked to have grabbed the game by the neck.
As any Xavier fan will ruefully tell you though, college basketball games this year have two halves. Big leads have been far more common than big victories for X this season.
Zach Freemantle came out of the locker room looking like a man who was having none of that. After he sonned whoever Creighton ran at him three times in his first three touches, McDermott swapped Ryan Kalkbrenner onto him. Faced with purportedly the best big defender the league has to offer, Big Frosty scored directly over him in their first confrontation and then splashed a three in his face the next time down. Less than four minutes into the half, the pride of Bergen Catholic had 11 points on 5-5 shooting, Xavier was up 22, and the Bluejays were scrambling to call timeout.
Over the next 4+ minutes, a nightmare unfolded. Xavier shot 1-7/0-3/0-1 in their next 10 trips down the floor while Creighton suddenly couldn’t miss. A 16-2 run that culminated in a Kalkbrenner stickback and then a Jamiya Neal jumper had cut Xavier’s advantage to 8 and prompted unwelcome flashbacks for the Muskies faithful, who surely felt that they had seen this episode before.
Unbowed, The Best 30 Minute Team in the Nation responded. Conwell three, defensive stop. Two Conwell free throws, defensive stop. Dante Maddox Jr three, defensive stop. Zach Freemantle bucket, defensive stop. Exchange turnovers for variety’s sake. Dailyn Swain (10/7/5) bucket, defensive stop. Dailyn Swain bucket, Ryan Kalkbrenner bucket, Zach Freemantle, and-one. A lead that was 22 ten minutes ago and just 8 five minutes ago was back to 23. Cintas was awash in white-clad victors. All that remained was jubilation. From as close to dead as a team’s tournament hopes can be without being cold on the slab, Xavier is back on the right side of the bubble.
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This is the team everyone was looking for
Sean Miller has been explicit regarding the fact that Dante Maddox Jr was always going to perform, he just needed time in Xavier’s system to get comfortable. John Hugley IV had 13 in the road game at Creighton; if anything, he was more influential today without scoring a point. The Muskies needed an absolute muskox in the paint, and he delivered in spades. Jerome Hunter’s incredible energy and persistence kept Xavier moving in the right direction in the first half. All the talent and experience on this roster made the early stumbles frustrating, but it’s all coming together now.
This team needs its top guys
Xavier is at its best when the best players play their best. Obvious, right? In the first half, for all the deserved praise Hugley and Hunter will get for making Kalkbrenner play ugly, it was the incandescent performance of Dante Maddox Jr that blew the roof off of Cintas. In the second half, Zach Freemantle took over and ran Creighton out of the building. Ryan Conwell dropped 20. A functional rotation has finally emerged, but the engine room is right where we thought it would be.
There’s still work to do
Creighton was the big hurdle in a lot of people’s minds, but Torvik, KenPom, and the NET all see @ Butler as nearly the same difficulty of game. The Muskies match up a little better with Butler than they do Creighton, but the Bulldogs put scares into Creighton, UConn, and Marquette in January and fought St. John’s, Georgetown, and Nova hard in February and March. Weird things can happen on the road in conference, and I’m sure the barn dwellers over there in Hinkle would love to be the hurdle over which X stumbles. The goal is still 21 regular season wins. This kept Xavier in contention, but it didn’t get them across the line.