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Muskies Quickly Regain Focus and Defeat Fordham!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/13/2008
Fordham is no St.Bonaventure. The Rams have underachieved so far, but unlike the Bonnies they have five seniors who can play. Three of those are all-league caliber (Bryant Dunston, Marcus Stout and Sebastian Greene) plus Fordham has a couple of good young wing players (Brenton Butler and Mike Moore). Plus the clock may be ticking on coach Derrick Whittenberg who's in his 5th year and needs to show progress.
Sean Miller knew a Muskie effort akin to Wednesday's in that basket trading 83-68 victory over SBU might yield an unacceptable "L" against Fordham. He challenged his players publicly and privately. They responded with a strong scrappy second effort laidened win over Fordham, 68-50, the Final at Cintas.
Fordham clung stubbornly to their conservative game plan deep into the first half. The Rams zoned from the opening tip and concentrated the ball offensively in the hands of inside stud Dunston and all-court scorer Stout. It netted the Rams a 15-15 tie with the Muskies over 12 minutes into the game.
Then X tossed in a couple of "3s", built a 21-15 lead and forced Fordham out of their zone. Basically, ball game over!! The Muskies led 32-26 at the half, then showed their signature spurtability with eight straight points to open the second half and the rout was on.
The Muskies steadily extended their lead using defense and rebounding as the base, and B.J. Raymond's amazing long range shooting as the hammer.
Fordham figured their only chance of pulling the upset was to play the game in the 50's. They could not get the job done. X changed its defensive approach - single covering Dunston in the post - not doubling. Miller entrusted a rotation of Jason Love, Josh Duncan, and Derrick Brown with the job and they did well especially after halftime.
Stanley Burrell and Raymond took turns playing tight man on Stout who worked as de facto point guard and must have been exhausted late in the game. With no double on Dunston or Stout XU could afford to make the 3-point shot a challenge for Fordham. Thus, they shot a poor 5-of-22 from outside the arc while X thrived from long range. Xavier also made 19 free throws to Fordham's 7 partly because X attacked the basket and partly because the Rams had to go "man" and try to play catch-up.
It was a workman like XU win and a strong execution of the game plan. The players listened to the coaches. They connected and even with a subpar shooting night, X cruised to a win over a decent opponent.
Saturday marked the end of an 18 day stretch without a day off for the Muskies - 6 games (6 wins) and 12 practices. The players get Sunday off. Classes resume Monday. X plays road games Wednesday at Temple and at GW Saturday.
A week from Thursday (Jan 24) it's Dayton at Xavier. The students hopefully will make Cintas as electric as possible. UD has won 13 straight after their OT victory at St Louis on Saturday night. Their 14-1 record equals the Flyer's fastest start ever. Dayton plays UMass at UD Arena this Wednesday then has eight days to prep for the Muskies.
Pete Gillen reportedly will be the analyst on the XU-UD CSTV broadcast. He may have trouble doing his job between shaking hands and kissing babies. I listened to some of Pete's Rice-UTEP telecast the other night. His rare sense of humor and colorful use of language set him apart from most other TV talking heads.
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