Xavier gets their first test in a game dedicated to a man gone to soon.
Let’s start this off by talking about Skip Prosser. After Pete Gillen left, Skip took the helm at Xavier. He coached NBA legends David West and Chris Paul in his career, but they weren’t the only ones who benefited from his occasionally folksy wisdom. An old article bouncing around the ESPN archives has Skip asking Josh Howard if he is a 3 to 6 player, or a 6 to 3 player. What that means exactly I couldn’t tell you, but Howard credited Prosser with spurring on his career. Pat Kelsey remembers Skip telling him to never delay gratitude. In a world desperately short on expressed appreciation, maybe that is a little credo that would do us all some good to remember.
Prosser also said that the gym was the best place you could be. Come tipoff on Saturday, Cintas will be the gym that sees his two most significant stopping points face off. Xavier is 3-0 and coming off their best win of the young season so far, a 94-57 dismantling of Jackson State.
Wake is 4-0 and and also has played three buy games against cupcakes. Where they differ from Xavier is that they have challenged themselves with a game against solid competition. Last Sunday they played Michigan in a sort of home game in Greensboro and, despite a game that staggered to the finish, came away with a 72-70 win. Hunter Sallis dropped 18 and Tre’Von Spillers added 16. Is Michigan good? Hard to say yet, but they are certainly far better than anyone Xavier has bothered with so far.
Team Fingerprint
As we mentioned in the podcast, (Banter on the Parkway at wherever you find your podcasts) Wake isn’t a particularly good three point shooting team at the moment. That is is significant both because Xavier doesn’t play three point defense and because the Demon Deacons have guys who have shot the ball well before. They won’t be a 25.9% shooting team all year long. On offense they are excellent shooting inside the arc, struggle to grab their own misses, and turn the ball over a bit much to be really effective. That’s how you end up 205th in the nation in efficiency.
Wake is also not great shakes on defense. Wash out the preseason numbers and they are 100th. They are turning teams over well and limiting inside shooting, but they are getting hurt from deep and they allow a lot of shots from there. They also don’t rebound terribly well on that end of the floor. If teams get set well against them, they find open shots. Just for reference, Xavier is second in the nation in assist ratio and shooting 44.4% behind the arc.
Personnel
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cameron Hildreth | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| “6’4″”, 195″ | Measurements | “6’0″”, 188″ |
| 13/5.3/4.8 | Game line | 13.7/1.7/5.3 |
| 37.8/25/80.8 | Shooting line | 68.4/75/90 |
| Hildreth is going the volume route a little bit early on this year, but he has historically been a pretty efficient scorer inside the arc. He finishes well and has a good mid-range game off the bounce. His assist numbers are way up this year, but it’s too early to say definitively if that’s a new role or just some early season variance. | ||
| Parker Friedrichsen | Shooting Guard | Ryan Conwell |
| Sophomore | Class | Junior |
| “6’4″”, 185″ | Measurements | “6’4″”, 215″ |
| 4.8/2.5/1.3 | Game line | 18/1.7/2.3 |
| 20/11.1/90 | Shooting line | 54.8/54.5/88.9 |
| This guy was one of the most efficient offensive players in the nation last year because the only thing he does is catch and shoot from deep. No dimes, no turnovers, no slashing; 150 of his 177 points were on made threes. He’s off to a slow start as a shooter this year and he doesn’t really offer much else on offense. His steal percentage numbers have been good; maybe there’s more athletic ability there than his offensive profile suggests. | ||
| Hunter Sallis | Small Forward | Marcus Foster |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| “6’5″”, 185″ | Measurements | “6’5″”, 215″ |
| 16.3/3.8/4 | Game line | 4.3/5.7/3.7 |
| 46.8/12.5/79.2 | Shooting line | 26.7/16.7/80 |
| After a couple of efficient seasons as a tertiary option at Gonzaga, Sallis came over and broke out last year as a top-tier scorer. He can get buckets at all three levels of the catch or the bounce and posted excellent efficiency numbers under heavy usage in big minutes last season. Aside from a drop off in three-point shooting, he has picked up where he left off last year. Dude can flat out score. | ||
| Tre’Von Spillers | Power Forward | Dailyn Swain |
| Senior | Class | Sophomore |
| “6’7″”, 215″ | Measurements | “6’8″”, 220″ |
| 11/9/0.5 | Game line | 10/6.7/3 |
| 61.3/40/40 | Shooting line | 52.9/0/80 |
| Two years ago, Spillers was putting up 13 and 11 at a JuCo. After one monster season at Appalachian State, he has hit the ground running at Wake. He’s filling it up to the tune of a 115 ORtg, devouring the glass at both ends, and has even flashed some heretofore unseen three-point range. While not a dominant rim protector, he more than holds his own defensively. This will be a very competitive matchup to keep an eye on. | ||
| Efton Reid III | Center | Zach Freemantle |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| “7’0″”, 250″ | Measurements | “6’9″”, 227″ |
| 9.3/7.5/1.3 | Game line | 19/7/2.3 |
| 55.6/14.3/46.2 | Shooting line | 64.3/66.7/85 |
| Like Sallis, Reid came over from Gonzaga a couple years back. He has had a little bit of trouble with fouls this year, but he’s still a consistent force on the boards at both ends and an incredibly efficient scorer in the post. He’s taking a quarter of his shots from deep despite being a career 24% shooter from beyond the arc. |
Reserves
Wake gets less than a quarter of their minutes off the bench, which is really low, especially for a power conference team this early in the year. That’s not getting any better with big man Omaha Biliew out for a couple months with an injury. Guard Ty-laur Johnson has also missed the last two games with what appears to be a skill issue.
