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Seniors Assert Themselves!!!
By
Andy Mac Williams,
1/20/2008
No question - seniors Stanley Burrell, Josh Duncan and Drew Lavender are talented players. They took a giant step forward as a leadership group Saturday night in Xavier's gritty, physical, 74-66 A-10 road win at GW. Last season the core senior group of Doellman, Cage and Cole took a while to take control and lead. The results were memorable. This GW win may be the tipping point in 2008.
Duncan held onto the ball in traffic, put his imposing body on the line defensively and scored a much needed 14 points while playing an even bigger role because of Derrick Brown's foul trouble.
Burrell continued to struggle with his shot, but moved the ball well on offense and made Maurice Rice work for his points. Burrell is also the vocal one of the group and that intangilble is hard to measure but is probably more important than a lot of the stats on the score sheet.
Lavender just took over in the second half scoring 14 assisting on 7 chipping in key steals and controlling tempo. The determination and resolve and resiliance were much improved from Wednesday's clunker at Temple. Overall, it was a 9 player effort.
Only Jason Love and Derrick Brown deserved any kudos after the Temple loss. But in the wake of the win at GW, everybody could feel good about contributing. BJ Raymond's shot returned (4 three pointers). CJ Anderson rediscovered his swagger and slashed for 13 points. Brown rattled the rim with dunks and finished fastbreaks.
Love converted around the basket and kept his cool despite a few bad whistles. Love will soon drop 20 or more against some unsuspecting opponent. He has a knack for the stick back and the size to muscle inside plus an improving free throw stroke. Adrion Graves and Dante Jackson each hit a three pointer.
X won all the hustle stat categories shooting more free throws and grabbing more rebounds. Mix in 10 three pointers and some stubborn defensive stops and you get an 8 point road win.
Say what you like about GW! They may be "rebuilding", but I like their material. Rice is a handful, Rob Diggs may be the league's toughest to block out. Witherspoon, the Va Tech transfer, is a player. Karl Hobbs has a group of athletic tweeners whom he soon will have integrated into his system.
Hobbs is a UConn product. He played and coached under Jim Calhoun. GW plays very hard and physical Huskie-like basketball and the Smith center is an Eastern Pit. The Colonials have lost just 2 of their last 34 at home -- both to Xavier and that's something for Sean Miller and company to be proud of.
Things look a lot brighter for the Muskies today. They are 15-4 overall and 3-1 in the A-10. That's good enough for solo first place in a closely packed race. X now has a road win. So far road "Ws" have been scarce in the conference. Away teams stand 7-15 so far. 5 teams are 2-1. Saint Joe's has a road win at UMass. UMass won at Dayton but lost to SJU in Amherst. Dayton has that home loss. Charlotte lost yesterday at UMass after opening with two home wins. La Salle is a suprise with two road wins. Top 25 Rhode Island has two conference road defeats at Dayton and at St Louis.
Not to complain but what's up with Fox Sports Net? The first half of the Xavier-Arizona State telecast was almost unwatchable on my cable system. The picture was scrambled -- pixelated I believe the term is. Fox did a join in progress about eight minutes into the XU-Auburn game following a Cleveland Cavaliers game. At Temple the other night the pre-taped open failed to play.
I always am interested in Steve Wolf's insights but they failed to air. Then Saturday Fox did another join in progress about 90 seconds into X-GW. They left the Washington-Oregon State game with time still on the clock??
These glitches may seem minor but they are an irritant and keep happening and XU fans deserve better.
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