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Scouting Xavier at Dayton!!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/20/2012
First Place in the Atlantic 10 is up for grabs Saturday afternoon at UD Arena when the Muskies play the Flyers (1PM-ESPN2). X is 13-5 overall: 4-1 in the A-10: with a 4 game win streak. UD is 13-5:3-1 in the league and winners of 5 of their last 6 games. The tale of the tape is fairly even. The teams have similar stats and RPIs and strength of schedules. Dayton, obviously,owns home court advantage and they've been very good (9-2) so far at UD with impressive wins over Alabama and Ole Miss in the non-conference and St Louis(in OT) and La Salle (79-75 last Saturday) in the A-10.
The losses are to Buffalo(by a lopsided score right after UD won the Old Spice in Orlando) and to Top 25 Seton Hall. UD hasn't played in a week.
Rookie coach Archie Miller(Sean's little brother and former assistant at Arizona) gave his troops some extra rest. Small forward-wing Chris Johnson has been limited in practice after missing the loss at St Bonnies and playing just in the first half against La Salle. He's had concussion-like symptoms after collission in practice a couple weeks ago. No suprise here!! He's been cleared to play against XU.
Johnson's a Senior leader (10PPG-5.5 REB-43% from 3). If he posts a double-double and gets streaky good from outside the arc, Xavier's chances of winning go way down. Is he healthy enough to have a huge game?? His back-up at SF is 6-7 Soph Devin Oliver who's capable(3.5PPG-4.5 REB) but far less explosive than Johnson.
The Dayton guards are good. PG Kevin Dillard (6-0 170 same Chicago-area High School as XU's Andre Walker) is a Southern Illinois transfer (12.7PPG-5.7 assists-79%FT). He's not a great outside shooter but he finds ways to score and plays hard on-the-ball defense.
The shooting guard is Senior Paul Williams (6-4,212 lefty 10PPG-strong 3 point shooter). He's a three year starter. The third guard is Josh Parker (6-0 186 from Chicago: transfer from Drake:( 9PPG in 24 minutes). He subs at both PG and SG and is a streaky scorer.
The Ivory Towers man the 4-5 Power Spots for Dayton. They lost 6-9 Josh Benson who was playing well to a knee injury against Mississippi. Matt Kavanaugh's role has expanded exponentially under Archie Miller. Kav was ex-coach Brian Gregory's favorite whipping boy apparently but under Miller he's thriving. He's 6-9, 250 from Centerville and in 4 A-10 games he's getting 14PPG with 7 rebounds. Matt scored 23 with 9 boards(13-14 FTs) vs La Salle. The Muskies need to go right at him and saddle Kavanaugh with fouls early and often.
6-9 230 Luke Fabrizius is starting now (7PPG-44% from 3). He scored 14 against LaSalle. Luke was trapped in the Gregory Regime-labeled a three point specialist. Miller is playing him more out of neccessity and he's delivering.
Fab beat XU last year in Atlantic City(A-10 Quarters UD68 XU67) with a huge offensive rebound and two FTs. He broke his nose in Dayton's impressive win at Temple two weeks ago but he's kept playing.
The third Ivory Tower is Frosh Alex Gavrilovic (6-9 230) born in France-originally committed to Providence (Big East). Miller signed him very late and he's helped fill the Josh Benson void averaging 9PPG plus 4.5 Rebs in 4 conference games.
Miller's done an amazing job so far with just 9 (now 8 w/o Benson) scholarship players. Guards Juwan Staten(West Virginia transfer) and Brandon Spearman (transfer to JUCO) left before BG bailed to Georgia Tech and Chris Wright is now with the NBA Golden State Warriors.
Gone are BG's hockey style whole sale substitutions and his fanatical emphasis on rebounding and man defense to the detriment of a coherent offense and adjusting strategy.
The players have bought in with Miller after maybe tuning out BG. Dayton shoots it well from all over. They make 75% of their FTs but don't get to the line a ton. Depth is a problem especially if Chris Johnson can't play a hard 30 minutes.
It's a HUGE game for Dayton: Game One of the Miller Era against hated arch enemy Xavier. Miller has written goals for his players and among those goals are 2 wins in their 4 years at Cintas. I assume he plans to sweep 4 at UD Arena.
In the past 10 seasons under Matta,Sean Miller and Chris Mack XU is 20-6 vs UD with a 6-5 record in Dayton. Archie Miller has a big job ahead of him to reverse those numbers.
The Muskies will have to play well to win. X is deeper-stronger inside-and more stingy defensively but the Flyers can shoot it deep.
Their win at Temple impresses me. That snapped a long TU win streak at the Liacouras Center. And Dayton pounded out a win against a good defensive Alabama team.
Tu Holloway was huge in both regular season wins over Dayton last season(MVP in both games-50 points-11 rebs-11 assists). Tu will be needed to score more and control things down the stretch.
Mark Lyons has to score efficiently off the dribble. X needs to pound it inside to Kenny Frease and Jeff Robinson and make the Ivory Towers guard and foul.
Dez Wells is the wild card. Johnson will have to guard him and defense is not his favorite thing especially if he's not 100%.
As usual, the computers and Las Vegas odds makers are favoring Dayton. If XU can package what they've trotted out during the 3 dominating home wins and unleash that same style and energy at UD Arena,the Muskies should be in good shape.
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