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2008 Opens Splendidly!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/4/2008
Virginia actually had me worried!! The Cavs have a nice deep well coached mid-level ACC group - capable of 10 or more ACC wins and a probable recipient of a NCAA at large bid. XU made them look ordinary Thursday night at Cintas (108-70 the Final). This wasn't Huntington or Ohio Dominican or a directional Missouri or Louisiana school. This was Virginia - BCS Conference, Tobacco Road, Ralph Sampson, Thomas Jefferson. It was UVA point guard Sean Singletary against the world for the first 6 minutes. Xavier led 20-8 with seven different Muskies scoring baskets.
Singletary had six of Virginia's eight points. Then Sean Miller switched Stanley Burrell onto Singletary and Burrell shut him down too. X played a near perfect first 20 minutes leading 61-30 at the break.
The stat sheet should be placed in a time capsule. UVA tried to switch defenses. Nothing worked!! X carved their man with an opening back door dunk from Derrick Brown and then patient passing to set-up open jumpers.
Va. went zone and the three's rained in after plenty of ball movement. Sean Miller inserted the young guards (Jackson and Graves) early and often. Both got into the flow and onto the score sheet and built on their good work from the K-State game.
The focus automatically goes to offense when a team scores 108, makes 16 three pointers, and shoots over 60% from the floor. But early work inside by Jason Love and Derrick Brown and later from Josh Duncan crushed the Cavs. Love made 4 or 5 plays on the defensive end early on that just laid down the law. No way Virginia was going to camp out in the lane and score easily close to the basket! That left UVA with a helter skelter perimeter offense that got little accomplished.
And, Virginia could not guard Brown at the other end. His baseline drives are becoming undefensible. He either dunks, hits a floater or dishes off for a lay-up.
Patience characterized the XU half court offense. 8 or 10 passes yielded a great shot every time. Drew Lavender and Burrell combined for 13 assists and one turnover. Team numbers were 27 helpers and just 13 To's.
7 Muskies scored in double figures for the second straight game and it could have been 10. Brown scored 9. Graves had 8. Jackson finished with 7.
I sat close behind the Xavier bench and there's a confident swagger visible. This team gets along well. They root for each other and they expect to make shots. The culture lends itself to balanced scoring.
XU closes out the non-conference schedule at Auburn (3PM-Sunday). Can they bottle the K-State and UVA formula and uncork it against the SEC Tigers? Hopefully, home court advantage won't be too intense. Auburn basketball is rebuilding and crowds have been mediocre and the students may still be on break.
The Tigers are 9-2, 5-0 at home against a less than stellar schedule. All their wins have come against teams below 200 in the RPI. Maybe their best win is against GW from the A-10. The Tigers have lost to Tulane and West Virginia.
Jeff Lebo is in his third season coaching at Auburn. He's making progress, going 14-17, 17-15 and this season 9-2. Lebo is a former North Carolina point guard who played high school basketball for his dad in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of paralells here to Sean Miller. Lebo would love to set the stage for his SEC schedule by upsetting XU.
Herb Sendek made a statement about progress at ASU when his Sun Devils clobbered the Muskies. Lebo is faced with a much more difficult problem. First off, X is playing well. They are healthy and they are not coming off the physical Crosstown Shootout. Secondly, Auburn is down to 6 healthy scholarship players after an epidemic of injuries. Staring front court players Korvotney Barber and Josh Dollard are out with injury and illness.
Four Tigers have been playing 30 plus minutes. The five starters have plenty of talent though and experience. The wing guards have size and scoring ability (Rasheem Barrett is 6-5 - 14ppg, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a 3-year starter, Frank Tolbert is 6-4 - 10ppg, 5 rebounds, and a 4-year regular). The quick guard is 6-1 soph Dwayne Reed - 9ppg, 3.5 assists. 6-8 senior Quan Prowell is the power player. He was suspended for the first 5 games but has scored 45 in the last two.
Auburn also starts 6-3 Quantez Robertson. He is a Withrow HS grad and played for Xavier star Steve Gentry there. He spent a year at a North Carolina prep school and has started every game at Auburn over 3 seasons. Robertson is an all court contributor at 8 ppg, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists.
So the Tigers are short on numbers, but long on versatility and experience. Jeff Lebo is a very good coach. They may be forced to play plenty of zone. If X stands around, it could be a problem ala ASU.
A solid road win would get Xavier re-rated in both polls and have them flying at 12-3 with 4-game win streak headed into the A-10. Lessons were learned at Miami and ASU. X should do well.
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