That leaves precious little on the bench, including Davin Cosby, a 6’5″ sophomore wing. He’s averaging 7.0/0.8/0.3 on a stunning 36/37.5/25 shooting line that features 0-1 from inside the arc and 1-4 from the line. Don’t be bashful, young man.
Also off the pine is the delightfully named Juke Harris, who posts a 6.8/2.5/0.3 game line. He’s a lanky 6’7″ forward posting solid defensive numbers. He posted a really nice 11 and 5 against Michigan earlier this year; he’s mostly a paint threat at this point in time.
And that’s pretty much it. If Johnson does play, he’s a chucker who turns the ball over too much this year. Churchill Abass and Tamarion Hoover have provided deep depth, but nothing of note statistically.
Three questions
-How does Xavier defend Reid? The obvious answer is John Hugley IV, as he’s nearly as tall and nominally bulkier than Reid. Putting him in the lineup requires shuffling some other key pieces, probably ultimately resulting in sitting Zach Freemantle or Dailyn Swain for longer portions of the game. The other option is to see if Freemantle can hold his own enough defensively to let his superior range and maneuverability pull Reid to the perimeter on the other end. This matchup might not decide the game, but it will be an important glimpse into each coach’s approach.
-Can Xavier keep shooting the three at a high level? Wake’s three-point defense has not been good in terms of volume; they give up a ton of looks from outside. It hasn’t bitten them yet, but Xavier is shooting over 44% in reasonably high volume. If they get hot early, this one might turn into a room for the home team.
-How does Wake score? The Deacs have shot a ton of threes this year – almost half their shot attempts – despite just barely being in the top 300 in the nation in 3P% as a team. They’re much better inside the arc, but Xavier’s two-point defense is 11th in the country. A couple of hot shooting low-majors may have made Xavier’s defense look worse than it is. It’s possible that Wake can’t find a way through from inside the arc, can’t get anything to fall beyond it, and can’t figure out a way to score consistently enough to make the game interesting.
Three keys
-Ball security. Wake’s defense gambles to force turnovers at the expense of leaving space around the arc (as discussed above). One of the keys to Xavier’s early success has been thanks in part to limiting turnovers. The shooting is likely to be there; if the Muskies can maximize attempts, they’ll walk away with this one.
-Contain Sallis. Hunter Sallis is an elite scorer; he’s also about the only proven weapon on the Wake Forest roster. He can fill it up from all over the place, and Wake generally looks to start him early. If Marcus Foster can keep him frustrated early on and Xavier in general makes life hard for him, Wake will have to pivot to secondary options that don’t have his raw ability to put the ball in the bucket.
-Win the second war. Xavier got out of the blocks well in the opener and then surrendered a 13-0 run after the first media timeout. They went from up two to down five against IU Indy in the same span of time. Jackson State was dead and buried from the off, so it didn’t really matter. Against a solid team like Wake, Xavier’s habit of coming out well and then leaving the door open could actually have meaningful consequences. The home crowd should get them up and moving; it’s incumbent on the team to carry that momentum past the initial surge. This is the third most experienced team in the nation this year; it’s not too much to expect them to have consistent production throughout the game.